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    Unseen Academicals
    Unseen Academicals
    Unseen Academicals
    Audiobook12 hours

    Unseen Academicals

    Written by Terry Pratchett

    Narrated by Stephen Briggs

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    ""Nobody writes fantasy funnier than Pratchett.” —Booklist

    Discworld lives on in Unseen Academicals, the 37th novel in Sir Terry Pratchett's beloved fantasy series. Discword has succumbed to a powerful magic that could tear it apart. Soon colleague is pitted against colleague, brother against brother, sons against fathers as all become infected with a frightening condition know as football fever (well, we Yanks call it soccer madness).

    The wizards at Ankh-Morpork's Unseen University are renowned for many things—wisdom, magic, and their love of teatime—but athletics is most assuredly not on the list. So when Lord Vetinari, the city's benevolent tyrant, strongly suggests to Archchancellor Mustrum Ridcully that the university revive an erstwhile tradition and once again put forth a football team composed of faculty, students, and staff—or lose the funding that pays for their nine daily meals—the wizards of UU find themselves in a quandary. To begin with, they have to figure out what it is that makes this sport of foot-the-ball so popular with Ankh-Morporkians of all ages and social strata. Then they have to learn how to play it. Oh, and on top of that, they must win a football match without using magic.

    And the thing about football—the most important thing about football— is that it is never just about football.

    Filled with his usual sharp wit, sagacious observations, and keen social commentary, Unseen Academicals demonstrates the satirical genius of Terry Pratchett.

    The Discworld novels can be read in any order but Unseen Academicals is the seventh book in the Wizards series.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateOct 6, 2009
    ISBN9780061967320
    Unseen Academicals
    Author

    Terry Pratchett

    Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) was the acclaimed creator of the globally revered Discworld series. In all, he authored more than fifty bestselling books, which have sold more than one hundred million copies worldwide. His novels have been widely adapted for stage and screen, and he was the winner of multiple prizes, including the Carnegie Medal. He was awarded a knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to literature in 2009, although he always wryly maintained that his greatest service to literature was to avoid writing any.

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    Reviews for Unseen Academicals

    4/5

    1,825 ratings140 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Probably my favorite Discworld novel! I'm glad to cancel my Scribd (Everand) subscription on a high note after more than a decade as a happy, faithful subscriber. Unseen Academicals has it all--fantasy, the satirical homage Pratchett payed to the greats (Tolkien) and the not so greats of fantasy, humor, silliness, deep insight into human nature (both our angels and our demons), heartfelt sincerity, and character development so masterful you're cheering characters like Nut & Glenda on by the end of the 2nd or 3rd chapter. Anyway, wonderful novel & audiobook. I still had this book in my Saved archive, along with other Pratchett novels. I like to listen to them again when I'm done and have done this for years on Scribd. Well, I thought I'd lose this novel--I lost all the others I had saved. They disappeared. Some say "available soon" but that means next month and I get one at a month I guess on Everand. I didn't mind it when Scribd raised their prices again, but now I realized the last time was shortly before a wonderful service became rubbish. I could deal with being allowed two books by one great author in a month, but the selection has also changed drastically. It looks like a self-publishing paradise now (but mostly the stuff that should have remained unpublished, not gems like some of my faves-Michael J Sullivan; Lindsay Buroker) who started that way. Since Scribd is NO LONGER UNLIMITED books & audiobooks by any stretch of the imagination, I'm going to switch to Kindle Unlimited & keep Audible subscription. I'm very sad to cancel Scribd/Everand after more than a decade, but all good things must end.
    • 5/5
      I'm still not finished with the whole series, but I think that as Terry Pratchett wrote more of the disc world books, there was a slow change from inventing a world with laugh-out-loud "I never thought of it that way" moments, to more of a journalist simply reporting events on the disc that are worth a chuckle.

      This one is a bit of an exception to that, it was amusing farce with at least one good fart joke and a passing reference to ti... uh... never mind, spoilers!

