Just completed the last batch of audiobooks, so time to load up the next lot. I’ve been thinking of starting the Discworld books again as I’m such a big fan of Terry Pratchett, so I will be doing a couple or three every few months. I have am also going to start the Fall of Shannara books and I’m on book 7 of the Culture series by Iain M Banks.
The Colour Of Magic: by Terry Pratchett
🌍 Setting: The story unfolds on Discworld, a flat planet balanced on the backs of four elephants standing on a giant turtle, Great A’Tuin, swimming through space.
🧙♂️ Main Characters:
Rincewind: A cowardly and inept wizard who knows only one spell (and doesn’t dare use it).
Twoflower: A naive but wealthy tourist from the Agatean Empire, eager to explore the world.
The Luggage: Twoflower’s magical, fiercely loyal chest with hundreds of legs and a taste for violence.
📖 Plot Overview:
Twoflower arrives in Ankh-Morpork, causing chaos with his wealth and enthusiasm. Rincewind is forced to act as his guide.
Their misadventures include burning down Ankh-Morpork, escaping gods’ games, surviving a temple of an ancient evil, and encountering Hrun the Barbarian.
They visit the Wyrmberg, where dragons are imagined into existence, and Twoflower conjures one himself.
After falling into the sea, they’re captured by the people of Krull, who plan to sacrifice them during a space mission to determine the sex of Great A’Tuin.
In a final twist, Twoflower is launched into space, and Rincewind falls off the Disc—ending the book on a literal cliffhanger.
✨ Tone & Style: A satirical, episodic adventure that parodies classic fantasy tropes while introducing readers to the whimsical, chaotic world of Discworld.
The Light Fantastic: by :Terry Pratchett
📚 The Light Fantastic picks up right where The Colour of Magic left off—literally mid-fall—as Rincewind, Twoflower, and the Luggage plunge off the edge of the Disc. But thanks to the Octavo, the most powerful magical book in existence, reality is bent to save Rincewind, who unknowingly carries one of its eight spells in his head.
Here’s a quick summary of the story’s arc:
🌟 Plot Summary
Impending Doom: A red star is hurtling toward the Discworld, threatening total annihilation. The only way to prevent disaster is to recite all eight spells from the Octavo—but one of them is stuck in Rincewind’s brain.
On the Run (Again): Rincewind and Twoflower flee from wizards trying to extract the spell, encountering druids with a stonehenge-style computer, a gingerbread house, and even Death’s own domain.
New Allies: They team up with Cohen the Barbarian, an elderly but still deadly warrior, and Bethan, a would-be sacrificial virgin who’s not thrilled about the job.
Cosmic Stakes: As the red star looms closer, the ambitious wizard Trymon attempts to seize the Octavo’s power for himself, opening a portal to the terrifying Dungeon Dimensions.
Final Showdown: Rincewind faces Trymon, who’s been mutated by the spells. With Twoflower’s help, Rincewind manages to recite all eight spells, which causes eight baby world turtles to hatch from the red star and follow Great A’Tuin away from danger.
Parting Ways: Twoflower decides to return home, leaving the Luggage with Rincewind, who contemplates finally learning magic properly.
✨ Tone & Themes
It’s a satirical quest with cosmic consequences, blending slapstick, wordplay, and philosophical musings. Themes of fate, free will, and reluctant heroism continue, but with a more cohesive narrative than its predecessor.
The Spamalot Diaries: by Eric Idle
The inside story of what it took to bring Monty Python and the Holy Grail to Broadway as the unlikely theatrical hit Spamalot, told through actual diary entries from the legendary comic performer, founding member of Monty Python, and New York Times bestselling author
On March 17, 2005, Spamalot debuted on Broadway to rapturous reviews for its star-studded creative team, including creators Eric Idle and John Du Prez, director Mike Nichols, and stars Hank Azaria, David Hyde Pierce, Sara Ramirez, Tim Curry, and more. But long before the show was the toast of Broadway and the winner of three Tony Awards, it was an idea threatening to fizzle before it could find its way into existence.
