Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett

"Change is afoot in Ankh-Morpork. Discworld's first steam engine has arrived, and once again Moist von Lipwig finds himself with a new and challenging job." Read all about it in Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett (Doubleday £20.00).

Dodger's Guide to London by Terry Pratchett

“ROLL UP! ROLL UP! READ ALL ABOUT IT!

• Ladies and Gents, Sir Jack Dodger brings you a most excellent Guide to London!
• Did you know . . . ?
• If a Victorian couldn’t afford a sweep, they might drop a goose down their chimney to clean it!
• A nobby lady’s unmentionables could weigh up to 40lbs!
• Parliament had to be suspended during the Great Stink of 1858!

From the wretches of the rookeries to the fancy coves at Buckingham Palace, Dodger will show you every dirty inch of London.”

All this is in Terry Pratchett’s Dodger’s Guide to London, published on 21 November – just in time for Christmas – by Doubleday (£12.99).

A Blink of the Screen by Terry Pratchett

Coming next week: A Blink of the Screen by Terry Pratchett (Corgi £7.99).

“In the four decades since his first book appeared in print, Terry Pratchett has become one of the world's best-selling and best-loved authors. Here for the first time are his short stories and other short form fiction collected into one volume. A Blink of the Screen charts the course of Pratchett's long writing career: from his schooldays through to his first writing job on the Bucks Free Press; to the origins of his debut novel, The Carpet People; and on again to the dizzy mastery of the phenomenally successful Discworld series.

Here are characters both familiar and yet to be discovered; abandoned worlds and others still expanding; adventure, chickens, death, disco and, actually, some quite disturbing ideas about Christmas, all of it shot through with his inimitable brand of humour. 

With an introduction by Booker Prize-winning author A.S. Byatt, colour illustrations by the late Josh Kirby and drawings by the author himself.”

You can read a taster here.

Dodger by Terry Pratchett

Terry Pratchett’s Dodger is due soon from Doubleday (£18.99), “A terrifically funny tale of dark deeds in Dickensian London”:

“Dodger is a tosher – a sewer scavenger living in the squalor of Dickensian London. Everyone who is nobody knows Dodger. Anyone who is anybody doesn't. But when he rescues a young girl from a beating, suddenly everybody wants to know him. And Dodger's tale of skulduggery, dark plans and even darker deeds begins...”

Terry Pratchett news

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a policeman taking a holiday would barely have had time to open his suitcase before he finds his first corpse.” So it says on the back cover of Terry Pratchett’s Snuff, now out as a paperback from Corgi (£7.99). This is sure to appeal to Discworld fans, as will Miss Felicity Beedle’s The World of Poo by Terry Pratchett (out this month on Doubleday at £12.99):

“Vimes' prompt arrival got a nod of approval from Sybil, who gingerly handed him a new book to read to Young Sam. Vimes looked at the cover. The title was The World of Poo. When his wife was out of eyeshot he carefully leafed through it. Well, okay, you had to accept that the world had moved on and these days fairy stories were probably not going to be about twinkly little things with wings. As he turned page after page, it dawned on him that whoever had written this book, they certainly knew what would make kids like Young Sam laugh until they were nearly sick.”

The World of Poo is a beautifully designed slim hardcover. It has all the appearances of a classy children’s book, with colourful; endpapers and many line drawings, throughout.

Terry Pratchett has teamed up with Stephen Baxter to write The Long Earth (Doubleday £18.99):

“1916: the Western Front. Private Percy Blakeney wakes up. He is lying on fresh spring grass. He can hear birdsong, and the wind in the leaves in the trees. Where have the mud, blood and blasted landscape of No Man's Land gone? 

2015: Madison, Wisconsin. Cop Monica Jansson is exploring the burned-out home of a reclusive - some said mad, others dangerous - scientist when she finds a curious gadget - a box containing some wiring, a three-way switch and a...potato. It is the prototype of an invention that will change the way Mankind views his world for ever. 

And that's an understatement if ever there was one...”

Half-Sick of Shadows by David Logan

There were two joint winners of the Terry Pratchett “Anywhere But Here, Anywhen But Now Prize”: Apocalypse Cow and by Michael Logan and Half-Sick of Shadows by David Logan (they are not related, we are assured).

Half-Sick of Shadows is published by Doubleday in May at £14.99. David Logan comes from Ireland, has a BA in English Literature and Language, and has run his own magazine.

“On the eve of Granny Hazel’s burial in the back garden, a stranger in his time machine – one that bears an uncanny resemblance to a Morris Minor – visits five year-old Edward with a strange request… Time waits for no man, and yet it came back for Edward.”

Apocalypse Cow by Michael Logan

Yes, it’s true: Apocalypse Cow is the title of Michael Logan’s new novel (due in May from Doubleday, £14.99). It is the joint winner of the Terry Pratchett “Anywhere But Here, Anywhen But Now Prize”. Pratchett said: “Apocalypse Cow made me snort with laughter.”

The writer is a journalist who has worked in Bosnia, Tajikstan, Kenya, Sudan and Somalia. Apocalypse Cow is his first novel.

“When scientists with warped imaginations accidentally unleash and experimental bioweapon that transforms Britain’s animals into sneezing, bloodthirsty zombies with a penchant for pre-dinner sex with their victims, three misfits become the unlikely hope for salvation…Forget the cud, they want blood.”