The Author’s Preamble
‘Cheap job,’ said the intellectual. ‘Well below the rate. Should be half the kingdom and his daughter’s hand in marriage.’
‘Yes, but he ain’t a king. He’s a Patrician.’
‘Well, half his Patrimony or whatever. What’s his daughter like?’
The assembled hunters didn’t know.
‘He’s not married’ Vimes volunteered. ‘And he hasn’t got a daughter.’
They turned and looked him up and down. He could see disdain in their eyes. They probably got through dozens like him every day. ‘Not got a daughter?’ said one of them. ‘Wants people to kill dragons and he hasn’t got a daughter?’
Vimes felt, in an odd way, that he ought to support the lord of the city. ‘He’s got a little dog that he’s very fond of,’ he said helpfully.
-- “Guards! Guards!” (p148, 15th edition 1990 paperback)
I won’t keep you long. If you’re wondering why I’ve inserted the above extract from one of my favourite “Discworld” books, “Guards! Guards!”, you only have to read the first chapter to find out. I just wanted to let you, the readers, know that the primary purpose of this story is to entertain. It is a cocktail of two different universes from two different mediums - a combination of a well-loved children’s animated film and a widely acclaimed yet inherently adult series of books - “The Lion King” and “Discworld” respectively. It also has sprinklings from a “Discworld” fanfiction series of a good friend of mine, who’s dared to let me use her greatest original character, as well as being the subject of my own personal whims and desires.
It may seem utterly absurd to throw “Discworld” characters into “Lion King” shaped holes, and, to be honest, it is plain absurd. That’s half the charm. This story, made up by giving the plot of “The Lion King” a Morporkian twist, is about impossibilities, about things which should never happen and about characters which should never meet. It’s based on a warped timeline, a completely ridiculous chain of events and the life of an original character crafted from the fibres of both universes.
If you go ahead and take this seriously, you shall only harm yourself. I aim to entertain, definitely not to educate, and I know that, of the “Lion King” and/or “Discworld” groupies out there who are reading this now, I shall never be able to satisfy all of you. Attempting to do so would drive me insane and, as Bill Cosby once said, “I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is to try to please everyone.” And, by heck, is he right. Author’s are selfish people - we write to please ourselves. If we’re lucky, other people like our work. As the storyteller, it is my job to tell you what’s happening, not vice versa. (You wouldn’t believe the amount of people who go around saying ‘you should have done this’ because they think their view is the right one.) If you read something that you think is a mistake or a plot hiccup, it might be - but, then again, this may just be crafted by your perception alone. In a story as free-reigned as this one has turned out to be, it’s hard to go ‘wrong‘; I’m working in a universe where rules have gone on holiday for a while, so I doubt I’ll be breaking any. Unless it threatens the happiness of your existence, please don’t hamper me about so-called errors. I repeat, this is just for fun.
So, on a final note, I send out my most sincere thanks to the crew behind Disney’s wonderful “The Lion King” film, to the ingenious Terry Pratchett and to my generous and talented friend ‘Merc’. They may not thank me in return, but rarely have I had so much fun trying to make one picture out of so many puzzle pieces.
Read it and weep, one might say.
~Grace