Category Archives: Book

Title: Feet of Clay
Author(s): Terry Pratchett
Release year: 1996
Publisher: Victor Gollancz

Why in Database: In this Discworld book, there is only one turtle mention, at the very beginning, during description of the the nature of discworld and A’Tuin:

The Discworld turned against the glittering backdrop of space, spinning very gently on the backs of the four giant elephants that perched on the shell of Great A’Tuin the star turtle. Continents drifted slowly past, topped by weather systems that themselves turned gently against the flow, like waltzers spinning counter to the whirl of the dance. A billion tons of geography rolled slowly through the sky.

Author: XYuriTT

Title: Interesting Times
Author(s): Terry Pratchett
Release year: 1994
Publisher: Victor Gollancz

Why in Database: Typically for Discworld, this book contains some turtle references. The first two are at the very beginning and are about A’Tuin:

This is the Discworld, which goes through space on the back of a giant turtle.
Most worlds do, at some time in their perception. It’s a cosmological view the human brain seems pre-programmed to take.

But this is the Discworld, which has not only the turtle but also the four giant elephants on which the wide, slowly turning wheel of the world revolves.

In the next two fragments turtles are used as the insults:

Rincewind had to concede that the shouting man was right. Not, that is, about Rincewind’s father being the diseased liver of a type of mountain panda and his mother being a bucket of turtle slime; Rincewind had no personal experience of either parent but felt that they were probably at least vaguely humanoid, if only briefly.

“Silence, mouth of—” The guard hesitated.
“You’ve used turtle, goldfish, and what you probably meant to be cheese,” said Rincewind.
“Mouth of chicken gizzards!”

The last one is a turtle… realizing his (not very good) situation:

From one stall a tortoise on top of a struggling heap of other tortoises under a sign saying: 3r. each, good for Ying gave Rincewind a slow, “You think you’ve got troubles?” look.

Author: XYuriTT

Title: Soul Music
Author(s): Terry Pratchett
Release year: 1994
Publisher: Victor Gollancz

Why in Database: There are two mentions of turtles in this Discworld book. The first is the standard, referencje to A’Tuin:

It was a room within a room. There was a large, heavy-looking desk on a raised dais, with a leather swivel chair behind it. There was a large model of the Discworld, on a sort of ornament made of four elephants standing on the shell of a turtle. There were several bookshelves, the large volumes piled in the haphazard fashion of people who’re far too busy using the books ever to arrange them properly.

Second mention is in the context of “rituals” and turtle meat:

He stared along the shelves behind the makeshift counter. There was a pink conch shell. That had a number on it, too. He moistened his lips and reached out…
“If you blow that, you’d just better have a sacrificial virgin and a big cauldron of breadfruit and turtle meat standing by,” said the old lady.

Author: XYuriTT

Title: Men at Arms
Author(s): Terry Pratchett
Release year: 1993
Publisher: Victor Gollancz

Why in Database: An interesting variation, because we have one turtle reference, but it is not, as usual, related to A’Tuin! It is used only as a comparison:

Mr. Morecombe was scrawny, like a tortoise, and very pale. It had taken him ages to come to the point, and when it came the point nailed Vimes to his chair.

Author: XYuriTT

Title: Lords and Ladies
Author(s): Terry Pratchett
Release year: 1992
Publisher: Victor Gollancz

Why in Database: In this DiscWorld book, published after the most turtle book in the series, we have, for a change, book with the smallest turtle part so far – only one reference. It’s about A’Tuin, in the context of how the disc looks like:

But this story starts on the Discworld, which travels through space on the back of four giant elephants which stand on the shell of an enormous turtle and is not made of any bits of anyone’s bodies.

Author: XYuriTT

Title: Witches Abroad
Author(s): Terry Pratchett
Release year: 1992
Publisher: Victor Gollancz

Why in Database: Another book (as you can guess from title, it’s from the series about witches) with small number of turtle elements. All three mentions are about A’Tuin, in one way or another. The first is a standard description:

This is the Discworld, which travels through space on the back of four elephants which themselves stand on the shell of Great A’Tuin, the sky turtle.
Once upon a time such a universe was considered unusual and, possibly, impossible.

Another description of the Disc:

Compared to all this, a large turtle with a world on its back is practically mundane. At least it doesn’t pretend it doesn’t exist, and no one on the Discworld ever tried to prove it didn’t exist in case they turned out to be right and found themselves suddenly floating in empty space.

