 First edition | |
| Author | Terry Pratchett |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Josh Kirby |
| Language | English |
| Series |
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| Subject | Shakespeare, Crop circles, Fairy lore |
| Genre | Fantasy |
| Publisher | Victor Gollancz Ltd |
Publication date | 1992 |
| ISBN | 0-575-05223-6 |
| Preceded by | Small Gods |
| Followed by | Men at Arms |
Lords and Ladies is a fantasy novel by British writer Terry Pratchett, the fourteenth Discworld book. It was originally published in 1992. [1] Some parts of the storyline spoof elements of Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream .
Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and Magrat Garlick return to Lancre after their recent adventure in Genua. Magrat is stunned when King Verence proclaims their imminent marriage, having already made all the arrangements in her absence. The sudden appearance of crop circles reveals to Nanny and Granny that it is now "circle time", a convergence of parallel universes when the Discworld is susceptible to incursions from the "parasite universe" of the Elves. Elves are capricious and amoral creatures that enter the minds of animals and sentient beings in a more destructive way than witches do, using "glamour" to alter human's perceptions of them. They are normally kept away by a circle of magnetized iron standing stones known as the Dancers. When Nanny and Granny refuse to explain the situation to Magrat, she leaves the coven, disavows witchcraft, and moves into an apartment in Lancre Castle. She soon becomes bored with the courtly lifestyle and unsure of her place.
Mustrum Ridcully, Archchancellor of Unseen University, leads a small group of faculty to attend the wedding. Along the way, they are joined by the Dwarfish lothario Casanunda.
Granny and Nanny discover that a group of local girls, led by Diamanda Tockley and including Agnes Nitt, have formed a new coven whose activities include dancing naked at the Dancers. The two elderly witches try to convince them to stop, with Granny ultimately besting Diamanda in a public witchcraft contest and discrediting the new coven. But a defiant Diamanda later runs through the Dancers into the land of the Elves, where she is knocked unconscious by a poisoned Elven arrow before being rescued by Granny. Nanny subdues an Elf that pursues them back into Lancre, using an iron fireplace poker; Elves and their powers are severely weakened by iron. The witches bring Diamanda and the Elf to Lancre Castle, where Magrat treats Diamanda and Verence agrees to imprison the Elf (though Magrat inadvertently frees it later). Meanwhile, Granny has begun to experience memories of other paths her life has taken in parallel worlds, as well as a growing sense of her own impending death.
Jason Ogg and the other Lancre Morris Men plan a play to be performed for the wedding guests. When they rehearse near the Dancers, the Elves influence them to include Elvish elements in the play. As a result, when the play is performed at the Dancers, it causes sufficient belief—a powerful force on the Discworld—that the Elves are able to make the guests dismantle the stone circle. The Elves arrive, and the Elf Queen plans to legitimize her rule of Lancre by marrying Verence. None of the members of the Lancre coven are present at this time: Magrat has locked herself in her room due to perceived insults in a letter she has discovered, written by Granny to Verence, advising him to plan the wedding; Nanny is being romanced by Casanunda; and Granny has been magically whisked away by Ridcully, who hopes to resume a romantic connection they had when much younger. The women only become aware of what has happened once the Elves begin to wreak havoc in Lancre. Aided only by general dogsbody Shawn Ogg, Magrat fights her way through the infiltrated castle. She discovers a portrait of Queen Ynci, one of the kingdom's legendary founders. Suddenly inspired by the idea of becoming a warrior queen, Magrat finds and dons Ynci's armour. Feeling influenced by Ynci's spirit (and unaware that Ynci is a fiction, the armour constructed from cookware only a few generations previously), she rescues a captured Shawn and sets out for the Dancers. While Granny and Ridcully make their way through the woods, resulting in Granny's capture by the Elves, Nanny and Casanunda travel through a gateway to the abode of the Elf King, who opposes the Elf Queen despite being her spouse.
