A fun anthology of Terry Pratchett's early work, before he was known for Discworld. These stories are great bite size humorous stories that can be read in snippets or all at once. While perhaps not yet on par with his writing in Discworld we can see the beginning of his journey there in these stories he wrote to help hone his craft under a pseudonym. Ranging from a page to several pages, the last story is the longest, and in my opinion, the best (saved for last). Also, a great introduction to Terry Pratchett's humor and writing before jumping into Discworld.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book.

Stories written under Terry Pratchett's pseudonym from the 70's and 80's is the most fun collection of stories! Highly recommended for Pratchett fans and those who have yet to read his fantasy novels. This was a really great collection of stories!

I’m a huge Terry Pratchett fan, so encountering some of his earliest works (written under pseudonyms) was a pleasure. There are occasionally clear signs of the Pratchett to come (most notably in ‘The Quest for the Keys’), but they differ substantially from the works most of us are familiar with. Most obviously, to quote Gaiman’s forward, they’re mostly set in “the hereish and nowish.” They’re also rougher and less polished, but Pratchett was publishing these in a newspaper with a quota of words to fill– quite different than the novels we’re used to! Gaiman speculates that Terry Pratchett might have been embarrassed for these to be unearthed or delighted that his fans could enjoy them (one does wonder, given his request to have his hard drivers steamrolled…). Reflecting back on reading this a few weeks ago, ‘The Quest for the Keys’ stands out the most as well as the impressive detective work to cobble these together.

I received this book in exchange for a honest review from NetGalley.

I am a huge Terry Pratchett fan and this collection did not disappoint! It is so cute and you can totally see where many of his Discworld characters came from. The short stories were funny and cute. Overall a great read for anyone but especially Terry Pratchett fans!

It was great getting some "new" Terry Pratchett stories. It made me realize how much I've missed reading him. I enjoyed all of the stories and I'm glad they were found.

Thank you to the author, the finders of the material, the publisher and NetGalley for my eARC in exchange for an honest review.

A collection of twenty rediscovered stories written by Terry Pratchett during the '70s and '80s in various newspapers and magazines under various pseudonyms. Collected and forwarded by Neil Gaiman as he went through the papers and writings of Pratchett after his death. The stories give the reader a unique insight into young Terry Pratchett becoming the imaginative writer he became. There are stories about Og, an inventive caveman who invented fire to a not so appreciative community when their homes catch fire; or a Santa who decides he doesn't want to be the jolly man anymore and tries his skills at finding other work to disastrous consequences and many more. This is a delightful read. I read as an ebook but I see that the print version has wonderful wood-cut print illustrations making it a beautiful collector's volume.

Sir Terry Pratchett has been dead for 8 years and many readers have missed his prose and zany characters. What many readers are unaware of (as was I), Pratchett often wrote under pseudonyms for newspapers in the 1970s and 1980s. Dedicated fans spent untold hours searching newspaper archives for these lost stories. Included in this volume are twenty stories that show Pratchett as he was honing his craft and discovering who he was as an author. Just like most short story collections, some stories are better than others, but overall the experience was fun … and some tales will give readers a glimpse into the worlds that Pratchett eventually created.

A gentle read after the last rather intense book I read. The stories were enjoyable. Some of them did feel like early efforts but they were all fun to read. It was nice to get this unexpected book of his work.

This story collection is available due to an accident. An accident that was fortuitous. As mentioned in the forward and explained in detail in one section of the book, a fan had contacted Colin Smythe with copies of a serial story - "The Quest for the Keys" - that he had cut out of a paper years ago. Unfortunately, the trim job had removed the dates and names of the paper in which it had appeared. So Pat and Jan Harkin set out to the British Library's Newspaper Archive to peruse the stacks and find the paper names and dates. They had an approximate range of dates (1972-1984), so they started in 1972 and worked their way forward. Along the way, they found a number of tales by Pratchett under pseudonyms not previously known. So enjoy this collection of early Pratchett tales dealing with time travel, ghosts, Christmas, dragons, and a proto-Discworld tale! These are quick reads to enjoy and chuckle over.

Thanks Netgalley for the opportunity to enjoy this title!

I have been an ardent fan of Terry Pratchett’s books since the early 2000s, especially the Discworld books. I was very sad when he passed a few years ago, thinking that we would no longer get to read new stories from him. So I was super excited when I saw this book and immediately snatched up a copy. It was such a fun read with some really fantastic stories.