The third and the last one does not mention A’Tuin directly but definitely refers to him:

Coiled as it was around the length of turtle-shaped space-time known as the Discworld, the story shook. One broken end flapped loose and flailed through the night, trying to find any sequence to feed on…

Author: XYuriTT

Title: Reaper man
Author(s): Terry Pratchett
Release year: 1991
Publisher: Victor Gollancz

Why in Database: Another book with a few turtle mentions, mostly A’Tuin. We show all three fragments about him below:

Except on the Discworld, which is flat and supported on the backs of four elephants which travel through space on the shell of Great A’Tuin, the world turtle.

One said, Very well. Where is this place?
One said, It is the Discworld. It rides through space on the back of a giant turtle.
One said, Oh, one of that sort. I hate them.

It is hard to fathom the thoughts of a creature so big that, in real space, his length would be measured only in terms of the speed of light. But he turned his enormous bulk and, with eyes that stars could be lost in, sought among the myriad worlds for a flat one.
On the back of a turtle. The Discworld—world and mirror of worlds.
It sounded interesting. And, in his prison of a billion years, Azrael was bored.

Additionally, due to certain events and decisions, each “kind” of living creatures got their own “personification” of death, including, of course, turtles:

Over the desert a dark and empty shell moved purposefully, half an inch above the ground…the Death of Tortoises.

Author: XYuriTT

Title:
Author(s): Terry Pratchett
Release year: 1990
Publisher: Victor Gollancz / Corgi

Why in Database: Another book with some small turtle mentions, first two are about A’Tuin and third one is more neutral-comparative. First, the standard description of the Discworld with mentioning of A’Tuin:

And against the wash of stars a nebula hangs, vast and black, one red giant gleaming like the madness of gods…
And then the gleam is seen as the glint in a giant eye and it is eclipsed by the blink of an eyelid and the darkness moves a flipper and Great A’Tuin, star turtle, swims onward through the void.
On its back, four giant elephants. On their shoulders, rimmed with water, glittering under its tiny orbiting sunlet, spinning majestically around the mountains at its frozen Hub, lies the Discworld, world and mirror of worlds.

The second mention is also about A’Tuin:

Several thousand miles under Silverfish, Great A’Tuin the world turtle sculled dreamily on through the starry night.
Reality is a curve.
That’s not the problem. The problem is that there isn’t as much as there should be.

The third and last is a typical comparison about someones appearance:

The Chair’s face creased in panic behind his false real beard. “You don’t think they’ve invited the Archchancellor, do you?”
The wizards tried to shrink inside their robes, like upright turtles.

Author: XYuriTT

Title: Faust Eric
Author(s): Terry Pratchett
Release year: 1990
Publisher: Victor Gollancz / Corgi

Why in Database: Another (shorter than most) discworld book, with three turtle mentions, all about A’Tuin. The first one takes place on the title page, where the place (address) of the action is given (you can see it in the picture below, in the illustrated version the font of this fragment differs from the rest of the text). Second mention is typical description of A’Tuin. In the third fragmente Rincewind wonders “how it all came into being. ” This book is shorter, but in the original version (because “the text itself” was also published), it is illustrated! And in the graphics, A’tuin appears two times.

On top of Great A’tuin

Below, harshly lit in the arid vacuum of space, Great A’Tuin the world turtle toiled under the weight of Creation. On his—or her, the matter had never really been resolved—carapace the four giant elephants strained to support the Disc itself.

Rincewind had wondered how it had all started. He’d imagined a sort of explosion in reverse, with interstellar gases roaring together to form Great A’Tuin, or at least a roll of thunder or something.

Author: XYuriTT

Title: Guards! Guards!
Author(s): Terry Pratchett
Release year: 1989
Publisher: Gollancz

Why in Database: Another book from Discworld, the first in a series about the City Guard. This book is definitely less turtle. The first reference to turtles appears in one of the footnotes:

A figgin is defined in the Dictionary of Bye-Watering Words as ‘a small short-crust pasty containing raisins’. The Dictionary would have been invaluable for the Supreme Grand Master when he thought up the Society’s oaths, since it also includes welchet Ca type of waistcoat worn by certain clock-makers’), gaskin Ca shy, grey-brown bird of the coot family’), and moules (‘a game of skill and dexterity, involving tortoises’).

The next two are standard, about A’Tuin. The first is about his journey, the second is a description of the disc itself (not like usually, at the beginning, but this time, at the very end of the book):

It was the “eventually” that was the problem. Eventually Great A ’Tuin would reach the end of the universe. Eventually the stars would go out. Eventually Nobby might have a bath, although that would probably involve a radical re-thinking of the nature of Time.

Let the eye of attention pull back…
This is the Disc, world and mirror of worlds, borne through space on the back of four giant elephants who stand on the back of Great A ’Tuin the Sky Turtle. Around the Rim of this world the ocean pours off endlessly into the night. At its Hub rises the ten-mile spike of the Cori Celesti, on whose glittering summit the gods play games with the fates of men…

Author: XYuriTT