At the Dancers, Magrat arrives to confront the Elf Queen at the same time as the people of Lancre, rallied by Shawn and Nanny. But the Elf Queen quickly subdues Magrat with glamour. The captive Granny mentally combats the Elf Queen and releases Magrat from the glamour before succumbing to the Elf Queen's attack, her prone body being covered by the bees from her hive, which have swarmed at the Dancers. When the Elf Queen turns her powers on Magrat, attempting to stop her resistance by dismantling her identity, she exposes the unexpectedly valorous core of Magrat's being – something which Granny had deliberately been stoking, aggravating and provoking all along for just this very outcome. Magrat attacks and subdues the Elf Queen just in time for a projection of the Elf King to arrive and send the Elves back to their world.
Granny appears to be dead, but then Nanny and Magrat learn that she has actually borrowed her bees' hive mind, a feat thought impossible. They break open a window in the castle, where Ridcully has reverently laid Granny's body, enabling the bees to get close enough for her to regain consciousness. Nanny points out to Magrat that Granny's letter to Verence has had a great positive impact on Magrat's life, as well as giving her the strength to fight the Elf Queen. Magrat and Verence are married by Ridcully. Later, Granny and Ridcully make peace with their past and their place in the universe. The growing sense of impending death she had been feeling had been due to the impending deaths of some of her parallel-selves.
In 1995, Kirkus Reviews considered the novel "a so-so addition to a mostly hilarious series", but praised the "agreeably wry, self-deprecating quality" of the humour. [2] In 2000, Publishers Weekly found it "uneven", noting that "[o]nly in the last third of the novel does [Pratchett] strike a successful balance among action, imagination, and comedy", and that the fun only begins "once the smiling, sadistic elves actually appear", ultimately concluding that the novel is "unlikely to widen [Pratchett's] readership". [3]
The Unseen University (UU) is a school of wizardry in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series of fantasy novels. Located in the fictional city of Ankh-Morpork, the UU is staffed by a faculty composed of mostly indolent and inept old wizards. The university's name is a pun on the Invisible College, and many aspects of the university are references to Oxford and Cambridge University. The exploits of the head wizards of the Unseen University are one of the main plot threads in the long-running fantasy series, and have played a central role in 13 novels to date, as well as the four supplementary Science of Discworld novels and the short story, A Collegiate Casting-Out of Devilish Devices.
Wyrd Sisters is Terry Pratchett's sixth Discworld novel, published in 1988. It re-introduces Granny Weatherwax of Equal Rites.
Susan Sto Helit, once referred to as Susan Death, is a fictional character in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series of fantasy novels. She is the granddaughter of Death, the Disc's Grim Reaper, and has a number of his abilities. She appears in three Discworld novels: Soul Music, Hogfather, and Thief of Time. Being both human and supernatural, Susan is frequently and reluctantly forced away from her attempts at normal life to do battle with malign supernatural forces or to take on her grandfather's job in his absence. Death tends to rely on her in his battles against the Auditors of Reality, particularly in situations where he has no power or influence. As the series progresses, she also begins to take on roles educating children, so that, as Pratchett mentions in The Art of Discworld, she has "ended up, via that unconscious evolution that dogs characters, a kind of Goth Mary Poppins".
Stephen Briggs is a British writer of subsidiary works and merchandise surrounding Terry Pratchett's comic fantasy Discworld. The Streets of Ankh-Morpork, the first Discworld map, was co-designed by Briggs and Pratchett and painted by Stephen Player in 1993. This was followed by The Discworld Mapp (1995), also painted by Stephen Player, and A Tourist Guide to Lancre (1998), painted by Paul Kidby.
A major subset of the Discworld novels of Terry Pratchett involves the witches of Lancre. The three main witches introduced in 1988's Wyrd Sisters — crone Esme Weatherwax, mother Nanny Ogg and maiden Magrat Garlick — are a spoof on the Three Witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth, and a tongue-in-cheek reinterpretation of the Neopagans' Triple Goddess. The three witches are portrayed as more sensible and realistic than the often-foolish residents of the Discworld, and Granny Weatherwax "especially tends to give voice to the major themes of Pratchett's work."
