TERRY PRATCHETT is one of the most popular authors writing today. He lives behind a keyboard in Wiltshire and says he 'doesn't want to get a life, because it feels as though he's trying to lead three already'. He was appointed OBE in 1998. He is the author of the phenomenally successful Discworld series and his trilogy for young readers, The Bromeliad, is scheduled to be adapted into a spectacular animated movie. His first Discworld novel for children, "The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents," was awarded the 2001 Carnegie Medal.

"Brilliant, and on everybody's reading list." -- SFreviews.net

"At once brilliant and ludicrous, borrowing heavily from traditional mythology and fantasy writings, and then turns them on their heads, spins them around, flips them inside out and mirrors them onto the page. Nothing is the same when you step inside the world of Discworld, and you love Pratchett for it." -- Fantasy Book Review (UK)

"There's no wrong place to start reading Pratchett. . . . The film-noir-with-dragons novel Guards! Guards!, the series starting point for sharp, dutiful City Watch head Commander Vimes, is [a] solid entryway." -- NPR

"As traumatic as it is to only choose one Pratchett, this first entry in his Guards sub-series encompasses everything that is brilliant about his writing: terrific characterisation and plotting, a completely believable world, and new details that come up with each re-reading. Thirty years after it was published, the story of dwarves, dragons and good police work remains fresh, sharp, and incredibly funny." -- Telegraph (UK)