satira

It is well known that stone can think, because the whole of electronics is based on that fact, but in some universes men spend ages looking for other intelligences in the sky without once looking under their feet. That is because they’ve got the time-span all wrong. From stone’s point of view the universe is hardly created and mountain ranges are bouncing up and down like organ-stops while continents zip backward and forward in general high s…

The wizards ran down the corridor. / “How can you kill ghosts?” / “How should I know? The question doesn’t usually arise!” / “You exorcise them, I think.” / “What? Jumpin’ up and down, runnin’ on the spot, that kind of thing?” / The Dean had been ready for this. “It’s spelled with an ‘O,’ Archchancellor. I don’t think one is expected to subject them to, er, physical exertion.” / “Should think not, man. We don’t want a lot of healthy ghosts buzzin’ around.” / There was a blood-curdling scream. …

…bong. / For Magrat it was like waking from a dream into a dream. She’d been idly dreaming that she was dancing with the most handsome man in the room, and…she was dancing with the most handsome man in the room. / Except that he wore two circles of smoked glass over his eyes. / Although Magrat was soft-hearted, a compulsive daydreamer and, as Granny Weatherwax put it, a wet hen, she wouldn’t be a witch if she didn’t have certain instincts and the sens…

Susan walked back to the alley where she’d left Binky. There were half a dozen men lying around on the cobbles, clutching parts of themselves and moaning. Susan ignored them. Anyone trying to steal Death’s horse soon understood the expression “a world of hurts.” Binky had a good aim. It would be a very small, very private world. / “The music was playing him, not the other way round,” she said. “You could see. I’m not sure his fingers even to…

The big glass beaker for the cure had been placed on a pedestal in the middle of the floor. The wizards liked to make a ceremony of everything in any case, but felt instinctively that if they were going to cure the biggest hangover in the world it needed to be done with style. / Susan and Bilious watched as the ingredients were added. Round about halfway the mixture, which was an orange-brown color, went gloop. / “Not a lot of improvement, I feel,”…

Vimes heard Carrot scrabble around in the gloom, and the sound of a key in the lock. / “I thought the Campaign for Equal Heights was running this place now,” he said. / “It’s so hard to find volunteers,” said Carrot, ushering him through the low door and lighting a candle. “I come in every day just to keep an eye on things, but no one else seems very interested.” / “I can’t imagine why,” said Vimes, looking around the Dwarf Bread Museum. / The one positive t…

Mistrovská rána / Horko ji zasáhlo jako plamen z opalovací lampy, tak silně a náhle, že zalapala po dechu. / Kdysi si nahoře na důlinách uhnala úpal, když si doma zapomněla klobouk. Tohle bylo podobné. Svět kolem ní na sebe náhle vzal znepokojivé odstíny matné zeleni, žluti a purpuru a beze stínů. / Vzduch byl tak rozpálený, že Tonička nabyla dojmu, že by ho stačilo zmáčknout, aby z něj stoupal kouř. / Byl v… rákosí, které bylo mnohem vyšší než ona. / .. .ros…

Brány Dunmanifestinu se otevřely dokořán – očividně bez cizího přičinění. Stříbrná horda vpochodovala dovnitř. Muži se drželi v hloučku a podezřívavě se rozhlíželi na všechny strany. / „Měli bysme si rači poznačit karty, hoši,“ zašeptal Cohen, který se rozhlížel rušnou ulicí. „Něco takovýho jsem nečekal.“ / „Pane?“ obrátil se k němu minstrel. / „My čekali flámování ve velký síni,“ odpověděl mu Cucák Vilda. „A ne… obchody. A každej je jin… / „No, b…