A Stroke of the Pen by Terry Pratchett Review

In 2022, a fan of Sir Terry’s reached out to his agent, Colin Smythe, to find out more about a comedic fantasy story he had cut out of a newspaper in 1984 called “The Quest for the Keys” - which Smythe had never heard of before. A couple of scholars delved into the newspaper archives, starting in the ‘70s and working their way forwards, and, along the way, unearthed a trove of previously unknown Terry Pratchett stories which he had published in the Western Daily Press under the pseudonym “Patrick Kearns” (“Patrick” sounds like “Pratchett” and “Kearns” was his mother’s maiden name). The 20 unearthed stories are published here - a new Pratchett book 8 years after his death - in A Stroke of the Pen: The Lost Stories.

I grew up reading all things Pratchett and still love Discworld but I don’t love everything he wrote, like when he turned his hand to kid-friendly books around the turn of the millennium - garbage such as the Amazing Maurice and the Tiffany Aching books are easily the worst books he wrote. Pratchett is great when he’s writing adult fiction - not so much kid’s stuff. And, unfortunately, the stories in A Stroke of the Pen are entirely kid’s stories.

There’s Christmas stories, dinosaur stories, a Scrooge parody, lots of “cute” things happening in a fictional English town called Blackbury (which feels like a prototype for the Discworld, in terms of a recurring location where stories take place), and generic fantasy stuff with gnomes and dragons and what have you.

I will say that, considering he was in his 20s when he wrote most of these, the writing level is of a higher standard than you might expect from a young writer - even if you didn’t know this was Sir Terry writing (as most didn’t until recently) his style is very recognisable; seemingly effortless, easy to read, pithy, wry, and unique. It’s surprising that it was this accomplished and defined this early on.

But, as quick a read as this was, I can’t say any of the stories did anything for me - not a one stood out as even slightly good. They’re aimed at a very young audience and that isn’t me at this point (boohoo!). At best, I was occasionally tickled with spotting little clues to indicate what would follow from Sir Terry in the ‘80s and beyond. Pilgarlic feels like an early version of Rincewind, there’s a shady salesman-type who says “... but I’m cutting my own throat”, and in one story there’s a town called Morpork.

I’d like to be more upbeat about this one - I’ll always be a Sir Terry and Discworld fan - but I have to be honest too. The only readers likely to truly enjoy this book are young children; anyone else will probably be bored with the one-note, unremarkable and very forgettable short stories collected here.

I can see why Sir Terry refused to clue his agent in on his pseudonym while he was alive, hoping these stories would remain forgotten - the price of the highest success he achieved then that there would be people out there willing to trawl newspaper archives to find and publish even the least of his works!