Saturday, July 24, 2021

Birthday Books: The Time-travelling Caveman

"The Time-travelling Caveman" by Terry Pratchett is the fourth anthology of short tales that  were "Written for local newspapers when Terry Pratchett was a young lad, these never previously published stories are packed full of anarchic humour and wonderful wit."

This seems to me to a very generous assessment of what are essentially journeyman works, packed full, of course, with some delightful ideas, but limited in their development by the space in which they had to be produced. While the 17 year-old Pratchett was, of course, not as great as he would become, I feel myself to be in the same position of a junkie who must lick the surface of a mirror in quest of at least a small remnant of a buzz.

I cannot say I am too fond of the illustrations by Mark Beech. They look like impromptu scribbles drawn on glass with markers.

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