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Mokinokaro posted:Night Watch is only out here in the newer style. It's topped only by Thud! in the Watch series. Wrong. Night Watch is miles better.
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Mar 8, 2009 20:58
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I thought Thud! suffered from the same problem as Making Money. Neither feel terribly well-structured to me. They read more like collections of events which happened than plots which escalate to a climax.
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Mar 9, 2009 03:21
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I'll go with Night Watch as the best watch book, it may even be the best Disc book of any. Closely followed by Guards Guards! of course.
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Mar 9, 2009 14:22
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Pope Guilty posted:I thought Thud! suffered from the same problem as Making Money. Neither feel terribly well-structured to me. They read more like collections of events which happened than plots which escalate to a climax. Reaper Man has the same problem. Even Soul Music has it to a degree. Pratchett just has that problem some times. I think he gets great ideas that are not enough for an entire novel so he mixes them together. And I retract what I said earlier, Night Watch is better. I just missed seeing Carrot and the normal Watchmen in it.
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Mar 9, 2009 15:36
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Mokinokaro posted:Reaper Man has the same problem. Even Soul Music has it to a degree. Pratchett just has that problem some times. I think he gets great ideas that are not enough for an entire novel so he mixes them together. I re-read Reaper Man recently, and the whole "Mall" arc doesn't really work for me. That would've been better if he developed it as a stand-alone novel dealing with Ankh-Morpork growing into a "modern city". In Reaper Man it feels like it's just getting in the way of reading more about Death. Mokinokaro posted:And I retract what I said earlier, Night Watch is better. I just missed seeing Carrot and the normal Watchmen in it. Night Watch, The Fifth Elephant and even Thud to a degree are really Vimes novels. Not that I have anything against that, since he is Pratchett's best character, but I would also like to see an old-style watch book again. Carrot in particular with his "I seem naive, but you'll never know if I'm just acting" and of course the king angle certainly have some potential.
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Mar 11, 2009 08:56
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GhostDog posted:I re-read Reaper Man recently, and the whole "Mall" arc doesn't really work for me. That would've been better if he developed it as a stand-alone novel dealing with Ankh-Morpork growing into a "modern city". In Reaper Man it feels like it's just getting in the way of reading more about Death. That honestly would've worked well as a witches or Rincewind plotline. Or even part of the industrial revolution series. I've been reading Making Money and, while the book as quite a few subplots, most of them at least involve characters connected to Moist's story.
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Mar 11, 2009 14:33
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Mokinokaro posted:That honestly would've worked well as a witches or Rincewind plotline. Or even part of the industrial revolution series. If he continues in the vein he suggested at the end of Making Money, assuming he is willing and able to write more, there is a fine setup for a dual story Death and Taxes. Only one of the two is actually implied, but the other seems a natural match. Stay strong, Pterry!
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Mar 11, 2009 17:33
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Pope Guilty posted:My personal reality does not allow for the existence of a worse book than The Last Continent. I'm always too busy reading new books to re-read old ones, so I haven't read any Discworld book since it came out (well, actually, I've re-read Mort, Small Gods and Lords and Ladies) but through the haze of my memory I was profoundly disappointed by that one, so much so that I thought, at the time, "Wow, this could be the shark-jumping point for Pratchett's writing". Thankfully I was proven very wrong by every Disc novel following it being pure gold, particularly the very next one, Carpe Jugulum.
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Mar 11, 2009 19:33
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precision posted:Thankfully I was proven very wrong by every Disc novel following it being pure gold, particularly the very next one, Carpe Jugulum. Oh how I loved and hated Carpe Jugulum. Granny's angsting taking up half the book was what ruined it for me.
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Mar 12, 2009 17:54
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The Witches have always been my favourite series (until Moist came along), so I'll take Granny angsting over Vimes' angsting in Thud! any day. I am really hoping, before he gets too sick, that he gives us a book dedicated entirely to Vetinari.
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Mar 12, 2009 20:16
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precision posted:I am really hoping, before he gets too sick, that he gives us a book dedicated entirely to Vetinari. I'd certainly like a book centered around the dog-botherer. However, that book would have to include Vimes as well, because there's nothing better than Vetinari's talks with Vimes.  "Ah, Vimes." "Sir."
