You're listening to Imaginary Worlds, a show about how we create them and why we suspend

or disbelieve. I'm Eric Balinsky. I have been producing this podcast for over eight years,

and in that time there's been one topic that listeners have requested the most.

Discworld. Terry Pratchett wrote 41 novels in the Discworld series. His books have sold over

100 million copies worldwide. They've been translated into over 35 languages.

And the Discworld novels have been adapted into video games, plays, made for TV movies,

audiobooks, and graphic novels. But there's one country where Discworld never became a big breakout

hit. The country where my accent comes from. I mean, I've been a sci-fi fantasy fan for my entire

life. And when I read Terry Pratchett's obituary in 2015, I couldn't believe I'd never heard of him

before. Pratchett always blamed his American publishers for not knowing how to market the books,

although they did find a very loyal audience here. So for a lot of listeners in the US,

this might be all new to you. But for others around the world, this might feel like I'm explaining

what Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings is. Discworld is called Discworld because the world is

actually a flat disc that sits on the back of four giant elephants who are standing on the back

of a giant star turtle that is traveling through space. So it's kind of sci-fi, but when you get

into the world itself, it's pure fantasy. There are kings, queens, witches, wizards, elves,

dwarves, vampires, even golems. The books began with a lot of parodies of typical fantasy genres

or tropes, but they evolved over time. The characters became richer and deeper, and the parodies

turned into brilliant social satire. In the way that Terry Pratchett wrote, he could make a 400

page book feel like a 100 pages. I binged through a lot of the series, but the more I read,

the more overwhelmed I felt. I mean, how could I cover this? There were hundreds of characters,

multiple, richly imagined locations. Doing an episode about Discworld felt like doing an episode

...