A Blink of the Screen: Collected Shorter Fiction

Terry Pratchett was primarily a novelist, but here are 32 short pieces of fiction left over from his career. By his own admission, he found it difficult to write short stories, and he never mastered the art of writing a really good short story. But he could write fragments of fiction that were readable and somewhat entertaining, so this is a solid three-star book that I can reread occasionally.They are divided into 21 non-Discworld and 11 Discworld stories, the former including an early short version of what later became [b:Truckers 989036 Truckers (Bromeliad Trilogy, #1) Terry Pratchett https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1461277153l/989036.SY75.jpg 1737268].For me, the best things in this collection are:1. “The High Meggas” (1986), which is an early short version of his non-Discworld novel [b:The Long Earth 13147230 The Long Earth (The Long Earth, #1) Terry Pratchett https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1335532694l/13147230.SY75.jpg 18164154], and in my opinion better than the novel (which I'm not very keen on).2. “Troll Bridge” (1992), a Discworld story about Cohen the Barbarian.3. “Once and Future” (1995), a non-Discworld story about a time traveller marooned in the past—apparently an alternative version of the past. He thought of making a novel out of it, but never did.4. “The Sea and Little Fishes” (1998), a Discworld story about the witches.