Once More* *with footnotes by Terry Pratchett [book review]
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I’ve been dipping into Once More With Footnotes for over a year. Being short stories, all with introductory notes from Sir Pterry, it’s easy to read a few pages and then stop than it would be if there was a full novel.
Once More*
It’s an odd collection of things that have been published elsewhere for the most part. There are short stories, some are even discworld stories. However there are introductions to things, newspaper articles and forewords. These latter give some insight into Pterry’s character, although much of that is obvious already if you read his books.
If you’ve been following my blog for any length of time then you’ll know I’m a completist when it comes to Pterry. I’ve read almost everything that has been published, and since I know that there won’t be any more I’ve been taking my time over the last few books I’ve not yet read. Some highlights from Once More* include:
- Troll Bridge (which I’d somehow never read before)
- The explanation of how The Hat is an anti-disguise
- The foreword for the millennium edition of Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, which showed how some of the deep folklore and mythology went into the foundations of the discworld.
- “Once and Future” – a take on Arthurian legend that would make an excellent novel, but sadly that won’t happen.
That list doesn’t really do justice though, there’s so much awesome in the book and I’ve really only mentioned the ones I read most recently. I think that if you like reading Terry Pratchett then you ought to read this.
I can say that I enjoyed every piece of Once More* *With Footnotes. The bits I really liked, which you won’t get elsewhere, are the short introductions that give context to the articles and stories. Those are priceless, although the book itself isn’t, some people are willing to pay a lot of money for it….
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