The Carpet People

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The Carpet People is a comic fantasy book by British writer Terry Pratchett. It was first published in 1971 when Pratchett was 17 years old, and he later rewrote it for a 1992 edition. In the author’s note for the revised edition, Pratchett joked that “This book had two authors, and they were both the same person.”

The story mixes humor with big ideas like war, death, and religion, a style Pratchett would use in his later Discworld books. Before Discworld, he explored the idea of flat worlds, first in this novel and then in Strata. The Carpet People follows a civilization that has bureaucrats, taxes, and permits, and it shows how people who love tradition clash with those who want new ideas. In the end, both sides must cooperate to save their shared world.