Maskerade is a fantasy novel by British writer Terry Pratchett, the eighteenth book in the Discworld series. The witches Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg visit the Ankh-Morpork Opera House to find Agnes Nitt, a girl from Lancre, and get caught up in a story similar to The Phantom of the Opera.
Esmerelda "Esme" Weatherwax is a fictional character from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. She is a witch and member of the Lancre coven. She is the self-appointed guardian of her small country, and frequently defends it against supernatural powers. She is one of the Discworld series's main protagonists, having major roles in seven novels.
Gytha Ogg is a character from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. She is a witch and a member of the Lancre Coven. Gytha is known for her practical approach to magic and her no-nonsense attitude. She is also renowned for her culinary skills and is an excellent cook. Gytha Ogg is often depicted as a strong, capable, and independent character, with a sharp sense of humor. She frequently appears in the Discworld series, particularly in the books featuring the Lancre witches.
Witches Abroad is the twelfth Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett, originally published in 1991.
A Hat Full of Sky is a comic fantasy novel by British writer Terry Pratchett, set on the Discworld and written with younger readers in mind. It is labelled a "Story of Discworld" to indicate its status as children's or young adult fiction, unlike most of the books in the Discworld series. First published in 2004, the book is set two years after The Wee Free Men, and features an 11-year-old Tiffany Aching.
Carpe Jugulum is a comic fantasy novel by English writer Terry Pratchett, the twenty-third in the Discworld series. It was first published in 1998.
Tiffany Aching is a fictional character in Terry Pratchett's satirical Discworld series of fantasy novels. Her name in Nac Mac Feegle is Tir-far-thóinn or 'Land Under Wave'.
The Discworld is the fictional setting for all of Terry Pratchett's Discworld fantasy novels. It consists of a large disc resting on the backs of four huge elephants which are in turn standing on the back of an enormous turtle, named Great A'Tuin as it slowly swims through space. The Disc has been shown to be heavily influenced by magic and, while Pratchett gave it certain similarities to planet Earth, he also created his own system of physics for it.
Wintersmith is a comic fantasy novel by British writer Terry Pratchett, set in the Discworld and written with younger readers in mind. It is labelled a "Story of Discworld" to indicate its status as children's or young adult fiction, unlike most of the books in the Discworld series. Published on 21 September 2006, it is the third novel in the series to feature the character of Tiffany Aching. It received recognition as a 2007 Best Book for Young Adults from the American Library Association.
The Sea and Little Fishes is a short story by Terry Pratchett, written in 1998. It is set in his Discworld universe, and features Lancre witches Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg. It was originally published in a sampler alongside a story called "The Wood Boy" by Raymond E. Feist, and later in a collection called Legends.
Wyrd Sisters is a six-part animated television adaptation of the book of the same name by Terry Pratchett, produced by Cosgrove Hall Films, and first broadcast on 18 May 1997. It was the second film adaptation of an entire Discworld novel.
Discworld is a comic fantasy book series written by the English author Terry Pratchett, set on the Discworld, a flat planet balanced on the backs of four elephants which in turn stand on the back of a giant turtle. The series began in 1983 with The Colour of Magic and continued until the final novel The Shepherd's Crown, which was published in 2015, following Pratchett's death. The books frequently parody or take inspiration from classic works, usually fantasy or science fiction, as well as mythology, folklore and fairy tales, and often use them for satirical parallels with cultural, political and scientific issues.
The Shepherd's Crown is a comic fantasy novel, the last book written by Terry Pratchett before his death in March 2015. It is the 41st novel in the Discworld series, and the fifth based on the character Tiffany Aching. It was published in the United Kingdom on 27 August 2015 by Penguin Random House publishers, and in the United States on 1 September 2015.
Tiffany Aching’s Guide to Being a Witch is a guide to witchcraft written from the in-world perspective of Discworld character Tiffany Aching, with annotations from other characters from the Discworld novels including the witches Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg.
