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Canuckistan posted:Welp, Terry Pratchet has a "rare form of early onset Alzheimer's". No big deal, they'll have it cured before it causes him too much trouble, right? RIGHT??? This is the century of the fruitbat, isn't it?
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Dec 12, 2007 15:59
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LooseChanj posted:No big deal, they'll have it cured before it causes him too much trouble, right? RIGHT??? This is the century of the fruitbat, isn't it? I know nothing about Alzheimer's except that my Gran died from it, and it was a loving nightmare. Still, at least he won't be short of cash for any treatments they might come up with. (I suppose the thread title might have to change at some point in the future.)
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Dec 12, 2007 16:18
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Seriously, gently caress that disease. He's going to carry on writing books if I have to cure the motherfucker myself.
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Dec 12, 2007 17:25
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poo poo. That's the worst disease ever.
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Dec 12, 2007 18:24
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Yeah, Hogfather is only 19.99 at Borders, I picked it up the other day and only been able to watch part of the first half but so far it's been a really good adaptation. I'm sure someone who has no idea what Discworld is wouldn't enjoy it as much but I think it's great.
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Dec 12, 2007 18:24
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gently caress. gently caress fuckity friggety jiggity jib jabbery wabbery flappity happity gently caress. And he's being so nice about it. He even did the smiley thing. Argh, gently caress it, someone shrink me down. I'm going into his brain to beat up this disease.
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Dec 12, 2007 18:33
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gently caress you Alzheimers. gently caress YOU! Seriously, as someone who grew up reading Pratchett, this is really sad for me. 
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Dec 12, 2007 22:52
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LooseChanj posted:No big deal, they'll have it cured before it causes him too much trouble, right? RIGHT??? This is the century of the fruitbat, isn't it? That's it Goons, we're curing this ourselves. This is horrible though, some of the worst news I've heard in a long while. Here's hoping that he can get at least another 15 years though.
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Dec 13, 2007 02:23
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drat. And I was having such a good day until I read this.  Who here is willing to follow in the steps of Robert Jarvik and giving up what they're doing to find a cure for Alzheimer's?
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Dec 13, 2007 02:49
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Oh no. 
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Dec 13, 2007 02:50
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gently caress you, God.
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Dec 13, 2007 05:32
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I just woken up with a horrible hangover and now I get this news. I am so utterly depressed. I'm going to have to make sure I go to the dwcon next year now as well.
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Dec 14, 2007 12:45
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Pope Guilty posted:gently caress you, God. your user name and what you said put me in mind of a certain emoticon 
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Dec 15, 2007 22:30
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Sucks about the alzheimers I started reading Discworld with Interesting Times, and loved it, and then moved on to reading everything I could. The only book I truly cannot read is Witches Abroad, I just cant get into it at all. Like most people the Watch books are my favourites, love Jingo and Night Watch.
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Dec 16, 2007 04:03
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Nilbop posted:gently caress. gently caress fuckity friggety jiggity jib jabbery wabbery flappity happity gently caress. Honey, I Shrunk The Goons! I read this on Fark and was wondering how long it'd take you guys to put out the notice. I'm rather pissed that we won't be getting many more books, but sad for Prachett too because my stepfather has Alzheimer's and it's horrible. It's a good way to drive their caretakers insane (and poor).
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Dec 16, 2007 07:22
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KTS posted:Sucks about the alzheimers It takes a while, but once they reach Transylvania it becomes a lot more interesting.
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Dec 16, 2007 08:11
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I started reading my first Discworld book a few days ago. It was, not by chance, the first one. I picked up both The Color of Magic and Guards! Guards! at the same time, thinking that if I didn't like the former all that much, I'd jump straight to the latter, since it seems to be a favorite. I just finished TCOM at a cafe though, and I loved it. I've decided to read the books in order of publication because that way the arcs are conveniently broken up to avoid monotony. On my way home I purchased The Light Fantastic and Equal Rites so I will have reading material while I'm waiting for planes to take off and then sitting inside them while I travel south for the holidays. I've really wanted to read some of Pratchett's stuff for quite a while, and when I heard about him being diagnosed I couldn't help but finally start. It really is sad that such and active and clever mind will go through that. Anyway, the real reason I'm posting is to link a 60 minute video of him speaking at a Barnes & Noble in NYC. I'm only a few minutes in, but it seems worth watching. I'm not sure when it was filmed but he discusses his stroke at the beginning. It is really, in a huge and magical way, sad to hear him find humor in everything, even his body dying without him really knowing about it. He seems like an amazing person. Here you go: http://media.barnesandnoble.com/index.jsp?fr_story=66ea36effacb12f8d42a1294411c2b525c7706bf Does anyone know why he is wearing a glove on his left hand? EDIT: Someone asks about this in the video! Totally Huge fucked around with this message at 01:33 on Dec 21, 2007 |
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Dec 21, 2007 01:15
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 Haha, is that George R. R. Martin there incognito?
