Reviews - A Stroke of the Pen: The Lost Stories

788 reviews for:

A Stroke of the Pen: The Lost Stories

Terry Pratchett

3.96 AVERAGE

thatokiebird's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous funny lighthearted fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: N/A

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: N/A

Love a short story collection, and when it's a collection written by my favorite author - please and thank you! This "recently discovered" collection of stories was published under a pseudonym for newspapers during the 1970s and 1980s while Terry Pratchett worked as a journalist before Discworld as we know it ever existed.

The stories range in topics, but all are humorous, witty and fun, and remind me a lot of his early books such as Truckers, Diggers, Wings or Strata, The Dark Side of the Sun. I found a lot of joy in reading these stories, and having just a touch more Pratchett to be able to read that I hadn't laid eyes on before.

I listened to the collection on audiobook checked out from my library, and each story is narrated by a different narrator. Lots of fun to experience this short book.

psychnp's review against another edition

A collection of short stories, while several were mildly entertaining, just as many were especially boring and by TBR is too long (haven't put even all of the ones I own none less my wish list in on here yet) to spend time on a less than enjoyable read

thesonnetsilence's review against another edition

3.5

adventurous funny lighthearted fast-paced

abookishpenguin's review against another edition

4.0

This short story collection holds a number of very early Terry Pratchett works, before Discworld, published under a pen name while he was working as a journalist.

This was an enjoyable read. I'm not normally one for short story collections, but this was Pratchett, so I thought why not! Often I struggle with short stories because I find there's not enough time to get properly drawn in. I didn't really find that with these.
The concept of every story was very simple, and they all jumped right in. His style of writing meant that my attention was held. As opposed to characters themselves being the focus in these short stories, it was more about the plot and the environment so I didn't feel that I missed anything by the story being only a few pages.
As short stories go, I really enjoyed all of these. They were funny and whimsical, and I could definitely see the Pratchett who gave us Discworld in there.