Strata

by Terry Pratchett

THE COMPANY BUILDS PLANETS.

Kin Arad is a high-ranking official of the Company. After twenty-one decades of living, and with the help of memory surgery, she is at the top of her profession. Discovering two of her employees have placed a fossilized plesiosaur in the wrong stratum, not to mention the fact it is holding a placard which reads, 'End Nuclear Testing Now', doesn't dismay the woman who built a mountain range in the shape of her initials during her own high-spirited youth.

But then came discovery of something which did intrigue Kin Arad. A flat earth was something new...

• ISBN10: 0901072915
• ISBN13: 9780901072917
• Publish Date: 4 June 1981 (first published 1 January 1981)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 19 October 2003
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Colin Smythe Ltd
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 192
• Language: English

Reviews

[clq]

That's more like it! Reading Pratchett chronologically, I was disappointed by the first two books. They were funny, but chaotic and disjointed. Strata wraps all the chaos and absurdity into a story which successfully holds it together, and stays strong throughout.

Through a set of circumstances, a human planet-builder meets up with two aliens. Without being given that much of a choice they find themselves at a place which really shouldn't exist. Strange stuff ensues.

Strata does the wonderful British thing of being funny without seeming like it tries to be funny, and consists of a sci-fi, fantasy story with nuggets of wonderful absurdity and understated jokes throughout. I don't want to spoil anything, so I won't say much more. But unlike The Dark Side of The Sun, which had a pseudo-philosophical point which was really just silly, Strata concludes on a note which is actually quite profound. At least to me. There are also interesting points scattered throughout which made me stop for a second to think about them.

By Strata it seems like Pratchett had found his groove, and this is only on his third book. I look forward to continuing reading through the groove.