'Pratchett's writing is a constant delight. No one mixes the fantastical and the mundane to better comic effect or offers sharper insights into the absurdities of human endeavour'

'Generous, amusing and the ideal boarding point for those who have never visited Discworld'

'Vintage Pratchett... Perennially funny...A sharp satire on the futility of war'

'One of those rare writers who appeals to everyone... He satisfies the need for fast-moving breathtaking plots with entirely satisfying endings, and the equally primitive desire for an alternative world, full of thrills but benign, into which one can step for pleasure and enlivenment'

'Both his inventiveness and his moral shrewdness seem inexhaustible'

The work of Tanizaki offers to us in the West one of the most valuable keys to understanding the Japanese crisis of identity

An extraordinary book which can truly be said to break new ground