      It has a few of the really funny "I never thought of it that way" moments, and the characters of the University staff make me wish I had been born in England and subjected to those strange English school rituals performed by even stranger English persons.

      One of my top 5 favorite disc world books. If you tethered Arthur Dent's left foot to the university grounds, he'd not be left wanting for strangeness or silliness.
    • 5/5
      Ponder Stibbons discovers that the university will lose a large bequest if they don't have a football team. The wizards are unsurprisingly reluctant, but when he tells them it will affect the food budget, they decide football can't be that bad.In addition to the wizards we all know and love, this introduces several new characters who work at the university, with three of them (Glenda, Trev, and Nutt) being the main POV characters. There are also several other new minor characters and I especially liked Pepe, the dwarf who might not be a dwarf.This was a bit of a slow starter, but once it got going, I found it really hard to put down. I could have wished for a bit more Vetinari, but I loved him when he did show up. I loved the new characters, especially Glenda, who was awesome and a nice surprise, as I was expecting a book about the university to be a mostly male cast. Which it was, but she was the character we spent the most time with.The whole thing with Nutt was kind of awkward. I liked him a lot and the history was neat, but I wish he'd stop the racism metaphors
    • 5/5
      Another fine book from dear departed Sir Terry. But, the quality of the audio recording is an abomination unto Nuggan (sorry, just finished listening to Monstrous Regiment), I just couldn't listen to it in the car no matter how much I fiddled with the stereo. What a disappointment.
    • 5/5
      I was determined to wait until this came out in paperback to buy a copy but - as usual when it comes to waiting for books - I failed spectacularly. And I don't regret it.A lot of people have commented that this is very different from a lot of the Discworld novels; I agree. It's softer, for a start. The biting satire of some books shows a little less fang here, but I don't think the story is weaker for that. The satire and wit are still there, they're just ... better-natured. More cheerful. Amused. There were fewer lines in the book which provoked hysterical laughter, but more which provoked broad smiles.The new characters of Glenda and Nutt were excellent - classic Pratchett characters - as were the supporting cast of wizards and associated university staff. I also liked seeing a more relaxed side to the Patrician, and thought his character was very well developed. It's not necessary to know much about football in order to appreciate this book - at worst you'll miss a couple of jokes about the offside rule and half-time pies - but the football parts are pretty entertaining. The academic rivalry with Brazeneck, the invention of micromail, the candle vats and the thugs all add the expected detail and richness to the story, and the Academicals' first match is nothing if not eventful.The books set in Ankh-Morpork are generally my favourites among the Discworld series, and this was no exception.
    • 5/5
      Like most of Pratchett's books, I enjoyed this a lot. It's fun, it's pretty easy to read, it has emotional punch. It's got wizards, Death gets a cameo and it's actually got very little football, which I have to admit is a selling point as far as I go. In unseen academicals the wizards find that to keep a bequest which pays for most of their lunch they must play a game of football. Of course this doesn't go easily. i have to admit that a big chunk of what made this book so much fun for me was Glenda. Glenda is one of our main characters, a cook in the night kitchen at the university who gets pulled into the football thing. Glenda is one of those people who ends up being a big sister to everyone around her, and I'm like that so I loved her just a tiny bit more than normal. This book is longer that most of the discworld books but it contains a lot more. We get a lot of great characters who all go through a lot of changes over the book along with the usual Discworld fare like the Librarian being awsome. I did enjoy this book greatly and spent a lot of time trying to decide if I should rate a 4 or 4.5 (becasue that's what I do at work). In the end, it did come down very much to how much I love Glenda and Nutt. They're the selling story of the book for me. Of course, the entire thing is witty and fun and well plotted, but their particular story was the part that made me devour this book. Nutt is one of the main characters, a Goblin (or is he?) who works at the unseen university's candle vats. He's funny looking and scared and just trying his best to do a good job and have value. Of course, Glenda takes to him because she feels sorry for him, and I couldn't help but hope for them as a romantic couple. Stuff happens and, as you may guess, they did! It was cute, it was fluffy, it was like eating sugar pie. Glenda isn't good looking but she's generous and determined and has a head full of romantic idea but it also an idealist and she's utterly wonderful. A few points annoyed me, like how Glenda and Nutt (the two unatractive characters) and up together and Juliet and Trev (the attractive ones) also end up together, and the continual reminders that Glenda isn't attractive. But then, on the other side, Glenda never lets not being attractive hold her back, Nutt is intelligent and charming so by all accounts a good catch and they all go of to excitement and adventure in the end so none of the things that bother me bother me enough to stop me enjoying the book. So, yeah, read it!
