Pratchat - a Terry Pratchett and Discworld book club
Join writer Elizabeth Flux and comedian Ben McKenzie on their six(ish) year mission to read every Terry Pratchett novel – not just the Discworld ones! They’ll read one a month, and discuss them with special guests, puns and footnotes. Episodes released on the 8th of each month (Australian time); check pratchatpodcast.com and the end of each episode for notice of the next book, and send in questions to us via social media! The explicit tag represents a fairly average Australian level of coarse language.
Episodes
July 7, 2025 • 99 mins
Comedian and quizmaster Richard McKenzie returns to vie with Liz and Ben for control of the most odorous city on the Disc, as they discuss Martin Wallace’s 2011 board game Discworld: Ankh-Morpork.
The Patrician has gone missing! This leaves a huge power vacuum in Ankh-Morpork, and several of the most powerful figures in the city immediately start jostling for control. Lords, criminals and vampires position their minions in every...
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June 8, 2025 • 177 mins
Liz and Ben are joined by Pratchett academic and cosplayer Freyja Stokes as they head out to the Discworld countryside for a bit of peace, quiet and definitely no murders, in Terry Pratchett’s final City Watch book, 2011’s Snuff.
Sam Vimes is facing his ultimate ordeal: a holiday. But no sooner has he made a mess of meeting the staff at Crundles, the Ramkin country estate, than he smells something rotten in the Shires. When the ...
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May 24, 2025 • 2 mins
A very brief little episode to say that we won’t have any episodes in May. We didn’t want to leave you without anything at all!
As Ben suggests, why not listen to The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret’s special 25th of May episode, “Gender on the Discworld”, released today? You can find it in all major podcast directories, at thetruthshallmakeyefret.com, and there’s even a video version on YouTube.
Or you could listen to #Pratchat54...
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April 7, 2025 • 111 mins
Liz and Ben delve deep into the archives and come back with some highlights from the collected Discworld Diaries from Terry Pratchett and Stephen Briggs' The Ankh-Morpork Archives Volumes I (2019) and II (2020), plus Terry's 2004 collaboration with Bernard Pearson, The Discworld Alamak.
Between 1998 and 2003, Discworld fans got an extra little treat: an in-universe diary themed around one of the Guilds or other major institution...
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March 7, 2025 • 114 mins
To mark ten years since Terry Pratchett's death, Liz, Ben and guest Myfanwy Coghill discuss his 2010 Richard Dimbleby lecture, “Shaking Hands with Death”. Please note that this episode includes discussions of death, terminal illness, assisted dying and suicide.
Pratchett was the first novelist to give the Richard Dimbleby Lecture, an annual talk broadcast on the BBC in memory of Dimbleby, a BBC broadcaster who died in 1965. His ...
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February 7, 2025 • 24 mins
Our recording of #Pratchat83 was delayed at the last minute, so our discussion of The Ankh-Morpork Archives and The Discworld Almanak will have to wait until later in the month - hopefully around the 25th February. But subscriber Molokov suggested it might be fun to discuss some of the other, less book-like Discworld merchandise available, so in this shorter bonus episode, Ben does just that!
We’d love to hear about your favouri...
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January 7, 2025 • 196 mins
Liz and Ben are joined by guest Dr Tansy Rayner Roberts PhD (Classics) to chat about fashion, faith, food...oh, and football. Yes, join us for an episode that goes well into extra time (i.e. it’s over 3 hours long) as we discuss Terry Pratchett's 37th Discworld novel, Unseen Academicals.
The Wizards of Unseen University are still recovering from the Dean’s defection to become Archchancellor of rival Brazeneck College, but they h...
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December 7, 2024 • 86 mins
Puzzlers and previous guests Nicholas J Johnson and Lawrence Leung return to play and discuss Leonard Boyd and David Brashaw's 2015 board game Clacks, based on Terry Pratchett's 33rd Discworld novel, Going Postal.
Postmaster General Moist von Lipwig has come up with a plan to prove the Ankh-Morpork postal service is still relevant - a race against the Grand Trunk Semaphore Company! The Grand Trunk has a monopoly on the “Clacks”,...
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November 7, 2024 • 116 mins
Author and poet* Dr Laura Jean McKay joins Liz and Ben for two of Terry Pratchett’s short stories about intelligent animals: “Hollywood Chickens” (1990) and “From the Horse’s Mouth” (1972).
In 1973 Hollywood, a truck full of chickens overturned on a busy highway, depositing a population of chickens on the verge. A decade and a half later, scientists try to piece together the story of how they developed and evolved in pursuit of ...
