A Blink of the Screen by Terry Pratchett Review

A Blink of the Screen collects Terry Pratchett’s short fiction and is divided into non-Discworld short stories (the first 200 pages) and Discworld short stories (the remaining 100 pages). And most of it isn’t very good unfortunately!

None of the non-Discworld shorts did anything for me. The Hades Business doesn’t really make sense (how could Hell be empty and/or need PR?!) but it’s impressive because Pratchett was only 13 when he wrote it and the writing is already practically up to professional standard.

Rincemangle, the Gnome of Even Moor is only notable for basically being a dummy run for what Pratchett would go on to form into the Bromeliad Trilogy (as well as transform the title character’s name into one of his best-loved Discworld characters’ names). Similarly, The High Meggas is an early version of The Long Earth, though it only confirmed to me why I haven’t ever felt the urge to read that series, despite being a lifelong Pratchett fan, as hard sci-fi is simply not my bag.

Final Reward is ok - it’s about a fantasy author who kills off his Conan the Barbarian-type character only to find him rock up on his doorstep wondering what his final reward in the afterlife is. It’s fun though the ending is sorta messy. Turntables of the Night is about Death visiting a disco to reap the DJ. I guess it’s in this section of the book because it’s not set on Discworld but Death is basically the same Death in Discworld. I liked the image of Death dressed in disco gear but otherwise it’s meh.

I’ve read most of the Discworld short stories before and they held up about as I remembered them. Troll Bridge is about Cohen the Barbarian and a troll reminiscing about old times - it’s not bad but it’s not that great either. Theatre of Cruelty is about Carrot investigating a Punch and Judy puppeteer’s murder - again, it’s fine, but nothing special. Both are too short and one-note in concept.

The Sea and Little Fishes is the longest story here at 49 pages and in it Granny Weatherwax decides to be nice to her neighbours - which inevitably causes havoc! It has its amusing moments but not much happens to justify the length and Granny teaching an upstart a lesson is something we’ve seen before, many times, elsewhere, to really stand out.

Death and What Comes Next, where Death reaps a philosopher, has some killer lines (“YOU ARE NOTHING MORE THAN A LUCKY SPECIES OF APE THAT IS TRYING TO UNDERSTAND THE COMPLEXITIES OF CREATION VIA A LANGUAGE THAT EVOLVED IN ORDER TO TELL ONE ANOTHER WHERE THE RIPE FRUIT WAS.”) but it’s unimpressive - again, it’s more of the character we know and love doing what we know and love them for.

A Collegiate Casting-Out of Devilish Devices is by far the best story here and is just as funny and witty as I read it the first time. The Unseen University wizards are having a meeting - and that’s all the setup you need to enjoy this magical short.

I encountered a few of these shorts for the first time in anthologies - Turntables of the Night in “The Flying Sorcerers”, Theatre of Cruelty in “The Wizards of Odd”, and The Sea and Little Fishes in “Legends” - and I was pleased to see the fantastic Josh Kirby covers for these collections reprinted here in all their glory, along with many other brilliant pieces.

(Complete aside - “Legends” is an important book for me because, though I bought it for the Pratchett short story, the story I loved most in that book was by a writer I’d never heard of before called George R. R. Martin. The story was “The Hedge Knight”, about a wannabe knight and squire called Ser Dunk and Egg and it impressed me so much that I went out and spent the last of my Christmas money on the two other books of Martin’s I could find - the first two books of something called “A Song of Ice and Fire”. This was about Christmas ‘99 or ‘00 so it wouldn’t be much longer before George R. R. Martin became the famous bestselling author he is now, and I probably would’ve stumbled across him sooner or later, but it was through Pratchett that I first discovered this terrific writer and, as well as providing untold hours of entertainment/wisdom/sanctuary from reality, I thank him for that too.)

Reading this book highlights to me that short fiction wasn’t Terry Pratchett’s field - though he was a master of novel-length stories, churning out two or three books a year, which is just as well because we wouldn’t have the massive Discworld library we have today if he hadn’t been! It was nostalgic to revisit Discworld again, particularly via stories I first read as a teenager, but there isn’t much amazing material in A Blink of the Screen to recommend it to anyone but Discworld completists - the novels are the books to read instead.