Congratulations, Sir Pratchett!

This is so late, but I would just like to say how happy I am that Terry Pratchett, one of my favourite authors ever, has been conferred a knighthood. Although I have a feeling he'll probably make light of it in his next Discworld book.

America was awesome! Photos at a later date - now I would just like to rave about Barnes and Noble. It was freaking awesome. And I got four new books. One was about Egyptian art and the other three were Discworld books.

Now, my Terry Pratchett collection includes The Colour of Magic, The Light Fantastic, Equal Rites, Mort (which I got in America), Wyrd Sisters, Pyramids (got it in America) , Lords And Ladies (ditto), Carpe Jugulum, Maskerade, Montsrous Regiment, Thief of Time and Good Omens, the only non-Discworld book on my shelf, which he co-wrote with Neil Gaiman and which is fan-friggin-tastic. I have also read Witches Abroad and the non-Discworld books Johnny and the Dead and Only You Can Save Mankind, and The Carpet People from the library, Wings, (not Discworld, but about gnomes) from my aunt, and I borrowed Hogfather from my brother. My bookshelf and I are jumping up and down in glee.

Hogfather was so awesomely hilarious. I mean, seriously. Picture Death, the skeleton in a black robe, who rides a white horse. Now picture him wearing one of those Christmas hats and a red robe with a cushion stuffed up his front, scrambling down chimneys and giving presents and going HO HO HO. And his grand-daughter Susan has to figure out why. Yes, you read right, Death's grand-daughter. Death's daughter (adopted) married his apprentice, Mort. Oh, and Death loves cats and is trying to learn the violin. He is one of my favourite Discworld characters, along with Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg.

And recently, I re-read Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera, and then straightaway I re-read Maskerade, which now seemed doubly hilarious (it pokes fun at the aforementioned classic, and set mainly in the Ankh-Morpork Opera House ;P). And Pyramids, too; I am a huge Egyptian buff, and Pyramids really put ancient Egypt through a washing machine on a fast spin-dry cycle. I mean, he's right about the enormous complexity of the admittedly confusing at times Egyptian pantheon and afterlife beliefs. And after that I was reading one of my books (Robert Bauval's The Egypt Code) on Ancient Egypt and I suddenly found it funny and had a huge grin on my face. And the book was non-fiction, about the star-correlation theory about the pyramids. So there wasn't much ground for humour.

If anyone's bothering to read this and hasn't discovered Terry Pratchett yet, I heartily recommend him!

A piece of fanfiction about stars and the Marauders. A gift for m_erechyn!

A belated New Year's gift for a dear friend,m_erechyn . It's called Starry Night and is about the Marauders.


Harry Potter belongs to Warner Bros, Scholastic, Bloomsbury, Heyday/1498 films, JK Rowling and Raincoat books. I don't lay any claim to it. Really, if I owned Sirius... 

 

 

Author's Note: Since my dad's a member of The Astronomical Society of Singapore, we often go on little stargazing trips, but that's hard due to the light pollution in urban Singapore. We could drive to Malaysia, or we could take a cheaper but no less fun option and take a ferry to a tiny island used as a landfill called Pulau Semakau, just off the coast, where the lack of urbanisation means no light pollution. We get the fun of a campout plus an astronomy session.
 

 

This was thus inspired by one of those trips, and written by starlight and torchlight on a camp stool, as every now and then I craned my neck or lay back on the ground to take in the sight of the multitudes of stars, especially my favourite section of sky, the bit with Orion the hunter and his two hunting dogs, not to mention my favourite star Sirius. Now, on with the story! That is, if anyone actually bothered to read this.

 

 

Starry Night

 

 

( Click to read one of my personal favourites among my oneshots )

 

 

Similarities tom_erechyn 's of the night are purely accidental, although I highly recommend it.