The Globe: The Science of Discworld II: A Novel

The goal, I suppose, is to make science more attractive to readers. The approach is for Terry Pratchett to write a chapter and then for Stewart and Cohen to write a chapter explicating science principles out of Pratchett's story. The science in this case is sociology, psychology, anthropology, linguistics and, heaven help us, sociobiology. You'll note those are soft sciences. Pratchett's premise is that the evil Elves have invaded Roundworld, using it to their nasty ends. It's up to the wizard faculty of Unseen University, aided by Hex, the Discworld's equivalent of a computer, to save the day. After several false starts, one of them resulting in the memorable Shell Midden People, the Wizards hit on a way to save the day: instead of Arthur J. Nightingale being Roundworld's greatest playwright, they'll slide in a ringer named William Shakespeare. It's not Pratchett's most inspired effort, but it does have its moments. But Practhett's far better than Stewart and Cohen. Their premise is that, while there may not be any narrativium on Roundworld, it is stories that make us human; that instead of Homo sapiens we should be called Homo narrans. That without the spark of story, the stories we invent about ourselves and the world around us, we wouldn't be any better off than the Shell Midden People. None of this will come as a surprise to anyone who has read "Hogfather," which does a much better job of making this point. But then Stewart and Cohen are constrained by Roundworld science, and Pratchett gets to use the Discworld. For those of us familiar with the canon works, the near omnipotence of Hex is a little disturbing. For those of us familiar with literature, despite Stewart's and Cohen's contention, there are other important authors than Shakespeare. On the other hand, the correspondence between the power of narrative on the Discworld and the role of story-telling in our culture is well-developed. But that's unsurprising. Pratchett's Discworld has always a funhouse mirror of our world. He uses that funhouse mirror of to make points about our world. Which leaves Stewart and Cohen, in this case, in the unenviable position of explaining to the audience how the magician does his tricks. I applaud any effort to increase the reach of science, to make it accessible, interesting and attractive. The effort here isn't wholly successful, and the science is soft, but still the book is worth the read.

Try enlivening a party with this question: "What's on your mind?" When the babble has become truly raucous, ask another: "How did it get in there?" This book is about those questions, how we came to consider them, and how we've tried to learn to understand them. Interleaving a fantasy story with analyses of scientific thinking about thinking carries certain risks. In the hands of this trio, however, the balance is successfully achieved. Don't be deceived by the name of Terry Pratchett as lead author of this volume. There are wonderful touches of humour in this book, but the basic theme is a serious question: "Who are we, and how did we get to be this way?" This book repeats a technique used in The Science of Discworld I - two stories in parallel. Discworld is a mirror of Roundworld. The wizards used the computer Hex to construct Roundworld in SoD I. They were shocked at the many differences. Shape was only a beginning. They were confronted with the many ways in which life evolved on Roundworld. They were also forced to reflect on how illogical it seemed for living things to struggle for survival, only to be snuffed out by natural forces. In this sequel, the most advanced life form is going to be confronted with an extinction threat noted in the first book. How to deal with it? It turns out that the best solution is to ally with a great evil force. Humanity has a strange and illogical heritage, this book tells us. As our forebears learned to cope with changing conditions on the African savannah [or on lake shores or even in the sea] they learned to stand upright, to grasp tools, and to think. This has always seemed like a long, continuous progression of small improvements over time - a process in the best Darwinian gradualist sense. This trio of authors reminds us that this picture is false for humans. After a good start, our ancestors simply halted in place, keeping social, mental and technological progress at bay. The "pause" went on for a hundred millennia. At some point about fifty thousand years ago, all that changed. We went from the "standing ape" to become "the storytelling ape". Thinking and speaking resulted in story-telling. In trying to understand ourselves and our surroundings, Pratchett and his colleagues see humans as inventing stories for explanations of nature's mysteries. Magic, allied with the element "narrativium", runs the Discworld. On the Roundworld, magic has to be invented. Narratives are the means to bring it about and spread it around. Every human society forges its own stories which are imparted to children as "Make-A-Human Kits". Each society creates explanations which become legends which become religions as one example. While we might dispute whether we've "progressed" argue the authors, there's no question that once the process started, humans changed rapidly resulting in what we see around us today. This "advance", they argue, was not inevitable. While we may not yet understand what prompted this change, we can

The authors have conspired to make use of Terry Pratchett's popularity to inject some extremely thought provoking scientific theory and philosophy into the Fantasy reading community. Pratchett's Discworld characters muddle their usual way through a story that offsets the points that Stewart and Cohen make in the 'Hard Science' chapters. Stewart and Cohen maintain Pratchett's familiar voice throughout, and there are frequent references to other Pratchett stories, a feature that serious Pratchett readers will enjoy while not detracting from the enjoyment of first time readers.

The authors use the Discworld setting to provide some genuine insight into the way in which we think about the world around us. This is science in the biggest sense, as a way of understanding the world and our minds, not just a set of rules for how molecules are constructed. The Discworld frame story is entertaining -- kind of slight, I suppose, but more compelling and plot driven than the frame from the previous Science of Discworld book.