Unseen Academicals

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Listen to a sample

What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

The audiobook of Unseen Academicals is read by Colin Morgan (Merlin; Testament of Youth; Belfast). BAFTA and Golden Globe award-winning actor Bill Nighy (Love Actually; Pirates of the Caribbean; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) reads the footnotes, and Peter Serafinowicz (Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace; Shaun of the Dead) stars as the voice of Death. Featuring a new theme tune composed by James Hannigan.

'We play and are played and the best we can hope for is to do it with style.'

Football has come to the ancient city of Ankh-Morpork. And now the wizards of Unseen University must win a football match without using magic . . . so they're in the mood for trying everything else.

To do so, they recruit an unlikely group of players: Trev, a street urchin with a talent for kicking a tin can; Glenda, the night chef who makes a mean pie; Juliet, the kitchen hand turned world's greatest fashion model; and the mysterious Mr Nutt, who has something powerful, and dark, locked away inside him . . .

And the thing about football - the important thing about football - is that it is not just about football. Here we go, here we go, here we go!

Unseen Academicals is the seventh book in the Wizards series, but you can listen to the Discworld novels in any order.

The first book in the Discworld series - The Colour of Magic - was published in 1983. Some elements of the Discworld universe may reflect this.

'This isn't just football, it's Discworld football. Or, to borrow another phrase, it's about life, the Universe and everything' The Times

'No one mixes the fantastical and mundane to better comic effect' Daily Mail

© Terry and Lyn Pratchett 2009 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

Critics Review

  • This is the 37th in a body of work so vast that it has spawned its own concordance, yet the quality remains as high as ever and the laughs as plentiful…Like all the Discworld novels, Unseen Academicals rewards a second reading. As ever it is peppered with allusions, from Keats to the Lewinsky affair, but, like Wodehouse, Pratchett wears his learning lightly and the pleasure of rereading is in teasing them out.

    Telegraph

  • Mention comic fantasy and Terry Pratchett is the first name that comes to mind…behind the fantasy Terry Pratchett looks at very real contemporary issues and scores many goals. This isn’t just football, it’s Discworld football. Or, to borrow another phrase, it’s about life, the Universe, and everything.

    The Times

  • The subject matter is football, with a dash of Romeo and Juliet thown in…exactly what’s needed to cheer us all up in the autumnal gloom. Terry has lost none of his ability to raise a laugh…I’ll wager there are a few more books in him yet.

    Daily Express

  • We doubt whether Pratchett gives a fig about 22 men kicking a bag of wind,but he’s ever fascinated by people,our vagaries, our vanities and our triumphs. And, when all’s said and done, football is all about us, wherever we sit in society. In case you hadn’t already guessed, the man of the match award goes, not for the first time, to Sir Terry Pratchett.

    SFX

  • Satirical, historical, fantastical and irresistible.

    Daily Mail

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