jzthompson’s Reviews > A Blink of the Screen: Collected Shorter Fiction > Status Update

147 - Final Reward. The most successful one of these short stories yet. Potential for a novel but feels complete as it is.

Twenty Pence with Envelope and Seasonal Greetings - not sure I even understood what was happening in this one.

The High Meggas - the short story that 30 years later would become the long earth. In his intro pratchett says he thinks the idea had legs but abandoned it when the colour of magic took off. Another huge, astronomical leap forward in quality. Hard SF. No humour. Appropriately enough a fascinating insight to a path not taken.

And mind the monoliths - I'm not even sure how to process this one. There's a good germ of an idea here but beyond roughing out what that might be terry really doesn't do... anything... with it. At this stage in his career he's clearly bursting with ideas but struggling with plot and character.

There's no fool like an old fool in an English Queue - Pratchett's little intro describes this as the kind of thing you write on a lunchbreak rather than taking it out on someone else. I'm sure it was cathartic. Interestingly, in this early story some of the features that would be so uncomfortable about later pratchett are oddly apparent

The Glastonbury Tales - oh dear. Barwlt rhyming doggerel about hippies. I hope he enjoyed himself writing about this one.

Kindly Breath in Short, Thick Pants - this style doesn't really suit pratchett and its a bit hard to put your finger and what exactly the target is here. Cack handed govt advice should resonate in the yr of covid... and yet...

Rincemangle the gnome of even moor - The bare bones of what would become truckers and the elements of that which came from the borrowers much more apparent. Theres hardly anything here beyond the central image of gnomes living in a department store, the short form is clearly not Terry's element, but still a massive leap in quality.