Theatre of Cruelty [short story]
by Terry Pratchett
Discworld: City Watch (Collections and Selections — 1.5), Discworld (Short stories — 15.5)
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Corporal Carrot gets to investigate a suspicious death on his own and the end result is, given Corporal Carrot's simple mind (simple, not stupid, mind), very adequate. Pratchett's characters are all so wonderful and Carrot is no exception. Great little short story from the Master.
"He was, in fact, dead. It would be hard to be deader without special training."
And that's why we love Pratchett.
And that's why we love Pratchett.
This is a short story set in the Discworld universe, featuring some of the characters from the Watch subseries. When I say short, I mean miniscule at about 4 pages. It can be read for free from here: http://www.lspace.org/books/toc/toc-english.html
A dead body is found, and Carrot attempts to figure out who murdered him. The first part of this story is cute and I was enjoying it, but the ending didn’t make the slightest bit of sense to me. It was obviously a joke about a TV show, but I didn’t know which one. I read some reviews to figure out what I’d missed, and it turns out it was a reference to a show that I only vaguely remember hearing the name of, have never seen, and have no desire to see.
But I’m sure it’s probably funny show more if you have any clue what it’s referencing. If anybody reads the short story and is just as confused as I was, or if they have no intention of reading it and just want to laugh at my ignorance about popular (I guess?) TV shows, this is what it was about:
Punch and Judy. show less
A dead body is found, and Carrot attempts to figure out who murdered him. The first part of this story is cute and I was enjoying it, but the ending didn’t make the slightest bit of sense to me. It was obviously a joke about a TV show, but I didn’t know which one. I read some reviews to figure out what I’d missed, and it turns out it was a reference to a show that I only vaguely remember hearing the name of, have never seen, and have no desire to see.
But I’m sure it’s probably funny show more if you have any clue what it’s referencing. If anybody reads the short story and is just as confused as I was, or if they have no intention of reading it and just want to laugh at my ignorance about popular (I guess?) TV shows, this is what it was about:
This one is short and nice (well, no. Not nice, but if you know Punch and Judy shows, you'll enjoy it). Available online for free on lspace: http://www.lspace.org/books/toc/toc-english.html#fn1.
Read more Pratchett, yo.
Read more Pratchett, yo.
It's a very short short story. But, it did make me chuckle.
It's a very short short story. But, it did make me chuckle.
Free online discworld short story featuring Carrot, the Watch and some gnomes. Best read after "Guards! Guards!"
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Terry Pratchett was on born April 28, 1948 in Beaconsfield, United Kingdom. He left school at the age of 17 to work on his local paper, the Bucks Free Press. While with the Press, he took the National Council for the Training of Journalists proficiency class. He also worked for the Western Daily Press and the Bath Chronicle. He produced a series show more of cartoons for the monthly journal, Psychic Researcher, describing the goings-on at the government's fictional paranormal research establishment, Warlock Hall. In 1980, he was appointed publicity officer for the Central Electricity Generating Board with responsibility for three nuclear power stations. His first novel, The Carpet People, was published in 1971. His first Discworld novel, The Colour of Magic, was published in 1983. He became a full-time author in 1987. He wrote more than 70 books during his lifetime including The Dark Side of the Sun, Strata, The Light Fantastic, Equal Rites, Mort, Sourcery, Truckers, Diggers, Wings, Dodger, Raising Steam, Dragons at Crumbling Castle: And Other Tales, and The Shephard's Crown. He was diagnosis with early onset Alzheimer's disease in 2007. He was knighted for services to literature in 2009 and received the World Fantasy award for life achievement in 2010. He died on March 12, 2015 at the age of 66. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Series
Discworld: City Watch (Collections and Selections — 1.5)
Discworld (Short stories — 15.5)
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- Canonical title
- Theatre of Cruelty [short story]
- Original title
- Theatre of cruelty : a Discworld short story
- Original publication date
- 1993
- People/Characters
- Sergeant Colon (Ankh-Morpork City Guard, Night Watch); Corporal Nobbs; Chas Slumber (children's entertainer | corpse); Corporal Carrot; Death; Punch (show all 9); Judy; Toby (dog); policeman
- Important places
- Ankh-Morpork, Discworld
- Epigraph
- [None]
- Dedication
- [None]
- First words
- It was a fine summer morning, the kind to make a man happy to be alive.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)"That's not the way to do it."
- Original language
- English
- Disambiguation notice
- Originally written for W. H. Smith's 'Bookcase' magazine. An expanded version was later published in the OryCon 15 convention programme book. The expanded version is "by kind indulgence of the author" available (April 2015) o... (show all)nline on the L-Space Web : A Terry Pratchett / Discworld website.
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- Reviews
- 9
- Rating
- (3.50)
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- Czech, English, Welsh
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook
- ISBNs
- 1
