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I just bought: Dodger Monstrous Regiment x 2 Thief of Time Hogfather Making Money I Shall Wear Midnight Carpe Jugulum Thud Night Watch Wintersmith The Truth Going Postal The 5th Elephant Science of Discworld 2: The Globe In hardback, good condition, for a quid each. I've offered them to folk at work, but any left by the end of the day are available to the thread at a quid each + shipping. Edit: Going Postal taken
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Feb 3, 2015 14:21
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If I've only ever read Good Omens (and enjoyed it thoroughly) and want to read a Discworld entry without having to know all the lore from the rest, what's a good single one to check out? I heard Small Gods and The Last Hero were good for that sort of stuff, is it true and if not what is?
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Feb 3, 2015 18:49
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Sanford posted:I just bought: I'll buy The Truth off you for a quid.
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Feb 3, 2015 18:53
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Alvarez IV posted:If I've only ever read Good Omens (and enjoyed it thoroughly) and want to read a Discworld entry without having to know all the lore from the rest, what's a good single one to check out? I heard Small Gods and The Last Hero were good for that sort of stuff, is it true and if not what is? Most of them are fairly stand alone as you can say read Night Watch and the inner monologues of Sam Vimes sort of explain some of the history and background. If you literally want a novel including characters you pretty much only see once then Small Gods is probably the best bet.
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Feb 3, 2015 18:56
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Alvarez IV posted:If I've only ever read Good Omens (and enjoyed it thoroughly) and want to read a Discworld entry without having to know all the lore from the rest, what's a good single one to check out? I heard Small Gods and The Last Hero were good for that sort of stuff, is it true and if not what is? Small Gods, Guards Guards, Men at Arms, or maybe Witches Abroad. My personal recommendation is probably Men at Arms, because I like the Guard the best.
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Feb 3, 2015 19:43
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I think Going Postal makes for a good stand-alone novel. Also it has chapters to help ease you into the Pratchett Experience. Also, the Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents may be "for younger readers" but it is no less excellent for it.
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Feb 3, 2015 20:35
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Monstrous Regiment is a good novel but it's a pretty terrible Discworld novel. It should have been a standalone, and practically is. I've been trying to finish Unseen Academicals for over a year. It is really hard to concentrate on, almost as if the guy who wrote it was losing his mind. 
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Feb 3, 2015 23:07
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I didn't really see anything wrong with Unseen Academicals except that it relied much more heavily on references to football and British culture that won't be familiar to people who don't live in the UK, and also that it wasn't Going Postal and therefore not the best.
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Feb 4, 2015 01:49
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(I was going to say Thud! was the best once, but on rereading it it's astonishing how much less topical it seems today than it did at the time.)
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Feb 4, 2015 01:51
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I don't recommend small gods. It's a bit diferent from other discworld books stylistically, and its my least favorite of the series.
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Feb 4, 2015 03:11
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I haven't gotten through Snuff and Unseen Academicals, and haven't read anything else written by pterry since. Of the previous books, I've read everything 2+ times at least.
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Feb 4, 2015 09:04
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Everyone complains about Unseen Academicals and Snuff, but what about the Tiffany Aching book that came out in between them? Was it better?
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Feb 4, 2015 09:56
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I thought all the Tiffany Aching books were really good. I also really liked Small Gods. It was my intro to Discworld and it's still my favorite next to Thud.
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Feb 4, 2015 10:17
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Small Gods is great. I'm giving Pyramids a second reading and I don't like it as much as I did back in the day.
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Feb 4, 2015 10:23
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Rand Brittain posted:I didn't really see anything wrong with Unseen Academicals except that it relied much more heavily on references to football and British culture that won't be familiar to people who don't live in the UK, and also that it wasn't Going Postal and therefore not the best. To be fair though a lot of it does refer to British culture and things. Unless you have lives in the UK and more specifically London some of the jokes you don't appreciate as much. They are still funny, and you can identify with most of the jokes if you're from anywhere which is a testament to his ability as a writer (or commonality of mankind I guess). I mean there are some references about Ankh-Morpork I didn't get until I lived in London (stuff like place names etc). It was quite funny that TP said in an interview he remembered someone telling him once that after reading monstrous regiment their military friend insisted TP must have served in the army, as there was no way anyone who hasn't would have been able to write the novel that well. Then you come here and people are slating it, which I don't really get.
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Feb 4, 2015 10:24
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Kurtofan posted:Small Gods is great. Everything that Pyramids does in Ankh-Morpork is an amazing Discworld story, everything in Djelibeybi is meh in my opinion. In a way it's a shame it was written like that as I think a novel about an assassin graduating would have been fantastic. The only flashes on insight we get into the assassins is that bit in Pyramids and Vetinari in Night Watch. I think a story about the Thieves and the Assassins together would have been good. Some sort of inter-guild power struggle that reflects the class divide between the two organisations (i.e the assassins are all privileged sons and daughters of the rich, the thieves are orphans and the poor).