Now, in The Spamalot Diaries, Eric Idle shares original journal entries and raw email exchanges—all featuring his whip-smart wit—revealing the sometimes bumpy, always entertaining, path to the show’s unforgettable run. In the months leading up to that opening night, financial anxieties were high, with a low-ceiling budget and expectations that it would take two years to break even. Collaborative disputes put decades-long friendships to the test. And the endless process of rewriting was a task as passionate as it was painstaking. Still, there’s nothing Idle would change about that year. Except for the broken ankle. He could do without the broken ankle.
Chronicling every minor mishap and triumph along the way, as well as the creative tension that drove the show to new heights, The Spamalot Diaries is an unforgettable look behind the curtain of a beloved musical and inside the wickedly entertaining mind of one of our most treasured comic performers.
The Black Elfstone: Fall of Shannara by Terry Brooks
The first book of the triumphant and epic four-part conclusion to the Shannara series, from one of the all-time masters of fantasy.
Through forty years of New York Times bestselling Shannara novels, Terry Brooks always had an ending in mind: a series that would bring it all to a grand conclusion. Now that time is here.
The Four Lands has been at peace for generations, but now a mysterious army of invaders is cutting a bloody swath across a remote region of the land. No one knows who they are, where they come from, or what they are after—and most seem content to ignore these disturbing events. The only people who sense a greater, growing threat and wish to uncover the truth are society’s outcasts: an exiled High Druid, a conflicted warrior, a teenage girl struggling to master a prodigious magic . . . and a scrappy young orphan, improbably named Shea Ohmsford.
Dogs of War: by Adrian Tchaikovsky
My name is Rex. I am a good dog.
Rex is also seven foot tall at the shoulder, bulletproof, bristling with heavy calibre weaponry and his voice resonates with subsonics especially designed to instil fear. With Dragon, Honey and Bees, he’s part of a Multiform Assault Pack operating in the lawless anarchy of Campeche, south-eastern Mexico.
Rex is a genetically engineered Bioform, a deadly weapon in a dirty war. He has the intelligence to carry out his orders and feedback implants to reward him when he does. All he wants to be is a Good Dog. And to do that he must do exactly what Master says and Master says he’s got to kill a lot of enemies.
But who, exactly, are the enemies? What happens when Master is tried as a war criminal? What rights does the Geneva Convention grant weapons? Do Rex and his fellow Bioforms even have a right to exist? And what happens when Rex slips his leash?
Ilium: by Dan Simmons
The series centers on three main character groups: that of the scholic Hockenberry, Helen and Greek and Trojan warriors from the Iliad; Daeman, Harman, Ada and the other humans of Earth; and the moravecs, specifically Mahnmut the Europan and Orphu of Io. The novels are written in first-person, present-tense when centered on Hockenberry’s character, but features third-person, past-tense narrative in all other instances. Much like Simmons’ Hyperion where the characters’ stories are told over the course of the novels and the actual events serve as a frame, the three groups of characters’ stories are told over the course of the novels and their stories do not begin to converge until the end.
Planetfall: by Emma Newman
The novel is the first book in Newman’s four-book Planetfall series, which she said can be read in any order. It was generally well received by critics, and was shortlisted for the 2016 Gaylactic Spectrum Award for Best Novel. The Planetfall series was nominated for the 2020 Hugo Award for Best Series.
Planetfall takes place an unspecific number of years into the future. Twenty years before the beginning of the novel, Renata Ghali (Ren) befriends Lee Suh-Mi (Suh) when both women intend to rent the same apartment in Paris. They become fast friends, and Ren falls in love with Suh. While they hike in the Alps, Suh eats a seed from an unidentified plant and falls into a coma. Suh is deeply changed upon awakening, and writes down the location of a planet from which she claims God is calling to her.
Suh recruits 1,000 people for an expedition to the planet, including wealthy marketing executive Cillian Mackenzie (Mac), Suh’s son Lee Hak-Kun, and Ren as the chief 3-D printer engineer. The expedition constructs a spaceship called Atlas and travels through space to the unnamed planet. A small group including Suh, Ren, Mac, and Hak-Kun land first and explore a large bio-mechanical alien structure they call “God’s City”. At the top of the structure, Suh disappears into a room, then returns minutes later in tears claiming that God has died. She removes her helmet and is immediately killed by the toxic air inside God’s City.
