Book:The Science of Discworld IV: Judgement Day

Blurb:

A new Discworld story from Terry Pratchett.

The fourth book in the Science of Discworld series, and this time around dealing with THE REALLY BIG QUESTIONS, Terry Pratchett's brilliant new Discworld story Judgement Day is annotated with very big footnotes (the interleaving chapters) by mathematician Ian Stewart and biologist Jack Cohen, to bring you a mind-mangling combination of fiction, cutting-edge science and philosophy.

Marjorie Daw is a librarian, and takes her job -- and indeed the truth of words -- very seriously. She doesn't know it, but her world and ours -- Roundworld -- is in big trouble. On Discworld, a colossal row is brewing. The Wizards of the Unseen University feel responsible for Roundworld (as one would for a pet gerbil). After all, they brought it into existence by bungling an experiment in Quantum ThaumoDynamics. But legal action is being brought against them by Omnians, who say that the Wizards' god-like actions make a mockery of their noble religion. As the finest legal brains in Discworld (a zombie and a priest) gird their loins to do battle -- and when the Great Big Thing in the High Energy Magic Laboratory is switched on -- Marjorie Daw finds herself thrown across the multiverse and right in the middle of the whole explosive affair.

As God, the Universe and, frankly, Everything Else is investigated by the trio, you can expect world-bearing elephants, quantum gravity in the Escher-verse, evolutionary design, eternal inflation, dark matter, disbelief systems -- and an in-depth study of how to invent a better mousetrap.

Due for release in May, 2013.

Bonus Material

Some previously unreleased material, deleted from the published edition, is to be found here. alas, it's Ian Stewart's contribution to the scientific side, but interesting all the same.

Characters

Main Characters

• The Wizards:
  • Chair of Indefinite Studies
  • Hex
  • Lecturer in Recent Runes
  • Librarian
  • Mustrum Ridcully
  • Rincewind
  • Senior Wrangler
• Marjorie Daw, a librarian on Roundworld

Minor Characters

• The Dean
• Mightily Oats
• Mr Slant
• The Reverend Mister Stackpole
• Havelock Vetinari

Locations

• The Disc
  • Ankh-Morpork
  • Unseen University
  • High Energy Magic Building
• Roundworld
  • The Library of Ms Marjorie Daw

Things and Concepts

• The Church of the Latter-Day Omnians
• Guild of Lawyers
• Omnism
• Thaumic Reactor
• The Sanitary Legion

Annotations

Reference is made to the Bliss system of library classification - thought in some respects to be better than the far better known Dewey Decimal, but forced into a footnote to history by a technically inferior system which, like VHS tape cassettes, had better marketing men and superior PR than Betamax. In a Discworld context, think of the Blit system.

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