    • 3/5
      Terry is good with words. There are a lot of clever turns of fraise and such which make this book amusing to read. However the glib tone throughout and the way all of these books are a discovery of something or other simple concept gives off a very strong feeling of, to use the vernacular, a benevolent elitist looking down upon the stupids.
    • 4/5
      It must be hard to write yet another book in a series that you've been inhabiting for so long. It's hard not to judge some of the components of the latest Discworld novel in light of the ones preceding it, and that's not to speak of the quality of the book itself, so much as some of the major plot points.That's right, I'm talking about the football, and well, considering the whole football culture and having to wear the right colors and huge games of it out in the streets and blocking up traffic and shoving people about causing ongoing problems for the Watch, you'd have seen something of this in the past. There have been a lot of books set in Ankh-Morpork - there are huge, sprawling, epic fantasy series with fewer books than Pratchett's put in Ankh-Morpork - and I can't ever remember hearing about this before. He's handled this in other books just fine; there was a post office, but it was irrelevant! There was no newspaper, and now we're making one! But this feels very shoehorned in, for all the effects it's supposed to have.That point aside, well, it's a pretty fun Discworld book, with the Wizards playing a more prominent role than they have in quite a while, and a few Rincewind appearances to boot. But while there is a plotline running along the Dean moving to a different university to become Archchancellor, and a new rivalry opening for them and Unseen University, the focus isn't really on the wizards, though. It's on the footballers and those around them, an altogether lower-class bunch of people, and your standard Pratchett characters - the outsider with special knowledge and/or abilities that has to be worked into the larger society (Mr. Nutt); the tough and plucky young lady realizing how to place herself in the world (Glenda)... you've seen them before under other names, and likely, you'll see them again.Overall, though, Pratchett gets in some good riffs on fashion, on sporting culture, on academics (oh, Ponder Stibbons... he's really come into his own), and the themes of acceptance into a larger culture that he's worked well on for years. It would be a run of the mill effort, yes, except really, things don't really quite come together neatly, and it's not really satisfying by the time you get to the end. It's close, but it doesn't quite all work out. Which is fine, I suppose. It's still an enjoyable read, and it was better than the previous couple of Discworld books, in my view, but it's no great shakes, particularly by his standards. I'll still pick up the next one, though, of course.
    • 4/5
      I liked it. This book appears to have its share of detractors, in comparison to other Pratchett books I've read. To which I say, the man can't put on his shirt without help these days. Give him a break! And it's a damn sight better than Nation, if you ask me. I'm proud of Terry Pratchett, and his resolve to go down fighting. And I'm not sure he's particularly down yet. It's also better than the Rincewind novels, in my opinion. I've never understood the appeal of Rincewind. I liked Glinda and Trev, and Nutt a lot, and always enjoy Vetinari and Ridcully. Hix the necromancer was very funny also. Glinda is certainly of a type: i.e., the same type Tiffany Aching and Agnes/Perdita came from. But it's not a bad type, and if there weren't enough women around who slightly fit the mold, I don't think he would use it so much, or that it would go over so well when he did. Lastly, some less-than-thrilled reviewer I've just read has commented that one of the basic plot points of the novel is that Nutt "is a goblin, which doesn't sit too well with Ankh-Morpork society". He's an orc. If you're going to gripe about a novel, please read it carefully first!
    • 4/5
      The book is great, it's about how Discworld football is played, and about politics, but then again football is politics, short bouts of action with long bouts of diplomacy.