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Mar 12, 2009 20:52
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I'm almost positive he's said he would never do a vetenari book, something about how he's so much more interesting when you can't read what he's thinking.
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Mar 12, 2009 21:48
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Vetinari's my favourite, but thebardyspoon is right, he's great because he's a schemer and you don't get into his head. A great final novel would be Vetinari's rule of Ankh-Morpork ending and the consequences of that. Perhaps the story could be told from the successor and involve them being groomed for the role in Vetinari's typical style?
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Mar 13, 2009 05:41
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Well, he seems to be grooming Moist as his successor.
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Mar 13, 2009 06:22
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The_Doctor posted:Well, he seems to be grooming Moist as his successor. Nah. Just his cat's paw with institutional problems. He's done the same with Vimes and war since Jingo. What he remains needed for is keeping the guilds balanced, keeping the wheels of industry turning, and keeping A-M from tearing itself into its component atoms of unreality. Vetinari is a skag, but he's the best.
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Mar 13, 2009 08:27
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ThaGhettoJew posted:Nah. Just his cat's paw with institutional problems. He's done the same with Vimes and war since Jingo. What he remains needed for is keeping the guilds balanced, keeping the wheels of industry turning, and keeping A-M from tearing itself into its component atoms of unreality. Vetinari is a skag, but he's the best. Hope you've got some make-up wipes ready, tiger.
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Mar 13, 2009 08:47
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Dead Alice posted:Hope you've got some make-up wipes ready, tiger. You have an alternate theory?
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Mar 13, 2009 22:37
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ThaGhettoJew posted:Nah. Just his cat's paw with institutional problems. He's done the same with Vimes and war since Jingo. What he remains needed for is keeping the guilds balanced, keeping the wheels of industry turning, and keeping A-M from tearing itself into its component atoms of unreality. Vetinari is a skag, but he's the best. Indeed. He simply sees Moist as someone else who can be of use.
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Mar 14, 2009 00:30
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ThaGhettoJew posted:You have an alternate theory? What, you don't remember what happened to Downey the last time he called Vetenari a skag?
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Mar 14, 2009 02:08
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Dead Alice posted:What, you don't remember what happened to Downey the last time he called Vetenari a skag? Downey totally owned him by burning his "one of a kind" nerdboy textbook. It was a total coincidence that later he partied so hard that he forgot how he went to that carnival and got a cool big cat facepainting. Downey ended up in charge of the whole guild, so he had to be the best. I mean, what did the dogbotherer ever accomplish? I don't actually know what a skag is. I just wanted to reference Night Watch. Vetinari (literally) rules.
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Mar 14, 2009 02:22
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Moist is clearly being groomed as the successor to the patricianship.
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Mar 14, 2009 19:15
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I liked Lords and Ladies much more than Carpe Jugulum, which is Lords and Ladies with vampires.
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Mar 14, 2009 20:56
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Pope Guilty posted:I liked Lords and Ladies much more than Carpe Jugulum, which is Lords and Ladies with vampires. Lords & Ladies was the one discworld book I really didn't like at all. Weird.
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Mar 14, 2009 22:10
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LooseChanj posted:Lords & Ladies was the one discworld book I really didn't like at all. Weird. I really liked how Pratchett went back to elves the way they originally were in legends, before Tolkien convinced everybody that elves were basically just the nature-loving Master Race. Also Psycho Battle Magrat was great.
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Mar 15, 2009 16:45
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Pope Guilty posted:Psycho Battle Magrat was great. Pratchett writes very memorable books, with fun plots, but I find that very few individual scenes stand out above the rest. They're all good, but few are great, in the sense that I have a difficult time picking out a single favorite part of any Discworld book. Psycho Battle Magrat is great. Baron Samedi's entrance at the end of Witches Abroad is great. Bill Door vs New Death is great. But that's about all I can think of, off the top of my head.
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Mar 15, 2009 19:48
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ConfusedUs posted:Pratchett writes very memorable books, with fun plots, but I find that very few individual scenes stand out above the rest. They're all good, but few are great, in the sense that I have a difficult time picking out a single favorite part of any Discworld book.