These short stories are not set in Discworld, and were written before The Color of Magic was published, but they were such darling little stories that I didn’t mind a bit. It was fun to read some works by Sir Pratchett from his early career. You can see the early hints of his satire and wit coming out in these stories. I mean, who else would name a government department the Ministry of Nuisance? Or imagine what it would be like for the caveman who invented fire to go on to invent other things? How would his inventions affect other cavemen and their society? These short, yet endearing little stories will make you think, just as much as his longer books do.

The last story in the collection, The Quest for the Keys, was perhaps my favorite. There are glimmers of Discworld in the characters and the different worlds they visit on the quest. I also quite enjoyed The Blackbury Thing, which involved a ufo crashing in a small town and the search for whatever was on board. I loved the ending of that one! There are also a few that are Christmas themed which will make a nice read around that time of year, or anytime even.

This short story collection will delight fans of Terry Pratchett. Readers unfamiliar with his work will also enjoy these short stories. Many of them are just as topical today as they were when they were written in the late seventies and the early eighties. If you know a fan this would make a delightful gift!

I received this book as an ARC and I chewed through it as feverishly as I could. Each story is an utter delight and the story of how these stories came together is as foolhardy and fascinating as any Sir Terry himself would have written. I’m very glad to have read this.

Always a delight to read the late, great, Terry Pratchett. A brilliant writer gone too soon. Early work by the author republished will delight fans. Will order for my library.

Pratchett fans will appreciate this collection, although it probably won't be anything special to other readers. There are a few stories with Father Christmas, so consider it as an appropriate winter holiday gift for the nerd near you.

Readers familiar with Discworld will recognize much of the writing style, particularly the very casual and cavalier presence and general acceptance of magic and the characters who take these types of development in stride and with aplomb. There wasn't a single character that stood out to me as the first draft of a single equivalent character (no Vimes or Nanny) but this wizards of Unseen University and the general people of Ankh-Morpork would fit right in, especially in the second part of the book (where all the stories are set in the same universe).

Not required reading for anyone, but Pratchett fans who enjoyed Dragons at Crumbling Castle will want this, too.

eARC from NetGalley

This collection of lost stories will be released on October 10, 2023. Harper Collins provided an early galley for review.

Admittedly, Pratchett is one of those authors of the fantasy genre that I have not delved into a lot - even though he started out on his novels in the early 80's when I was very deep into my fantasy and sci-fi discovery. Good Omens, which he co-wrote with Gaiman, is the only one of his books in my personal collection. Still, this new release really interested me. I was curious to see what his earliest work was, when he was just starting out as a writer.

After the first couple tales (one involving cavemen and another involving time-travel), we're treated to a series of Christmas themed stories. I have to imagine that these ran in the Western Daily Press around the holidays over successive years as some kind of page filler.

From a quality level, these were definitely reminiscent of stories I would read in literary anthology magazines I would pick occasionally at the newsstands here in the States around this time period. They were usually filled with pieces by yet-to-breakout writers; it was a way to get some pay and publishing credits under one's belt. With today's world of the Internet, they would be comparable to tales found at online story sites or fan-fiction pages.

I found this collection mostly entertaining. With shorter page counts, most of the stories moved along quickly and could be read in a quick break. I suspect it will definitely appeal more to fans of Pratchett's other work as it shows a glimpse of the author first getting his bearings into the world of publishing.

A Stroke of the Pen is a brilliant collection of short stories by the late Terry Pratchett. Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch is one of my all-time favorite books, so I was super excited to be approved for this ARC on NetGalley. Not to mention that the forward is written by Neil Gaiman, who is my very favorite author, so … bonus!

As expected, Sir Terry did not disappoint. This collection is tremendously amusing and full of humor that I could only describe as, well, Pratchett-esque. It's not quite Good Omens perfection-wise, but it's probably not really fair to compare a bundle of short stories to a full-length novel. My favorite story of the group is perhaps “A Partridge in a Post Box,” in which an extremely dedicated postman must figure out how to deliver some rather unexpected items to a young lady's home. Really, though, all of these stories are worth reading and there's not a bad one in the bunch. I found myself frequently chuckling out loud, which is not something I often do while reading.

The stories themselves aside, I also really enjoyed learning about how these stories were rediscovered after having been lost for decades. Bravo to the amazing individuals who made it possible, because I am absolutely thrilled to be reading “new” works by Terry Pratchett after all these years.

This book is an absolute must-read for any fans of Terry Pratchett, or for new fans-in-the-making who enjoy humorous and clever fantasy stories.

Final rating: 4.5 stars, rounded up. Definitely give this one a read.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Harper for providing me with an advance copy of this book to review.

This is a must read for any fans of Terry Pratchett and or any fans of humorous, magical-mishaps. The forward by Neil Gaiman is a nice touch too.