      But the quality of the audiobook, left to be desired, parts of a few chapters seem to be missing and the audioquality was subpar, and it left a feeling that this was not a legitimate copy of the audiobook.
    • 4/5
      Lovely! The Wodehousian flair is neat, careful, and totally hilarious!
    • 5/5
      The wizards of Unseen University take their traditions very seriously. But one tradition they have neglected for many years - the annual playing of a traditional game: Foot the Ball. The game has since become a treasured game of the people, outlawed by the Patrician as a violent threat to the public good. Unfortunately, if the wizards do not soon play a game they will lose a very large endowment which could spell the end of the cheese board forever.The unlikely hero of the novel is a young goblin candle dribbler who works in the University basement. He has many secrets and many powerful enemies and has spent his life seeking to gain worth and be peaceful. His new friendship with Trevor Likely, a street scamp and fanatic fan of Foot the Ball will open his world up. I love this book because of how prime a part the wizards and Patrician take in the action. Yet another amazing Discworld novel.
    • 5/5
      Terry Pratchett made life worth living. His Discworld series takes philosophies, inventions, opera, rock bands, unions, policemen, and so much more, and views them from a different perspective with a brilliant cast of characters. The more time I spend in the UK,, the more familiar I get with his books. The satire is so correct, I can read it multiple times and never tire of it. He was simply the best.
    • 5/5
      Another great Discworld book - and I don't even like football!
    • 5/5
      Ever since I heard about Sir Terry Pratchett’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis, I’ve read each new book of his with trepidation, fearing I’d find signs of decline. So far, so good- he hasn’t lost his wit or way with words. But Unseen Academicals *is* different from most of the Discworld books. It doesn’t run at the breakneck pace of most of the Discworld novels. The jokes don’t fly quite as thick and furious. But with this slower pace comes something else: the characters emerge. Normally, characters in Discworld books are sketchy and somewhat caricatureish, made to fit a satirical situation and the satire drives the novel. In this book, while satire is the main thrust, the characters also drive the plot. I found that quite nice. While I adore the Discworld books where the jokes fly fast and thick, I found it interesting to see some backstory to some of the wizards. Normally portrayed as nothing more than incompetent gluttons, in this book we get to see them as people with pasts and relationships. Unseen Academicals takes on soccer (football to everyone but Americans), fashion, and racial and class prejudice. I don’t follow soccer, but reading not long after the World Cup I was able to appreciate a lot of what he’s poking fun at. I would have liked to have seen more of the fashion satire, but perhaps those characters will be back some day. The parts about prejudice and stereotyping is heavy, unusual for a Discworld book, but it’s a subject that’s hard to be lighthearted about. It all works. It may be different, but it’s wonderful.
    • 5/5
      Once of TP's best, which is just astonishing when you know that he had to dictate the entire thing and have it written out by someone else. As funny and witty a look into soccer (football) and fashion modelling as you could want. Yes, the two things go together.
    • 4/5
      It's a book about football in the same way "Sports Night" was a tv show about sports. It offers the same amount of fun, good characters and gags, except Sorkin didn't use wizards and goblins.
    • 4/5
      Unseen Academicals, Terry Pratchett's latest addition to the Discworld series, showcases the author at his best. Funny, smart, and with a keen eye for good characters, Pratchett just seems to get better and better. This audiobook was narrated by Stephen Briggs, and between these two masters, it was the sort of listening experience that makes you wish your commute was longer. Please note that this review contains spoilers.First, the cast. Glenda Sugarbean, cook extraordinaire, manages the Night Kitchen at Unseen University, with some assistance from her slow-witted but very beautiful friend Juliet. Young, streetsmart Trevor Likely runs the candle vats in the belly of the University. Then there's Mr. Nutt, a candle-dribbler at the University who is just trying to gain some worth in people's eyes. Because