"Strata" - Another Layer of Terry Pratchett Quiz

Answer: The Company

Although there is one reference giving the company's official name as 'John Company', all other references are simply to 'the Company', (note the capital C). The Company "builds worlds and terraforms planets", including laying down the fake fossils, coal deposits and other strata of a fake pre-history - the Strata of the book's title - or possibly not.

Magrathea is the planet in Douglas Adam's "Hitchiker's Guide" series which also constructed planets.

Answer: Spindle Kings

Humans learnt about Spindle Kings from their archaeological remains, found in the galaxy and a handy ship with mummified crew and (more importantly) a library which drifted into the solar system. Spindles were telepaths and liked a lot of space to avoid too much mental noise. For example, the ship mentioned above was 100 miles long with 3 crew, the rest was almost entirely empty space.

Before the Spindle Kings were the Wheelers, before them the Paleotechs and before them the ChThrones. How these other races fit in to the plot is best found out by reading the book.

Answer: Written a book

Writing a book may not seem a big deal, but I feel that Terry Pratchett here has anticipated the trend towards e-books and away from printed words long before anyone else, considering that this was written in the 1970s.

To quote from Strata: "The actual writing hadn't been difficult. The real problem had been learning how to make paper, then hiring a staff of robots and setting them to build a printing press." It also has made Kin a celebrity, being asked to sign copies at various places.

Answer: Rain, rain and more rain

The Klung homeworld is perpetually cloud covered, a non-stop rainy season. Non-amphibian species struggle to survive. It rains allegedly for 55 minutes out of every hour.

Answer: The Broken Drum

The Broken Drum (because you can't beat it) is one of several things in the book which are later echoed in the Discworld Series. The Drum and the Mended Drum are part of Ankh Morpork in Discworld. The Shades is also an area of Ankh Morpork as well as being a pub close to where I live which was known as 'The Shades' long before the first Discworld book was written.

'Line top' in this novel refers to a space port attached to a planet by a thread. Ships capable of travelling between stars stop at them before transferring people and cargo to ships capable of travelling down to the planet.

Answer: Tusks

Normally only the young Shandi and condemned criminals are seen without tusks, but Silver is a linguist and the tusks make speaking other languages difficult. Kin, on the other hand, speaks Shandi by sticking her fingers in her mouth to represent tusks.

A Shand is about 10 feet tall (3 meters) and bearlike in appearance plus the tusks, peaceful unless hungry when they enter a ravenous rage.

Answer: Biochemist

Shand appear to be capable of multi-tasking, Kin remarks that she knew one who was "lift-attendant, biochemist and seal hunter".

Shandi are also traditionally cannibalistic as the only thing they can digest is Shand proteins. Duels ('the game') between two shand would take place with the winner getting a full stomach. Nothing more can be said about the loser.

Answer: Earth as envisioned by the Inquisition

The planet appears to be a resemblance of the earth as those who believed in a flat earth at the time of the Inquisition might have believed it. So it was a world centered on Jerusalem with no new world (the Americas) to be seen. This isn't the only similarity to the Inquisition as it is also the apparent ruling religion.

No trolls or dwarves on this occasion, although dragons do make an appearance.

Answer: A raven

The spy is a raven in appearance, but also has cameras behind its eyes. Maybe the best description would be part biological and part mechanical construct. It certainly needs air to breath to survive the journey in the spaceship.

Answer: A demon

Death has a cameo in this novel but it is a non-speaking role. Christos is referred to as a prophet of the religion based in Rome but does not appear in this story.

The demon Sphandor does appear and his entire dialogue is represented in capitals. Sphandor is not the only entity whose words are rendered in capitals, but the only one whose words are heard aurally.