Strata is another early foray that Pratchett took in to Science Fiction before he rested himself firmly in to the loving arms of Fantasy. My views on this one are similar to that of his other sci-fi novel, 
 The Dark Side of the Sun 
 in that it isn't necessarily a good novel, let alone a good sci-fi story. 
 The joy of this one is of course, once again, the fact that it pre-empts the Discworld so wonderfully. You can clearly see PTerry's mind cogs whirring and the imagination is startling. However, he isn't particularly adept at writing sci-fi: again, we have stuttering explanations and quite shoddy sci-fi elements where it feels like he was truly excited by this piece of technology but half-way through telling us about it he got a bit fed up. 
 The characters are similarly developed than in The Dark Side of the Sun, but there seems an edge to them here that you don't see in that one, but you do see in Discworld. We also have the wonderful camaraderie of a cosmopolitan world. The Disc has no aliens, but they all seem alien even on such a small world. 
 Again, I'd suggest you don't read this is you're not a fan of Terry Pratchett or obscure sci-fi. It's a little hard to swallow due to it's stuttering nature, but the imagination is undeniable. It's such a great thing to read if you love Discworld because here it is, set down at it's earliest incarnation and that is very exciting. 
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