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Imagined posted:I'm reading Interesting Times for the first time right now and by Pratchett standards it feels like there is some pretty cringy stuff in there. Some of it is the orientalism you'd expect, but surprising things that jumped out at me were the centrist boomer stuff about how it's pointless to try to change the system and anyone trying to lead a revolution is just out for their own glory, etc. Interesting Times is tricky for me- I still feel like is the funniest Pratchett, but I'm not sure how much of that is simply residual nostalgia from it being my first discworld book. So much good dialogue! And "your wife is a big hippo," "Tangs, Hongs, Fangs and McSweeneys", urinating dog, "you can't hurt me I'm wearing magic aaargh" and "there he is, get im! Got im? Now kick im inna fork!" were just magic to 12-year-old me.
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Aug 24, 2021 11:48
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The whole "scream for help in 20 languages and just scream in 40 more" gag is classic. Who can forget the tribe who developed a reputation for terrible cruelty because they thought their captives were shouting "Quick! Extra boiling oil!" - which is later referenced when the Agatean Emperor sentences someone to death.
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Aug 24, 2021 12:00
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Also we did a load of psilocybin over the weekend and this bit seemed very significant:quote:Only the other day Adrian Turnipseed had typed in 'Why?' to see what happened. Some of the students had forecast that Hex would go mad trying to work it out; Ponder had expected Hex to produce the message ?????, which it did with depressing frequency. Instead, after some unusual activity among the ants, it had laboriously produced: 'Because.' With everyone else watching from behind a hastily overturned desk, Turnipseed had volunteered: 'Why anything?' The reply had finally turned up: 'Because Everything. ????? Eternal Domain Error. +++++ Redo From Start +++++.'
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Aug 24, 2021 13:13
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Imagined posted:I'm reading Interesting Times for the first time right now and by Pratchett standards it feels like there is some pretty cringy stuff in there. Some of it is the orientalism you'd expect, but surprising things that jumped out at me were the centrist boomer stuff about how it's pointless to try to change the system and anyone trying to lead a revolution is just out for their own glory, etc. It felt like Terry was more taking the piss out of revolutionary vanguardism and the sort of mindset where you kill off all the sparrows you can find only to be surprised that the next year you're up to your knees in locusts.
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Aug 24, 2021 13:49
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citybeatnik posted:It felt like Terry was more taking the piss out of revolutionary vanguardism and the sort of mindset where you kill off all the sparrows you can find only to be surprised that the next year you're up to your knees in locusts.
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Aug 24, 2021 15:05
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The thing about Rincewind that doesn't make sense is that in later books he's talked about like he has some kind of innate talent for cowardice and survival, but in the first two Discworld books this is only a side effect of the 8th spell of the Octavo having residence in his head. The spell makes sure he survives everything, not Rincewind. But once the spell is out of his head, he somehow retains this seemingly magical knack.Old Kentucky Shark posted:Yes. Also, it's not like the books have ever depicted Rincewind as being correct; he's the voice of cynicism, not the voice of reason. The counterpoint to Rincewind's anti-revolutionary rhetoric and Two Fire Herb's false bravado is Twoflower, whose quiet, long-suffering revolution ultimately succeeds by the end of the book. I dunno, a lot of the stuff Rincewind says sound very much like Pratchett's voice and are consistent with other things he has to say about politics and human nature in this and other books.
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Aug 24, 2021 15:22
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Imagined posted:The thing about Rincewind that doesn't make sense is that in later books he's talked about like he has some kind of innate talent for cowardice and survival, but in the first two Discworld books this is only a side effect of the 8th spell of the Octavo having residence in his head. The spell makes sure he survives everything, not Rincewind. But once the spell is out of his head, he somehow retains this seemingly magical knack. The Great Spells are sentient, remember. It's not unreasonable to think that he not only learned the Spell, but he also learned from it.
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Aug 24, 2021 16:04
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The Octavio keeps him from dying from falling over the edge of the Disc but he doesn't *know* that he'd survive. It does not keep him from being hit over the head with a kosh or otherwise being made to go through some very uncomfortable situations. Rincewind got very good at running away from things as much from the latter as the former due to having to make do in AM back when the Broken Drum's bar fights weren't about scoring points.
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Aug 24, 2021 16:09
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so i tend to read in character order, and while i've softened on it a bit the progression between Interesting Times, in my opinion a very good book that unfortunately felt overeager in places to be directly critical of the intended subject of the satire sometimes to the point of being a little uncomfortable, to Last Continent, not as good a book and more or less a mid 90s australian tourism brochure with Rincewind in it is sharp. i feel like if he'd split the difference a bit and made something slightly less critical in IT and more in TLC they'd both be better books.
