To celebrate the release of Terry Pratchett's 37th Discworld novel, "Unseen Academicals," Harper-Collins has placed the first Discworld book online for free.

The Colour of Magic introduces the Discworld as we know it, with Rincewind the "wizzard" shepherding about the Disc's first tourist and his homicidal luggage. It's much more obviously a parody of fantasy novels than the later, more satirical books became, but the style and hilarity are there in big lumps.

"Unseen Academicals" is out in hardback, as low as $14.95 at Amazon, although you can get the ebook version for just $9.99 at Barnes & Noble.

Guests will include Discworld author Terry Pratchett himself, Terry's agent Colin Smythe, Jennifer Brehl and Anne Hoppe from Harper-Collins, the cunning artificer Bernard Pearson and his wife Isobel, and fellow authors Diane Duane, Esther Friesner, Peter Morwood.

If you've never encountered Terry at a con, you're in for a treat. Very friendly, very fan-friendly, and instead of staying safely behind an autograph table or in his room he'll walk around talking to people all over the place. To give him a bit of free time, the UK cons have developed an evil twin for him, so be aware of that fellow if you go.

The next Discworld book will be "Unseen Academicals," and is due to come out Oct. 6. And apparently he's taking on sports.

Football has come to the ancient city of Ankh-Morpork — not the old fashioned, grubby pushing and shoving, but the new, fast football with pointy hats for goalposts and balls that go gloing when you drop them. 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.

The prospect of a Big Match draws in a street urchin with a wonderful talent for kicking a tin can, a maker of jolly good pies, a dim but beautiful young woman, who might just turn out to be the greatest fashion model there has ever been, and the mysterious Mr Nutt, who no one knows much about. As the match approaches, four lives are entangled and changed forever.

Because the thing about football – the important thing about football – is that it is not just about football.

Preorder it from Amazon!

More Pratchett stuff: Harper-Collins' Terry Pratchett page, TerryPratchettBooks.com, TerryPratchett.co.uk, The L-Space Web, The Cunning Articer's Discworld Emporium.

Crowley's Resolution #3: Try to come up with something as good as cell phone ringtones, following one last stab at convincing Downstairs that cell phone ringtones are right up there in the whole Human Misery stakes. And iPods. Has anybody Down There even said thank you for iPods? Or "Googling yourself?" Frankly, I deserve some kind of award for "Googling yourself."