I discovered Terry Pratchett's Discworld books courtesy of the raves of many BookCrossers, and have been a devoted fan for the last couple of years now. While many artists have produced lively renderings of Discworld characters and scenery, my favorite is Paul Kidby; I've enjoyed his illustrations in The Last Hero and other works, but when I saw that a new collection of his Discworld art was coming out - and would include illustrations I hadn't seen before - I put it on my Christmas list, and was delighted to receive it.

I've already thumbed through it with glee, and will write more when I've had time to examine it at leisure. I suspect this one will stay in my personal collection for a while...

[Yet another backlogged journal entry - from the end of December.]

This is a wonderful collection of Paul Kidby's Discworld illustrations - not complete, alas, but containing many pictures I hadn't seen before, and details and elaborations on some that I had. There's commentary from Messrs. Kidby and Pratchett, too, and it all makes for a terrific book for Discworld fans. Among the highlights: a huge picture depicting a climactic scene from Night Watch, in which the viewer can pick out nearly every major character; the whole thing looks like a clip from "Les Mis" (which is, of course, one of the inspirations for that particular story).

Some of Pratchett's comments were surprising, such as when he lists several characters that were made up on the spur of the moment and which he had not planned as major characters at all - but the characters themselves apparently had other plans: Nanny Ogg? The Librarian? Even Death:

Death turned up in the Discworld books in order to make a joke work. That was in The Colour of Magic. Suddenly he was and, twenty-one years later, still is one of the most popular characters in the series. People ask me to forge his signature in books. Sometimes I get nice letters from people who know they're due to meet him soon, and hope I've got him right. Those are the kind of letters that cause me to stare at the wall for some time..."

Pratchett's commentary covers many aspects of the Discworld, including the guilds: "The Assassins' Guild was created by taking a classic British public school and turning all the knobs up to eleven, especially the one marked 'violence'." And "The Fools' Guild is based simply on two truisms: humour as a profession is hard, and clowns worry people."

Some fun facts about Nanny Ogg that seem too good to be true: "The Gaelic for hedgehog is gráinneog. This is a pure coincidence" and "Readers of Discworld are sometimes in a position to wield a little power in unusual places. That is why a fossil species of Mesozoic flora is officially known as Gingoites nannyoggiae."

While the book does not contain any of the illustrations of Greebo in human form - the reason I only gave it 9 stars - Pratchett does comment on the subject: "Paul's dreawing of Greebo in human form is one of the most definitive in his notebook, and has impressed a number of lady fans who wrote to me very wistfully about him.... Personally, I can't see the point of a boyfriend who eats his meals under the table and claws at the door when he wants to go out. Perhaps I have missed the point." [I think so. {grin}]

For more on Paul Kidby's Discworld art, check out his web site here.

After enjoying this book for many years, I decided it was time it went traveling. This one's on its way to an online buyer in Colorado; enjoy!

*** Released as part of the 2016 The The release challenge. ***