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Dec 21, 2007 01:47
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Chaglby posted:
I didn't like Light Fantastic or Equal Rites all that much, but I loved the Color of Magic.
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Dec 21, 2007 01:59
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I'm reading the discworld novels in order, but not all in a row. I mean, I'll read other stuff inbetween. I just started Hogfather, which I find to be a pretty amusing coincidence, since I didn't really plan it. Much.
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Dec 25, 2007 04:28
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Ah hell, I got 15 minutes in and rated the video, praying it wouldn't restart the video. I got my wish, because now it's saying the site is temporarily unavailable.  Just when it was getting good.
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Dec 25, 2007 05:59
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Keshik posted:I got teary eyed when Anghammarad died. The golems always get me. The part from Feet of Clay with Dorfl's last words, when dying, WORDS IN THE HEART CANNOT BE TAKEN, gets me every drat time. Feet of Clay really is one of his best philosophical works - you can see Pratchett's humanism and sense of social responsibility really show through there. And I really liked how he linked the rejection of the idea of kings with the rejection of the idea of, well, God. There is no THOU SHALT or THOU SHALT NOT. There's only I WILL or I WILL NOT. He's caught his problem early and he's got time yet. He's not dead, as Neil Gaiman pointed out.
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Dec 28, 2007 16:56
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Spiny Norman posted:The golems always get me. The part from Feet of Clay with Dorfl's last words, when dying, WORDS IN THE HEART CANNOT BE TAKEN, gets me every drat time. Feet of Clay really is one of his best philosophical works - you can see Pratchett's humanism and sense of social responsibility really show through there. And I really liked how he linked the rejection of the idea of kings with the rejection of the idea of, well, God. With you 100% on that one; fantastic stuff. I also liked the clever foreshadowing when Vimes reads Old Stoneface's journal. Spoilered because, well, it foreshadows something... In the fires of struggle we shall bake new men, who will not heed the old lies One of the things that struck me about the Golems in the Discworld books is the terrible fates of those that have not been given to themselves. The people regard the Golems as nothing more than machines. But they are much more than that; not only sentient, but *sapient* also. The words in their head give them life initially, but they are also chains that shackle them. The Golems that have died in the books clearly *welcomed* death, because at last they were truly free.
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Dec 28, 2007 17:07
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Spiny Norman posted:The golems always get me. The part from Feet of Clay with Dorfl's last words, when dying, WORDS IN THE HEART CANNOT BE TAKEN, gets me every drat time. Feet of Clay really is one of his best philosophical works - you can see Pratchett's humanism and sense of social responsibility really show through there. And I really liked how he linked the rejection of the idea of kings with the rejection of the idea of, well, God. I absolutely love when Pratchett waxes philosophical in his work, especially with the Golems. I was forty pages into a different book and I dropped it and picked up Feet of Clay upon reading this.
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Jan 3, 2008 10:21
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My favorite one of his is probably from Small Gods where Pratchett tells the story of how the religion of Om came to be after a Shepard lost one of his sheep and made a little shrine out of stones where he found it again. The whole story ends with the comment that just a few hills away, there was a goat herder who just by chance didn't have the incident happen to them and the quote "Because sheep are stupid and need to be driven, but goats are intelligent and need to be lead"
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Jan 4, 2008 01:30
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God, this is terrible news. Terry Pratchett is my all time favorite author, and it's really sad that he has this problem. My grandfather had the same thing, and although he lived for a very long time, he got really strange near the end. Luckily, they've seemed to have diagnosed it early, so hopefully he'll be able to get all the treatment he needs. What I love about the golems is that without the words, they are really nothing more than machines, which insinuates that without our thoughts and ideas, humans aren't anything more than animals. Nothing, not the universe, God, or history, is as important as the words we hold in our heads and hearts.