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Feb 4, 2015 10:28
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Kitchner posted:Everything that Pyramids does in Ankh-Morpork is an amazing Discworld story, everything in Djelibeybi is meh. That's exactly it. I remember enjoying the AM stuff a whole lot and since the action shifted to Djelibeybi I don't really care anymore. Which is better between Witches Abroad and Lords and Ladies? Kurtofan fucked around with this message at 10:34 on Feb 4, 2015 |
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Feb 4, 2015 10:30
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Hedrigall posted:Everyone complains about Unseen Academicals and Snuff, but what about the Tiffany Aching book that came out in between them? Was it better? Aching's alright, but it suffers somewhat in that it performs a dramatic swerve on a lot of characters - deliberately so - in the years between the previous book and this one, but he doesn't quite have oomph to portray those personality shifts in an entirely narratively satisfying and convincing way. I think it's the kind of thing that would've shone after another few revisions, but he's said he couldn't really do revisions well at that point.
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Feb 4, 2015 11:03
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Kurtofan posted:That's exactly it. I remember enjoying the AM stuff a whole lot and since the action shifted to Djelibeybi I don't really care anymore. Witches Abroad is the best Witch novel, so is always the right answer.
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Feb 4, 2015 11:31
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MikeJF posted:Aching's alright, but it suffers somewhat in that it performs a dramatic swerve on a lot of characters - deliberately so - in the years between the previous book and this one, but he doesn't quite have oomph to portray those personality shifts in an entirely narratively satisfying and convincing way. I think it's the kind of thing that would've shone after another few revisions, but he's said he couldn't really do revisions well at that point. If only Agnes hadn't evaporated into a fat joke floating away in the wind (despite Lancre women breeding big? eh gently caress it)
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Feb 4, 2015 12:26
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Kurtofan posted:That's exactly it. I remember enjoying the AM stuff a whole lot and since the action shifted to Djelibeybi I don't really care anymore. Witches Abroad is amazing as it provides great insight into both the individual personalities of the witches and how witch "magic" works (or doesn't work). Lords and Ladies is good, but not nearly as good as Witches Abroad which in my opinion is one of the top 5 discworld novels.
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Feb 4, 2015 12:34
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Jedit posted:Witches Abroad is the best Witch novel, so is always the right answer. Lords & Ladies has a better story, IMO. Witches Abroad has more directly funny moments, but Lords & Ladies has had more re-reads, over the years.
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Feb 4, 2015 12:50
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The last third of Witches Abroad is brilliant but it takes a long time getting there. I think Carpe Jugulum is the best of the witches books.
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Feb 4, 2015 13:09
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Kitchner posted:It was quite funny that TP said in an interview he remembered someone telling him once that after reading monstrous regiment their military friend insisted TP must have served in the army, as there was no way anyone who hasn't would have been able to write the novel that well. Then you come here and people are slating it, which I don't really get. I know quite a few people who aren't really into the Watch series because they're not really into (They're wrong, of course, but...)
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Feb 4, 2015 13:14
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Trin Tragula posted:I know quite a few people who aren't really into the Watch series because they're not really into Most of the watch novels aren't really whodunnit crime novels though. I mean if you look at them: Guards! Guards! - The dragon is the main antagonist and Wonse is named as the person who summoned him early on. Men-at-arms - There are two antagonists really one of which is named pretty much straight away. There's a twist which is pretty good but you could get rid of the twist and the novel will still end up the same way. Feet of Clay - This one is actually the most whodunnit of all the novels I feel as there's a murder and they spend the entire book figuring it out. Jingo - The exact person who committed the attempted assassination is found pretty early and then there's some mystery as to who ordered it, but really the story is about the war. The Fifth Element - Wolfgang is introduced and labeled as the antagonist pretty much straight away Night Watch - You're literally told Carcer stabbed a watchman to death in the first 10 pages or so and he's the antagonist of the story. Thud! - You find out not even half way into the novel that the murder was done by a dwarf and then those same people kill others as the novel processes. So I guess this is a murder mystery for a while. Snuff - I guess that it's a mystery who did the crime but it's also a mystery as to what the crime actually is as Vines doesn't find anything out like that until half way into the book. When he does find out pretty much who did it is revealed straight away. So yeah I can get why they wouldn't like it, but the watch novels aren't really detective stories imo so if that's what you hope for when you read them that's why they feel let down.
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Feb 4, 2015 14:17
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Jedit posted:Witches Abroad is the best Witch novel, so is always the right answer. Kitchner posted:Witches Abroad is amazing as it provides great insight into both the individual personalities of the witches and how witch "magic" works (or doesn't work). So excited that Witches Abroad is next in my Discworld queue. I absolutely love Granny and Nanny, and Wyrd Sisters, so far, was the novel that made me laugh out loud more than any other Discworld, easily. That book was hilarious. So yeah, really looking forward to Witches Abroad, I think I'll read it after I finish the Malazan book I'm reading right now to decompress a bit before I start the next book in that series. In fact the next 4 books in my Discworld reading queue are, from what I've heard in this thread and everywhere else, a solid power row of awesome Discworlds. Witches Abroad, Small Gods, Lords and Ladies, and Men at Arms. Really looking forward to all of them, especially after the rather meh Sourcery through Moving Pictures. Out of that streak of books I only really loved Wyrd Sisters and Guards! Guards!. The rest in that streak from Sourcery through Moving Pictures, while not bad per se (no Discworld I've read has been truly bad, as of yet, I don't regret reading any of them) weren't as fun as I'd hoped they'd be.