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October 7, 2024 • 159 mins
Inequality reporter Stephanie Convery returns on a trip with Liz and Ben into the world of banking, high finance and monetary theory in Terry Pratchett's thirty-sixth Discworld novel, 2007’s Making Money.
The Ankh-Morpork Post Office is running very smoothly - which has left Moist von Lipwig, reformed con-man and Postmaster General, at a loose end. But he resists the Patrician's offer of a new job revitalising the Royal Mint and...
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September 7, 2024 • 15 mins
Scheduling issues pushed back our recording of #Pratchat80, so unfortunately we aren’t going to be able to bring you that discussion of Making Money until October. But it has been a very long time since we talked about Going Postal, so Ben thought you might like a recap to tide you over - plus a discussion of some of his favourite Discworld book covers, prompted by subscriber Ian!
We’d love to hear about your favourite covers, f...
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August 7, 2024 • 88 mins
Recorded live at the Australian Discworld Convention in Tarntanyangga (Adelaide), Karen J Carlisle and Tansy Rayner Roberts join us on stage to discuss short fiction, Death and the (sort of) last of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld short stories, 2004’s “Death and What Comes Next”.
Somewhere in time and space, a philosopher lies on his deathbed...and Death has come to collect. Only the philosopher isn’t convinced he’s real, or that a...
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July 7, 2024 • 166 mins
It’s the final leg of the Long Journey as Joel Martin and Deanne Sheldon-Collins answer our Invitation! Both previous Long Earth guests return to discuss the fifth and final of Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter's collaborations, the 2016 novel The Long Cosmos.
It’s 2070, and a message has been received across the Long Earth: “JOIN US.” Joshua Valienté hears it and gets one of his headaches, but he’s still mourning the death of ...
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Our July episode about The Long Cosmos, fifth and final of the Long Earth series, is arriving on time! But we still thought you might appreciate a recap and reminder of what happened in the previous four novels.
Was this helpful? Were you annoyed by the slight inaccuracies made for brevity? Do you double-dare us to do this for the Discworld series as whole? (Please don’t...) Let us know what you think, using the hashtag #Pratcha...
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Writer, filmmaker and creative director Lucas Testro joins Liz and Ben on a trip down under to the Other Place as we discuss Terry Pratchett's first ever published short story, 1963’s “The Hades Business”.
Shady advertising man Crucible arrives home to find none other than old Nicholas Lucifer waiting for him in his study. But he hasn’t come to take him to eternal damnation. Instead, the Devil has a business proposition for Cruc...
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May 24, 2024
It’s the 25th of May, which can only mean one thing: Geek Pride Day! Or Towel Day. Or the Glorious 25th of May and the Battle of Treacle Mine Road...okay, that's three things. Why not add one more? This is the Pratchat Eeek Club: a bonus episode discussing Terry Pratchett-related topics selected by our "Eeek" tier subscribers.
This year, the topics are:
So it's been a few years of the Podcast. How are you guys holding up?
...
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May 7, 2024 • 60 mins
The scheduling goblins got us this month, and we’ve had to delay our planned short story episode. But while we get that sorted out, Ben’s embracing the chaos - and the theme of Terry Pratchett Day 2024, “Start in the Wrong Place”! Join him as he shares some of your stories of unusual places to start reading Pratchett.
If you’d like to honour Terry, you can find a list of his preferred charities (and a recipe for banana daiquir...
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April 8, 2024 • 167 mins
Kiwi writer and poet Freya Daly Sadgrove joins Liz and Ben from Sydney as we adjust our uniforms and march into the horrible realities of war (class, gender and literal) to discuss Terry Pratchett's thirty-first Discworld novel, 2003’s Monstrous Regiment.
Polly Perks has cut off her hair, put on some trousers and joined the army under the name of Oliver, all so she can find her strong but gentle-minded brother, Paul. Is soon tur...
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March 24, 2024 • 26 mins
Our Monstrous Regiment episode still isn’t quite ready, so we’ve had to push it to April. In the meantime, Ben gets nerdy about some recent Discworld and Pratchett news about books and roleplaying games.
A few brief notes:
“50 Years of Terry Pratchett” was actually announced in November 2021, marking fifty years since the publication of The Carpet People in 1971. (In Ben’s defence, those early pandemic years all blur into ...
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March 7, 2024 • 5 mins
Our Monstrous Regiment episode won’t be ready until later in the month, but we didn’t want to let International Women’s Day pass without some kind of comment. So here’s a mini episode in your feed recommending some other Pratchett and Discworld podcasts hosted by women and non-binary folks.
Here’s a list of the Discworld podcasts Ben mentioned:
The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret, hosted by Francine Carrel and Joanna Hagan. They ...
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