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Jan 4, 2008 15:51
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Damnit, I've been thinking more about this whole thing. I'm lucky in that most of my other favorite authors were dead before I was born or at least before I learned to read. It'd be a lot easier to cope with Pratchett's imminent retirement if he just decided one day to stop writing and go off to Sri Lanka to be immortal, like Arthur C Clarke.
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Jan 4, 2008 17:36
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It'd be even better if there were some new hot-shot author with a similar flair like Pratchett's. Much like how Douglas Adams' descent into ... something was made easier by Terry.
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Jan 10, 2008 01:01
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Nilbop posted:It'd be even better if there were some new hot-shot author with a similar flair like Pratchett's. Much like how Douglas Adams' descent into ... something was made easier by Terry. Heart attack. It was a quick descent? It's a shame but this thread now has "40 page monolithic antemortem obituary" written all over it. On a lighter note, I'm in the middle of Hogfather, and I can't help but giggle like a moron everytime someone says something like "MELON MELON MELON" or "Here comes Mr. Jelly". Also "Cannot Divide by Cucumber" was good.
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Jan 13, 2008 09:09
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Moist von Lipwig posted:Heart attack. It was a quick descent? It's a shame but this thread now has "40 page monolithic antemortem obituary" written all over it. I'm not a big fan of Hogfather, but, "The Little Matchstick Girl," bit in there gave me a smile, for pointing out the ridiculous horribleness of the original story.
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Jan 13, 2008 09:51
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Moist von Lipwig posted:Heart attack. It was a quick descent? I think they were referring to the descent in quality of Adams' writing. Mostly Harmless really was an amazingly depressing piece of business, made all the worse because the Dirk Gently books were incredibly and showed a maturity that Hitchhiker's books never really got around to. I loved Douglas Adams as a kid, but honestly, once I found Pratchett I never looked back (much how Adams himself had replaced my affection for Robert Asprin).
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Jan 13, 2008 10:41
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That was pretty much it, yeah. The last Hitchiker's book Adams wrote was essentially "and now all the characters are dead forever, so move the gently caress on and let me drown my sorrows." I can't remember what exactly he was depressed about, but he eventually got over it and regretted his decision.
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Jan 13, 2008 16:23
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Just finished Jingo. It's funny how the runup to pretty much any war looks almost exactly the same, and absolutely insane to those who aren't Hawks or the Mob. I know I was definitely thinking "Iraq" quite a bit, not to mention Iran. The point is really the same, sell it to the people by whipping them into a frenzy about how depraved and inhuman your enemy is.
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Jan 13, 2008 19:43
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If you've ever seen something like Sharpe on TV, you'd be amazed at the similarities.
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Jan 13, 2008 20:46
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precision posted:I think they were referring to the descent in quality of Adams' writing. Mostly Harmless really was an amazingly depressing piece of business, made all the worse because the Dirk Gently books were incredibly and showed a maturity that Hitchhiker's books never really got around to. Ah, this I can agree with wholeheartedly. Mostly Harmless was not only horrible, I could feel the spite shooting out from the page into my eyes. It was like a nice personal spit-in-the-face to every HHG fan.
