Transworld is delighted to announce that it will be releasing new editions of Terry Pratchett’s bestselling Discworld novels, starting with the six books in the Witches series together with the standalone title Small Gods.

In the beginning there was…a turtle. Somewhere on the frontier between thought and reality exists the Discworld, a parallel time and place which might sound and smell very much like our own, but which looks completely different. Particularly as it’s carried though space on the back of a giant turtle (sex unknown). It plays by different rules. But then, some things are the same everywhere. The Disc’s very existence is about to be threatened by a strange new blight: the world’s first tourist, upon whose survival rests the peace and prosperity of the land. Unfortunately, the person charged with maintaining that survival in the face of robbers, mercenaries and, well, Death, is a spectacularly inept wizard…

In the four decades since his first book appeared in print, Terry Pratchett has become one of the world’s best-selling and best-loved authors. Here for the first time are his short stories and other short form fiction collected into one volume. A Blink of the Screen charts the course of Pratchett’s long writing career: from his schooldays through to his first writing job on the Bucks Free Press,; to the origins of his debut novel, The Carpet People; and on again to the dizzy mastery of the phenomenally successful Discworld series. Here are characters both familiar and yet to be discovered; abandoned worlds and others still expanding; adventure, chickens, death, disco and, actually, some quite disturbing ideas about Christmas,all of it shot through with his inimitable brand of humour. With an introduction by Booker Prize-winning author A.S. Byatt, illustrations by the late Josh Kirby and drawings by the author himself, this is a book to treasure.

A real witch never casually steps out of her body, leaving it empty. Eleven-year-old Tiffany does. And there’s something just waiting for a handy body to take over. Something ancient and horrible, which can’t die . . .

Terry Pratchett earned a place in the hearts of readers the world over with his bestselling Discworld series – but in recent years he became equally well-known as an outspoken campaigner for causes including Alzheimer’s research and animal rights. A Slip of the Keyboard brings together the best of Pratchett’s non fiction writing on his life, on his work, and on the weirdness of the world: from Granny Pratchett to Gandalf’s love life; from banana daiquiris to books that inspired him; from getting started as a writer to the injustices that he fought to end.

With his trademark humour, humanity and unforgettable way with words, this collection offers an insight behind the scenes of Discworld into a much loved and much missed figure – man and boy, bibliophile and computer geek, champion of hats, orang-utans and the right to a good death.

With a foreword by Neil Gaiman

In this and indeed other lives there are givers and takers. It’s safe to say that vampires are very much in the latter camp. They don’t have much time for the givers of this world – except perhaps mealtimes – and even less for priests. Mightily Oats has not picked a good time to be a priest. Lancre’s newest residents are a thoroughly modern, sophisticated vampire family. They’ve got style and fancy waistcoats. They’re out of the casket and want a bite of the future. But they haven’t met the neighbours yet: between them and Lancre stand Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg. And Magrat, who is trying to combine witchcraft and nappies. And young Agnes, although she is really in two minds about everything. Mightily Oats knows he has a prayer, but he wishes he had an axe.

They say that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it is not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. The last thing the wizard Drum Billet did, before Death laid a bony hand on his shoulder, was to pass on his staff of power to the eighth son of an eighth son. Unfortunately for his colleagues in the chauvinistic (not to say misogynistic) world of magic, he failed to check that the baby in question was a son. Everybody knows that there’s no such thing as a female wizard. But now it’s gone and happened, there’s nothing much anyone can do about it. Let the battle of the sexes begin…

THERE’S A WEREWOLF WITH PRE-LUNAR TENSION IN ANKH-MORPORK. AND A DWARF WITH ATTITUDE AND A GOLEM WHO’S BEGUN TO THINK FOR ITSELF. But for Commander Vimes, Head of Ankh-Morpork City Watch, that’s only the start… There’s treason in the air. A crime has happened. He’s not only got to find out whodunit, but howdunit too. He’s not even sure what they dun. But soon as he knows what the questions are, he’s going to want some answers.