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Feb 4, 2015 14:50
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How's Soul Music? I don't remember anything about this one.
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Feb 4, 2015 15:07
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Damo posted:So excited that Witches Abroad is next in my Discworld queue. I absolutely love Granny and Nanny, and Wyrd Sisters, so far, was the novel that made me laugh out loud more than any other Discworld, easily. That book was hilarious. So yeah, really looking forward to Witches Abroad, I think I'll read it after I finish the Malazan book I'm reading right now to decompress a bit before I start the next book in that series. Men At Arms is where you start meeting all the new Watch recruits, who are all amazing characters  edit: Wait, I totally forgot that Men At Arms had a completely different dwarf character, and you don't meet the best Dwarf (and one of my top 5 characters) until Feet Of Clay. Hedrigall fucked around with this message at 15:23 on Feb 4, 2015 |
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Feb 4, 2015 15:09
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Kurtofan posted:How's Soul Music? I don't remember anything about this one. It's fun, but a lot more fun the more you know about rock music 1957-1975. If you can find the Cosgrove Hall animated series it's quite faithful and the music is decent.
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Feb 4, 2015 15:15
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Damo posted:In fact the next 4 books in my Discworld reading queue are, from what I've heard in this thread and everywhere else, a solid power row of awesome Discworlds. Witches Abroad, Small Gods, Lords and Ladies, and Men at Arms. Small Gods was actually my first Discworld experience, I got it from a library (remember when we had those UK goons!) when I was about 12. I think I must have liked the cover or something. Kurtofan posted:How's Soul Music? I don't remember anything about this one.
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Feb 4, 2015 15:41
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tooterfish posted:Born to Rune. We're on a mission from Glod.
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Feb 4, 2015 15:50
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bondetamp posted:We're on a mission from Glod. Imp y Clelyn (or whatever) means bud of the holly (Buddy Holly?).
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Feb 4, 2015 16:18
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Kitchner posted:Imp y Clelyn (or whatever) means bud of the holly (Buddy Holly?). He looked elvish.
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Feb 4, 2015 16:21
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Soul Music isn't just great music puns though, there's so many pop culture references, especially about movies from the 80s and 90s like Blues Brothers, Back to the Future, Jurassic Park, Terminator, and tons more. It's a total romp.
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Feb 4, 2015 16:29
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Tunicate posted:I don't recommend small gods. It's a bit diferent from other discworld books stylistically, and its my least favorite of the series. Boo this man.
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Feb 4, 2015 16:31
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My favourite line from Soul Music was something like: Rocky was a troll and a drummer, and had therefore rolled a 1 in the game of intellect.
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Feb 4, 2015 16:46
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I can blow anything.
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Feb 4, 2015 16:50
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Rand Brittain posted:I didn't really see anything wrong with Unseen Academicals except that it relied much more heavily on references to football and British culture that won't be familiar to people who don't live in the UK, and also that it wasn't Going Postal and therefore not the best. I like football and was psyched to have a book about both academia and football, but I just couldn't get past the first quarter of the book. 
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Feb 4, 2015 17:11
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Kitchner posted:It was quite funny that TP said in an interview he remembered someone telling him once that after reading monstrous regiment their military friend insisted TP must have served in the army, as there was no way anyone who hasn't would have been able to write the novel that well. Then you come here and people are slating it, which I don't really get. Hedrigall posted:edit: Wait, I totally forgot that Men At Arms had a completely different dwarf character, and you don't meet the best Dwarf (and one of my top 5 characters) until Feet Of Clay. Cheery Littlebottom! It's almost impossible for me not to root for Cheery, because she is not just a really cool Dwarf, but a really cool lady. I feel much the same way about Monstrous Regiment--it's always a fantastic surprise to see such lived-in and painstakingly observed woman characters. This is partly at least because far too many artists of all stripes can barely be said to observe women at all, but I also consider it an example of the empathy a truly good writer must have in order to make something that resonates with others. And that's why I like Monstrous Regiment, thank you for reading
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Feb 4, 2015 17:45
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Kitchner posted:The Fifth Element - Wolfgang is introduced and labeled as the antagonist pretty much straight away The whodunnit part of The Fifth Element is "Who stole the Scone of Stone, why did they steal it and where is it now?" edit: Vimes even remarks that it's a Locked Room mystery, except some bugger left the door unlocked and all the windows open
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Feb 4, 2015 17:54
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