Tiffany Aching is a witch. And she thinks she's doing a good job for the people of the Chalk. Even if the job does seem to involve a lot of bandaging legs and cutting old ladies' toenails and not much magic, or sleep. But somewhere, there's a tangled ball of evil and spite that has woken up.

A wizard predicts his own death and readies himself for the traditional transfer of power to the eighth son of an eighth son. The snag is that the eighth son is a daughter and women can't be wizards.

As it moves towards a seemingly inevitable collision with a malevolent red star, the Discworld has one possible saviour. Unfortunately, this happens to be the singularly inept Rincewind, who was last seen falling off the edge of the world.

Marjorie Dawe is a librarian, and takes her job - and indeed the truth of words - very seriously. She doesn't know it, but her world and ours - Roundworld - is in big trouble. On Discworld, a colossal row is brewing. The Wizards of the Unseen University feel responsible for Roundworld (as one would for a pet gerbil). After all, they brought it into existence by bungling an experiment in Quantum ThaumoDynamics. But legal action is being brought against...