The post was an old thing, of course, but it was so old that it had magically become new again. Moist von Lipwig is a con artist and a fraud and a man faced with a life choice: be hanged, or put Ankh-Morpork’s ailing postal service back on its feet. It’s a tough decision. The post is a creaking old institution, overshadowed by new technology. But there are people who still believe in it, and Moist must become one of them if he’s going to see that the mail gets though, come rain, hail, sleet, dogs, the Post Office Workers Friendly and Benevolent Society, the evil chairman of the Grand Trunk Semaphore Company, and a midnight killer. Getting a date with Adora Bell Dearheart would be nice, too. Perhaps there’s a shot at redemption in the mad world of the mail, waiting for a man who’s prepared to push the envelope…

Time is a resource. Everyone knows it has to be managed. You mess with it at your peril. You can let it move fast or slowly but what you mustn’t do is allow it to stop. On the Discworld time management is the job of the Monks of History, who store it and pump it from the places where it’s wasted (like the underwater – how much time does a codfish need?) to places like cities, where there’s never enough time. But the construction of the world’s first truly accurate clock starts a race against, well, time for Lu Tze and his apprentice Lobsang Ludd. Because it will stop time. And when time stands still, everything stops with it. Then, there really is no future.

MIGHTY BATTLES! REVOLUTION! DEATH! WAR! (AND HIS SONS TERROR AND PANIC, AND DAUGHTER CLANCY). The oldest and most inscrutable empire on the Discworld is in turmoil, brought about by the revolutionary treatise What I did on My Holidays. Workers are uniting, with nothing to lose but their water buffaloes. Warlords are struggling for power. War (and Clancy) are spreading throughout the ancient cities. And all that stands in the way of terrible doom for everyone is: Rincewind the Wizard, who can’t even spell the word ‘wizard’… Cohen the barbarian hero, five foot tall in his surgical sandals, who has had a lifetime’s experience of not dying… …and a very special butterfly.

DISCWORLD GOES TO WAR, WITH ARMIES OF SARDINES, WARRIORS, FISHERMEN, SQUID AND AT LEAST ONE VERY CAMP FOLLOWER. As two armies march, Commander Vimes of Ankh-Morpork City Watch faces unpleasant foes who are out to get him… and that’s just the people on his side. The enemy might be even worse. Jingo, the 21st in Terry Pratchett’s phenomenally successful Discworld series, makes the World Cup look like a friendly five-a-side.

THE FAIRIES ARE BACK – BUT THIS TIME THEY DON’T JUST WANT YOUR TEETH… Granny Weatherwax and her tiny coven are up against real elves. It’s Midsummer Night. No times for dreaming… With full supporting cast of dwarfs, wizards, trolls, Morris dancers and one orang-utan. And lots of hey-nonny-nonny and blood all over the place.

‘Whoever said you can’t fool an honest man wasn’t one’. The Royal Bank is facing a crisis, and it’s time for a change of management. Who would not to wish for that job? It’s a job for life. But, as former con-man Moist von Lipwig is learning, the life is not necessarily for long. The Chief Cashier is almost certainly a vampire. There’s something nameless in the cellar (and the cellar itself is pretty nameless), it turns out that the Royal Mint runs at a loss, and people actually want to know where the money’s gone. A 300 year old wizard is after his girlfriend, he’s about to be exposed as a fraud, but the Assassins Guild might get him first. In fact lot of people want him dead. Oh. And every day he has to take the Chairman for walkies. Everywhere he looks he’s making enemies. What he should be doing is . . . Making Money!

THE SHOW MUST GO ON, AS MURDER, MUSIC AND MAYHEM RUN RIOT IN THE NIGHT… The Opera House, Ankh-Morpork…a huge, rambling building, where innocent young sopranos are lured to their destiny by a strangely-familiar eveil mastermind in a hideously-deformed evening dress… At least, he hopes so. But Granny Weatherwax, Discworld’s most famous witch, is in the audience. And she doesn’t hold with that sort of thing. So there’s going to be trouble (but nevertheless a good evenin’s entertainment with murders you can really hum…)