With Suh’s status as “Pathfinder” vital to keeping the colony together, Mac decides to tell everyone that Suh remained in God’s City to commune with God. The advance party returns to Atlas, where Hak-Kun disagrees with Mac and prepares to tell everyone about Suh’s death. To protect the secret, Mac sabotages Hak-Kun’s pod during the second planetfall, apparently killing him and his followers. With Ren sworn to secrecy, Mac establishes a colony at the foot of God’s City, and institutes an annual ritual in which the colonists gather to await Suh’s return.
Button Down Concert: by Bob Newhart
Some performers maintain a long career and never change. Newhart is one of them and it’s a good thing. He’s just as funny now as he was in his first unique 1960 comedy LP. And he’s doing the same sketches – usually one side of a phone conversation, which becomes an interactive thing with his audiences because they are thinking of what the other person on the line must be saying during the pauses in Bob’s patter. And breaking up thinking it. His best sketches are in this show, and will be a revelation to vidiots who only know Newhart from his various TV sitcoms. His first job after the army was as an accountant for United States Gypsum, and much of his humor comes from the military or business world. Sensitive viewers will also appreciate that Newhart never even suggests any blue humor.
There is the frazzled driving instructor, the smart-ass bus driving instructor, the addled S.S. Codfish submarine commander, the security guard dealing with King Kong, the Grace L. Ferguson Airline and Storm Door Company, the PR handler for Abe Lincoln. The latter sketch illustrates that the anachronism of a telephone in Lincoln’s day is just part of the humorous situation. The interview with Newhart – recently taped – is worth seeing for a number of interesting revelations. In contrast with the concert performance taped in Pasadena a decade earlier, it demonstrates either the major difference a decade can make in a person’s appearance and/or the miracle of stage makeup.
Look To Windward: by Iain M. Banks
The Twin Novae battle had been one of the last of the Idiran war, one of the most horrific. Desperate to avert defeat, the Idirans had induced not one but two suns to explode, snuffing out worlds & biospheres teeming with sentient life. They were attacks of incredible proportion – gigadeathcrimes. But the war ended and life went on. Now, 800 years later, light from the 1st explosion is about to reach the Masaq’ Orbital, home to the Culture’s most adventurous & decadent souls. There it will fall upon Masaq’s 50 billion inhabitants, gathered to commemorate the deaths of the innocent & to reflect, if only for a moment, on what some call the Culture’s own complicity in the terrible event.
Also journeying to Masaq’ is Major Quilan, an emissary from the war-ravaged world of Chel. In the aftermath of the conflict that split his world apart, most believe he has come to Masaq’ to bring home Chel’s most brilliant star & self-exiled dissident, the honored Composer Ziller. Ziller claims he will do anything to avoid a meeting with Quilan, who he suspects has come to murder him. But the Major’s true assignment will have far greater consequences than the death of a mere political dissident, as part of a conspiracy more ambitious than even he can know–a mission his superiors have buried so deeply in his mind that even he can’t remember it.
Hailed by SFX magazine as “an excellent hopping-on point if you’ve never read a Banks SF novel before,” Look to Windward is an awe-inspiring immersion into the wildly original, vividly realized civilization Banks calls the Culture.
The Demolished Man: by Alfred Bester
The Demolished Man is a science fiction police procedural set in a future where telepathy is common, although much of its effectiveness is derived from one individual having greater telepathic skill than another.
In the 24th century, telepaths—called Espers or “peepers”—are integrated into all levels of society. They are classed according to their abilities.
All Espers can telepathically communicate amongst themselves and the more powerful Espers can overwhelm their juniors. Telepathic ability is innate and inheritable but can remain latent and undetected in untrained persons. Once recognized, natural aptitude can be developed through instruction and exercise. There is a guild to improve Espers’ telepathic skills, to set and enforce ethical conduct guidelines, and to increase the Esper population through intermarriage.
Some latent telepaths are undiscovered, or are aware of their abilities but refuse to submit to Guild rule. Some are ostracized as punishment for breaking the rules. One character in the story has suffered this fate for ten years, leaving him desperate for even vicarious contact with other telepaths.
