SOURCE: Lanham, Fritz. “Terry Pratchett: Secret Success.” Houston Chronicle (9 April 2000): 14.

In the following review of The Fifth Elephant, Lanham seeks to introduce Pratchett to American audiences unfamiliar with the novelist's work.

Who was the best-selling living fiction writer in the United Kingdom during the last decade? Whose novels accounted for 6.5 percent of the hardcover fiction sales in that country in 1998? John Grisham, you guess? Or J. K. Rowling of Harry Potter fame?

Wrong. The answer is Terry Pratchett.

To which you might well reply, Terry who?

Pratchett is a 52-year-old ex-newspaperman who has written nearly 40 books, the last seven of which have all been No. 1 hardcover best sellers in the United Kingdom. Twenty-eight of them make up the ongoing Discworld series of comic fantasy novels. Think J. R. R. Tolkien with a sharper, more satiric edge.

“Discworld” refers to the setting. In Pratchett's fictional eye, the world consists...