Roundworld, aka Earth, is under siege. Are three wizards and an orangutan Librarian enough to thwart the Elvish threat? When the wizards of Unseen University first created Roundworld, they were so concerned with discovering the rules of this new universe that they overlooked its inhabitants entirely. Now, they have noticed humanity. And humanity has company. Arriving in Roundworld, the wizards find the situation is even worse than they’d expected. Under the elves’ influence, humans are superstitious, fearful, and fruitlessly trying to work magic in a world ruled by logic. Ridcully, Rincewind, Ponder Stibbons, and the orangutan Librarian must travel through time to get humanity back on track and out of the dark ages. The Globe goes beyond science to explore the development of the human mind. Terry Pratchett and his acclaimed co-authors Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen combine the tale of the wizards rewriting human history with discussions of the origins and evolution of culture, language, art, and science, offering a fascinating and brilliantly original view of the world we live in.
Download and start listening now!
“For Pratchett and Discworld devotees the volume is, of course, compulsory reading, but even science buffs who would normally eschew anything resembling fantasy will find much here to pique their interests…The book adds another whimsical episode to Discworld lore and contrasts the magical ‘rules’ of Pratchett’s realm with the human world’s more logic-oriented science.”
— Booklist
“Terry Pratchett is more than a magician. He is the kindest, most fascinating teacher you’ve ever had.”
— Harlan Ellison, Hugo Award–winning author“The hard science is as gripping as the fiction.”
— Times (London)“An irreverent but genuinely profound romp through the history and philosophy of science, cunningly disguised as a collection of funny stories about wizards and mobile luggage.”
— FrontiersTerry Pratchett (1948–2015) was an English novelist known for his frequently comical work in the fantasy genre. He is best known for his popular and long-running Discworld series. His first novel, The Carpet People, was published in 1971, and after publishing his first Discworld novel, The Color of Magic, in 1983, he wrote two books a year on average. He was the United Kingdom’s bestselling author of the 1990s and has sold more than 55 million books worldwide. In 2001 he won the Carnegie Medal for his children’s novel The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents. He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to literature in 1998 and was knighted in 2009.
Ian Stewart is an Emeritus Professor and Digital Media Fellow in the Mathematics Department at Warwick University, England, with special responsibility for public awareness of mathematics and science. He won the Royal Society’s 1995 Michael Faraday Medal for outstanding contributions to the public understanding of science. He is best known for his popular science writing on mathematical themes.
Jack Cohen is a British biologist and science fiction consultant. He has authored or coauthored many books, in recent years with Ian Stewart and Terry Pratchett.
Michael Fenton Stevens is an actor and comedian, as well as a founding member of The Hee Bee Gee Bees, a pop music group. He is known for his work in television and for his voice work on BBC Radio 4.
Stephen Briggs, who also works in film, has adapted and staged fifteen Discworld plays, collaborated with Terry Pratchett on a number of related works, and performed the audio recordings of Pratchett’s books. Briggs has won five AudioFile Earphones Awards. He lives in England.