there is something not quite right about Mr. Nutt, not quite... normal. But no one can quite figure it out, Mr. Nutt least of all.The occasion for the story is football. Football in Ankh-Morpork is a rough sport, as Trevor knows only too well: his father, the famous Dave Likely, died in a match. Each section of the city is fiercely loyal to its team. This, incidentally, sets up Trevor and Juliet, from different parts of town, to be romantic (but rather less poetic) lovers than Shakespeare's star-crossed duo. But the real love story I enjoyed in this tale was Glenda and Nutt. It was so vague at first, I wasn't sure Pratchett was going there, but I was so glad he did. Glenda is one of those characters you just love to be around, and as for Nutt — well, you root for him almost from the moment he walks onto the page. They're perfect together.We have, of course, the usual hilarious scenes among the senior faculty of the University, this time funnier than ever because in order to keep a hefty bequest, they must form a football team and play a match. Yes, the wizards playing a match. It is not to be missed. And then there's the whole dwarf fashion scene, with Juliet becoming a star overnight for modeling the latest dwarfish innovation: micromail (it doesn't chafe, you know). The micromail mastermind, Pepé, is simply hilarious and probably made even better with Briggs's voicing.I do take issue with Pratchett's moral judgments about the Supreme Being (all theoretical, of course, as Pratchett is an atheist). Pratchett here muses, through Lord Vetinari, that if there *is* a God, it is our duty to be morally superior to Him. Because everything wrong about the world is God's fault, not ours. I will never understand a belief system that refuses to believe in God because it judges Him to be reprehensible; it just isn't logical.In any case, theology aside, this is a highly enjoyable story that makes me wonder why it's been so long since I picked up a Pratchett book. Discworld is always fun!
    • 4/5
      The discworld novels are a tried and tested formula which never fail to put a smile on your face. It is like a soap opera which you do not see for a while.....you come back to it and within a few episodes you remember the place and the characters.In this book the wizards of the Unseen University decide they need to put in a football teams for the annual Ankh-Morporks football competition. Not because they want the excercise or the chance of winning but because otherwise they lose a bequest from an old wizard and cannot afford all the cheeses on the cheeseboard!!!At the same time the leader of Ankh-Morpork decides to try and re-invent football to be a better sport which he can control and a mysterious old trophy appears in the local museum. But will the locals support the changes? Or are they more likely to try kicking the wizards into submission?A nice read....no real storyline but lots of harmless fun. Makes me want to dust offf the old copies of the Discworld novels to read in 2011.
    • 5/5
      I was concrnd about how Pratchett's sharp humor and use of footnotes would translate in an audio book. I found it to retain all of its hilarity and the narrrator's character voices are very well-done indeed.
    • 3/5
      Fine, but no where near as good as Pratchett usually is. Some plot points never went anywhere, the wizards were far more powerful than usual, Vetinari spent a rather prodigious amount of time talking out loud, and the new characters all felt like retreads of old one. Still, quite funny and with a good heart to it.
    • 5/5
      Terry Pratchett is amazing. Period. I have loved all of his books in both written and audio forms. My ONLY issue is that I really do not like Stephen Baxter's narrative abilities. He irritates the bejeezus out of me. Nigel Planer was far better a choice. However, back to Sir Pratchett ... bloody brilliant writing, dryly wicked sense of the ridiculous and a stellar way of poking fun at everyone equally. Vimes and the gang are probably my favorite characters (though the luggage is pretty sweet, too) and I feel almost like a proud mom as I have watched them grow throughout the years. I restart the series every year and listen to them or read them (sometimes both) in order from start to finish. There really isn't another series out there that can even come close to their brilliance.
    • 5/5
      Once of TP's best, which is just astonishing when you know that he had to dictate the entire thing and have it written out by someone else. As funny and witty a look into soccer (football) and fashion modelling as you could want. Yes, the two things go together.