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Aug 24, 2021 16:16
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Does anyone have any updates on the Wee Free Men movie? The last news I've seen from 2016 is that it's in pre-production with the Jim Henson Company and Rihanna was involved with the writing. Any tweets or anything?
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Aug 24, 2021 19:21
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Tree Bucket posted:Interesting Times is tricky for me- I still feel like is the funniest Pratchett, but I'm not sure how much of that is simply residual nostalgia from it being my first discworld book. So much good dialogue! And "your wife is a big hippo," "Tangs, Hongs, Fangs and McSweeneys", urinating dog, "you can't hurt me I'm wearing magic aaargh" and "there he is, get im! Got im? Now kick im inna fork!" were just magic to 12-year-old me. I love that any time someone goes "McSweeneys?" the answer is just "Very old, established family". Which is not an answer at all.
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Aug 25, 2021 17:10
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Jedit posted:It's overlooked because Rincewind turned into comic relief. In the early books he's portrayed as seeking to avoid fights at all costs but knowing a lot about dirty fighting if he's cornered. He's also sexually active, although you can understand why that disappears after Sourcery. But that's the point where he becomes a one-note character existing only to run from one joke to the next. It came up less often, but the series never actually forgot how dangerous Rincewind can be if given a good enough reason. Unseen Academicals posted:The older members of the faculty exhaled as the two heads left. Most of
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Aug 26, 2021 09:04
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Stroth posted:It came up less often, but the series never actually forgot how dangerous Rincewind can be if given a good enough reason.
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Aug 26, 2021 09:50
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Xander77 posted:This is so bad. No, it’s fine.
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Aug 26, 2021 10:32
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Inelegant.
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Aug 29, 2021 00:18
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Yeah, this was an issue with the later Pratchett books -- the constant overstatement like this that would have been fixed in the editing in earlier years. I remember being annoyed by some of the Watch stuff in Monstrous Regiment for the same reason, Angua specifically winking at Vimes and saying "Oh ho, so we're not really intercepting the Times' messages" when their characters would have left most of it implied and unsaid.
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Aug 29, 2021 04:57
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Can we please not have the 27th iteration of "you can tell that the Alzheimers was kicking in"?
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Aug 29, 2021 10:15
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Phenotype posted:Yeah, this was an issue with the later Pratchett books -- the constant overstatement like this that would have been fixed in the editing in earlier years. I remember being annoyed by some of the Watch stuff in Monstrous Regiment for the same reason, Angua specifically winking at Vimes and saying "Oh ho, so we're not really intercepting the Times' messages" when their characters would have left most of it implied and unsaid. yeah, monstrous regiment was a decent book, but it didn't quite click like the previous ones
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Aug 29, 2021 11:35
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ChubbyChecker posted:yeah, monstrous regiment was a decent book, but it didn't quite click like the previous ones Monstrous Regiment is one of his best books.
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Aug 29, 2021 13:10
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:Monstrous Regiment is one of his best books. it has like 80% of one of his best books, then goes completely to poo poo in the finale. still that 80% is very good.
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Aug 29, 2021 14:07
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CoolCab posted:it has like 80% of one of his best books, then goes completely to poo poo in the finale. still that 80% is very good. The finale is the best part.
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Aug 30, 2021 00:45
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Did anyone ever play the Discworld MUD? I'm certainly dating myself, but back in 1995 through about 2002, I absolutely loved it.
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Sep 1, 2021 23:25
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Former Everything posted:Did anyone ever play the Discworld MUD? I'm certainly dating myself, but back in 1995 through about 2002, I absolutely loved it. I have but I stopped about a decade ago because I was spending all my time there. I still log in once a month so, theoretically, I don't lose my player housing. Spent more than a literal year active play time.
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Sep 2, 2021 08:10
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Former Everything posted:Did anyone ever play the Discworld MUD? I'm certainly dating myself, but back in 1995 through about 2002, I absolutely loved it. I did! I was super into MUDs in the 90s and we even developed our own for a while, which ultimately turned into a collection of mean in-jokes about people we didn't like, because we were horrible teenage assholes. I remember the Discworld MUD being fun, but also being full of people who felt super weird even back in the day. When a 17 year old me thinks "dude, you've got some loving weird opinions and attitudes"...
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Sep 2, 2021 08:41
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Former Everything posted:Did anyone ever play the Discworld MUD? I'm certainly dating myself, but back in 1995 through about 2002, I absolutely loved it. I played far too much from 1999-2002, I really enjoyed it.