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Jan 15, 2008 08:21
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LooseChanj posted:Just finished Jingo. It's funny how the runup to pretty much any war looks almost exactly the same, and absolutely insane to those who aren't Hawks or the Mob. I know I was definitely thinking "Iraq" quite a bit, not to mention Iran. The point is really the same, sell it to the people by whipping them into a frenzy about how depraved and inhuman your enemy is. The thing is that the those in power weren't in favor of the war, it was the common people agitating for a fight. Vetinari & Vimes, the two most powerful figures in AM politics, were against the war. The rabble roused itself, and all without the benefit of a free press. The only person of note in favor of the war was Rust, and he wasn't articulate enough to go out and giving a rousing St. Crispins Day style speech himself. It was the pretty much the salt of the Disc, hard-working, golem, dwarf, and troll hating folks that actually wanted the war. thrakkorzog fucked around with this message at 09:21 on Jan 15, 2008 |
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Jan 15, 2008 08:47
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thrakkorzog posted:The thing is that the those in power weren't in favor of the war, it was the common people agitating for a fight. Vetinari & Vimes, the two most powerful figures in AM politics, were against the war. The rabble roused itself, and all without the benefit of a free press. Well, there was high-level agitation, just not on the AM side. One aspect of the book that always seems topical is that, if you recall, the Klatchian leader was seeking to engineer a war with Ankh-Morpork - the war would, in principle, be easy to win and would also be a political tool with which he could unite the Klatchian hegemony against a common enemy. It would cement that leader's power, and in victory increase his popularity. Such an endeavour would also send a message to the other nations around the Circle Sea. Vetinari's resolution to the affair was doubly effective. He didn't just diffuse the war by surrender with appropriate conditions; when Leshp sank it was a tremendous loss of face for the Klatchian leader - his credibility completely undermined, he was forced to step down. Edit: None of that in any way counters what you say, of course - it was still the 'man on the street', in all his conservative, nationalistic, mobbish glory, that provided the momentum to keep the crisis escalating. magimix fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Jan 15, 2008 |
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Jan 15, 2008 11:13
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thrakkorzog posted:The thing is that the those in power weren't in favor of the war, it was the common people agitating for a fight. Vetinari & Vimes, the two most powerful figures in AM politics, were against the war. The rabble roused itself, and all without the benefit of a free press. I saw it pretty much the opposite, funnily enough. The two father and son duos, Les and his dad and ... Ach ... med .. dul, both disliked each other based mostly on pubspeak ("oh well he is, isn't he? He's forrin") but despite all their yelling and yahoing not only do they not actually fight, they both live on the same little bit of Leshp for a while. The ruling elite of both Ankh and Al Khali both very much wanted the war. The Patrician himself makes it very clear that he only stays in power by playing the big players off each other, and he still has to cowtow to their decisions in situations as highly emotional as this one, which is why Rust and his fellow idiots ended up leading the army of Ankh and not Vetinari. The Prince, who's name I've currently forgotten but am almost sure it begins with a C, is even more lead around by his viziers, despite having a firm head on his shoulders. Anytime we inevitably get a mention of the grunts their opinions tend to be, at the best, mixed, with one saying "Oho! There may be ten times the amount of us in sandal-riding-towel-wearing angry forriner over there, but once we give them a taste of cold Ankh steel I 'spect they'll soon be for it." and the other all "oh god oh god must panic no time for punctuati." I'll agree that it was initially the mob who raised the momentum for this (as actually tends to happen in all the City books) but without the call to arms of Lord Rust and Grand Vizier Whosits I think we're meant to see it would all have fizzled away anyhow.
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Jan 15, 2008 18:23
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Nilbop posted:I saw it pretty much the opposite, funnily enough. As for the folks living on Leshp; throughout the book there's a pretty big "Hey we're all pretty much the same," theme going on. The agreement on Leshp seemed to be an old-school sitcom style drawing a line across the room. "That's your side, this is my side. Come over to my side, and I'll bash your head in with an oar." Of course, one could then make the argument, that's how borders work.) The teens stuck on the island were at least willing to recognize that fighting over land that was covered with salt, smelled bad, and was covered with buildings straight out of Lovecraft's nightmares, was pointless. As for Rust, he was simply capitalizing on the common Ankh-Morporkian desire to make ol' Johnny Klatchian taste some cold steel. Otherwise, he's pretty much just a rich idiot wishing he could go replay the glory days of his great-great-great-grandfather who earned him his title. I think it's fair to say, that the average citizen of AM has pretty much no respect for titles, outside of 'Can you get me fired? No. Can you get me killed? No. Then let me show you some of my favorite hand gestures. By the way, when you leave, could you take the side door, some of my buddies will be waiting there to help make sure you are properly taken care of.' Nothing against the citizens of AM. Actually their practicality is pretty much their redeeming virtue. (So they're at least forgiven for producing a Nobbs.) thrakkorzog fucked around with this message at 09:59 on Jan 16, 2008 |
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Jan 16, 2008 08:32
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I just watched the Hogfather Christmas special and I have to say, I was impressed. I was a little skeptical at first but it was pretty, I'd recommend it. Also, does anyone know anything about Nation? It's kind of bothering not knowing what he's writing about, although apparently it's almost done, yet the release date is September 11, 2008. I wonder if there's any significance behind the date or not...
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Jan 28, 2008 10:33
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