    • 5/5
      Terry Pratchett does it again, what a theatrical look at a social situation in many angles.
    • 4/5
      It brings in several new characters that are pretty nicely done. Also has the most references to previous books of any of them, so likely shouldn't do this one first
    • 4/5
      Every time I start reading a Pratchett, I always ask myself why?  Then I get 20 pages or so in, and ahhh, yes, that's why.  MT asked me what about his writing made the beginning such an obvious struggle when I end up laughing myself stupid through the rest, and I think - for this book at least - it's because he starts with so many random bits.  I never quite know where he's headed or what's necessarily important, and it makes my brain ache.But it's generally worth the ache, as it was with this one.  Unseen Academicals, even though it's about football, or foot-the-ball, as it's known in Ankh Morpork, and soccer everywhere outside Europe and the UK, was possibly the ... earthiest, in terms of humor and innuendo, of all the Pratchett's I've read so far.  It was hilarious, and there were a few parts about the football that I had to read to MT.  Pratchett nails both the lunacy, and I suppose, the community of fanatical sports.Underneath all that though, were rather endearing stories about 4 different people who start out only tangentially acquainted through work (although Glenda and Julia grew up together), but who come together to help the Unseen University build a football team, and consequently find their dreams.This felt like a very sympathetic, dare I say, romantic?, Pratchett, and it was one of the few where I became invested in the characters' outcomes.  Oddly, I'm not sure how I feel about Mr. Nutt's resolution.  I think I'd have liked his ending more if Pratchett hadn't turned him into a future hero.  Regardless, he was my favourite of the four.  The wizards got all the best lines, though.When I started, I feared it was going to take me an age to finish, but once I got past the randomness and the story coalesced, I really did not want to put it down.I read this for Halloween Bingo 2022's Dark Academia square, as the book takes place entirely at the Unseen University.  It would also work for Gallows Humor, oddly enough, Monsters might work (Mr. Nutt's potential), Spellbound, and Sword & Sorcery.
    • 5/5
      Another wonderful story by Pratchett that manages to turn an ordinary story, this time about foot-the-ball, into a portrait- no, a tapestry (including portraits of such wonderful people as Mr. Nutt, Glenda, and Trev Likely)- that illustrates the problems and brilliant problem solving of mankind.
    • 5/5
      Satirical, humorous and very fantastic novel on a mix of seemingly unrelated topics such as: football, academia, race identity and others. Main characters have a lovely dynamic and the story has many twists. Aspects of the themes are exaggerated with hilarious results and consequences for interaction with the other themes. Wonderful ability to talk and describe potentially sensitive and complex topics (like violence) in a way that makes them part of the story, without enforcing apriori a judgment and without expecting too much of the story, only to be amazed when things can turn a better than expected.
    • 3/5
      I wanted to like this book but it is incredibly uneven. Several plot elements start and go nowhere, like the entire plot element about the modeling and the garment districts. Some of the new characters (Juliet and Trev Likely) are uninteresting and unsympathetic. The character of Pepe didn't make any sense. The actual football match feels bolted on to a story that cannot seem to find its footing.

      That is not to say it is all bad. The addition of Dr. Hix, head of Post-Mortem Communications, was an excellent addition to the Wizarding Cast. Anything with Mustrum Ridcully is rife with pure Discworld goodness. The new character of Mister Nutt as the poorly named Orc with a penchant for literature and "talking like a nob" is a complete delight.

      Thankfully, the book is mostly Ridcully and Nutt and, for reading Discworld banter, it definitely has its moments. But if you need classic Discworld, I recommend the other new city books, the Truth, Going Postal and Making Money over Unseen Academicals.
    • 2/5
      Pretty poor - perhaps another half star. Football isn't my thing but the problem was that it didn't contribute to the discworld mythology or to insights into human nature, and wasn't very funny either. Better to re-read one of his better ones I think.