Sir Terry Pratchett OBE, author of one of the most successful book series of all time in Discworld is pretty bloody terrible at the shorter format, actually.

This is collection of some shorts: some Discworld, some non-Discworld. It's unlikely anyone would read this without having read at least one Discworld book, but if you are thinking of picking it up as a little taste of what he can do, skip them all and head straight for The Sea and Little Fishes, which is the longest, the best and the most emotional, wonderful piece of short writing I think I've ever read. Though I don't read short too much, so who cares what I say.

I'll be honest, the four stars are mostly for the Discworld short stories, especially The Sea and Little Fishes (5 stars on its own) which features the Witches of Discworld, Granny and Nanny, and very nearly made me cry which is unheard of with reading. The loss of a star was caused by the lack of humour that was found in some stories, and the quite frankly rubbish nature of a few others. He was not born to write short, or poetry, and that's fine, but I am glad of this collection. The anecdotes at the beginning are fun. I thought for someone who has been written for around four decades would have a few more and better short stories to add to a collection like this, but apparently not. They "cost him blood" which would put anyone off.