Summary
'Cracking dialogue, compelling illogic and unchained whimsy . . .' Sunday Times
The Discworld is very much like our own - if our own were to consist of a flat planet balanced on the back of four elephants which stand on the back of a giant turtle, that is . . .
What sort of person sits down and writes a maniacal laugh? And all those exclamation marks, you notice? Five? A sure sign of someone who wears his underpants on his head. Opera can do that to a man . . .
It can also bring Death. And plenty of it. In unpleasant variations.
This isn't real life - it's worse. This is the Opera House, Ankh-Morpork . . . a huge, rambling building where innocent young sopranos are being targeted by a strangely familiar evil mastermind in a mask and evening dress and with a penchant for lurking in shadows and occasional murder.
But Granny Weatherwax , Discworld's most formidable witch, is in the audience. And she doesn't hold with that sort of thing . There's going to be trouble (but nevertheless a good evenin's entertainment with murders you can really hum to) and the show MUST go on.
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The Discworld novels can be read in any order but Maskerade is the fifth book in the Witches series.
Terry Pratchett was on born April 28, 1948 in Beaconsfield, United Kingdom. He left school at the age of 17 to work on his local paper, the Bucks Free Press. While with the Press, he took the National Council for the Training of Journalists proficiency class. He also worked for the Western Daily Press and the Bath Chronicle. He produced a series of cartoons for the monthly journal, Psychic Researcher, describing the goings-on at the government's fictional paranormal research establishment, Warlock Hall. In 1980, he was appointed publicity officer for the Central Electricity Generating Board with responsibility for three nuclear power stations.
His first novel, The Carpet People, was published in 1971. His first Discworld novel, The Colour of Magic, was published in 1983. He became a full-time author in 1987. He wrote more than 70 books during his lifetime including The Dark Side of the Sun, Strata, The Light Fantastic, Equal Rites, Mort, Sourcery, Truckers, Diggers, Wings, Dodger, Raising Steam, Dragons at Crumbling Castle: And Other Tales, and The Shephard's Crown. He was diagnosis with early onset Alzheimer's disease in 2007. He was knighted for services to literature in 2009 and received the World Fantasy award for life achievement in 2010. He died on March 12, 2015 at the age of 66.
(Bowker Author Biography)