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Sep 2, 2021 08:57
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Former Everything posted:Did anyone ever play the Discworld MUD? I'm certainly dating myself, but back in 1995 through about 2002, I absolutely loved it. Played it around 1999, killed the LAG more times than I could count, even got married there at one point. Lost interest after a few months though 
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Sep 2, 2021 12:28
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It'd be kinda fun to pick up a MUD in 2021
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Sep 4, 2021 06:55
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It's still there. Discworld.imaginary.com
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Sep 4, 2021 07:53
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Yeah that's the great thing about Old Internet poo poo. It often didn't go anywhere, and even if they don't have flashy websites or whatever, you can probably still connect to a lot of them through an SSH terminal session.
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Sep 4, 2021 12:25
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Shaman Tank Spec posted:Yeah that's the great thing about Old Internet poo poo. It often didn't go anywhere, and even if they don't have flashy websites or whatever, you can probably still connect to a lot of them through an SSH terminal session. Flashy websites are the problem really. It's a lot easier to keep a text game written in a program that hasn't changed in twenty years and is probably a couple of megs at most running than something with all the bleeding edge bells and whistles that's huge and needs constant tweaking. 50% chance the server running any given MUD is sitting in someone's living room where it hasn't been touched in at least ten years.
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Sep 4, 2021 23:02
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Discworld MUD has a web client. Edit: in addition to a terminal. Port 4242
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Sep 5, 2021 01:30
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This year is the 30th anniversary of the Discworld MUD, which is terrifying to think about.
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Sep 5, 2021 01:50
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I spent so much time on MUDs and MUSHes as a kid. Maybe I should try the Discworld one.
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Sep 5, 2021 02:12
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The_Doctor posted:This year is the 30th anniversary of the Discworld MUD, which is terrifying to think about. gently caress, now I have to go back.
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Sep 5, 2021 02:14
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I've been reading The Truth and Mr Pin and Mr Tulip really were one of Terry's finest hours.
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Oct 24, 2021 22:27
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-ing right.
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Oct 24, 2021 22:36
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About a year ago I started reading Discworld from the beginning, in order. I've just finished #21, 'Jingo', and I think it's my least favorite yet. Nothing particularly bad about it, it just feels like maybe this is the first one where a long-time reader starts to notice Vimes and Vetinari are starting to suffer a bit of Flanderization, or something. Did have some great jokes about war and the military, though. A true mark of the consistency of quality in the Discworld books, though, is that I must've read a hundred different rankings of the books on the internet over the years, and every single one is WILDLY different. You'll see a book on top of one list and at the bottom of the other. Which means that how much you rate particular ones says more about you than it does about the series. Imagined fucked around with this message at 01:39 on Oct 25, 2021 |
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Oct 25, 2021 01:14
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Jaguars! posted:I've been reading The Truth and Mr Pin and Mr Tulip really were one of Terry's finest hours. Have you seen the BBC Neverwhere series? Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar (The Old Firm) are who Terry was referencing. 
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Oct 25, 2021 02:06
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Liquid Communism posted:Have you seen the BBC Neverwhere series? Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar (The Old Firm) are who Terry was referencing. I once asked him about this, and he said he was referencing a common trope of the ‘smart one, dim one’ criminal pair, of which Croup and Vandemar are also drawn from the same well. The L-Space annotated file says: quote:The characters of Pin and Tulip are somewhat frustrating for Terry in the sense that many, many people feel that they are 'obviously' based on Mr Croup and Mr Vandemar in Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere (who refer to themselves as the Old Firm, and call each other 'Mr'). Or 'obviously' based on the thugs Jules Winfield and Vincent Vega from the 1994 movie Pulp Fiction (and there are a good number of Pulp Fiction references in The Truth). Or obviously based on Mr Wint and Mr Kidd from the James Bond movie Diamonds are Forever. Or obviously based on the two Rons (who called themselves 'The Management') from the BBC Hale and Pace series. Or...
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Oct 25, 2021 06:34
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Imagined posted:About a year ago I started reading Discworld from the beginning, in order. I've just finished #21, 'Jingo', and I think it's my least favorite yet. Nothing particularly bad about it, it just feels like maybe this is the first one where a long-time reader starts to notice Vimes and Vetinari are starting to suffer a bit of Flanderization, or something. Did have some great jokes about war and the military, though. I think that Jingo was the first Discworld book I read. The reason for that was that it was just that one and the Color of Magic that was in stock at the library. It worked out though since some of the characters also appeared in Discworld Noir which I was playing at the time.
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Oct 25, 2021 14:31
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