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Mar 15, 2009 19:56
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DontMockMySmock posted:Vimes capturing Carcer at the end of Night Watch is probably my favorite scene in all of Discworld. Definitely. I also love where you are told what really happened at Koom Valley, and the revelation about B'hrian Bloodaxe and Diamond. Also to the short scene at the end of Thief of Time that'll probably never get brought up again; "If dis is yoo, Deff of Wats"
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Mar 15, 2009 20:03
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DontMockMySmock posted:Vimes capturing Carcer at the end of Night Watch is probably my favorite scene in all of Discworld. I'm trying to read the Watch novels in order so I haven't got to that one yet. I'm sure I will eventually, especially with all the praise it gets around these parts! Discworld is my go-to series for when I want a new book to read but there's not a specific new book that I'm after. So, while I buy a new book about once every couple of weeks, I only pick up a Discworld book about once every couple of months. I'm slowly getting them all. I own all the Death novels, most of Rincewind's, most of the Witches, and I'm at Jingo in the Watch series.
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Mar 15, 2009 23:37
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It's freaky that two of my favorite books are titled "Night Watch".
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Mar 16, 2009 02:16
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Pope Guilty posted:I really liked how Pratchett went back to elves the way they originally were in legends I really liked how he connected them to cats and aliens. As far as great, dramatic scenes, he writes plenty. The earliest one I can think of is the intro to Sourcery; that is really gold stuff right there. Also see: the climax of Mort.
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Mar 16, 2009 04:25
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precision posted:As far as great, dramatic scenes, he writes plenty. The earliest one I can think of is the intro to Sourcery; that is really gold stuff right there. Also see: the climax of Mort. Oh, definitely. It's just that, unlike most books, his awesome parts don't really stand out in my mind because the rest of each book is just as good.
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Mar 16, 2009 04:41
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The scene where Vimes meets the dwarves that tried to kill his family, in the underground mine. Vimes had been ratehr beat up and wasn't in the most sober state of mind. He starts quoting "Where's My Cow?" This scene makes me think of Vimes everytime I see the main actor from "There Will be Blood" On a side note, does anyone have the quote form the same book i believe, about dwarves and religion? The one where it ends... "... and when you hit your thumb with a 12 pound hammer, it's really good to be able to blaspheme."
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Mar 17, 2009 18:48
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Furril posted:On a side note, does anyone have the quote form the same book i believe, about dwarves and religion? The one where it ends... "... and when you hit your thumb with a 12 pound hammer, it's really good to be able to blaspheme." "When you hit your thumb with an eight-pound hammer it's nice to be able to blaspheme. It takes a very special and strong-minded atheist to jump up and down with their hand clasped under their other armpit and shout, 'Oh, random-fluctuations-in-the-space-time-continuum!' or 'Aaargh, primitive-and-outmoded-concept on a crutch!'" Having just finished The Watch series this afternoon, I have the problem of not knowing which series to pick up next. Can the Tiffany Aching books be enjoyed without having read any of The Witches series?
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Mar 17, 2009 20:05
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Izz posted:Can the Tiffany Aching books be enjoyed without having read any of The Witches series?
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Mar 17, 2009 20:39
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Entropic posted:Yes! Granny Weatherwax shows up a bit, but you don't really need to know anything about her past adventures. Although there is stuff about Discworld witches in general that helps. I'd advise reading the witches books anyway (except Equal Rites), they're good books, and IF you were going to read both the witch series and the Tiffany Aching series, you might as well read them in order. And you SHOULD read them all, because they're all good (again, except for Equal Rites).
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Mar 17, 2009 23:02
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Just wanted to chime in that I am another enormous Pratchett fan out here in goon-world. My favorite is probably Small Gods, although Reaper Man is a close second. In unrelated observational news, whenever I watch the tv show Lost, Ben always reminds me of the Patrician -- that man ALWAYS has a plan.
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Mar 19, 2009 04:36
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Kimberlina posted:Just wanted to chime in that I am another enormous Pratchett fan out here in goon-world. My favorite is probably Small Gods, although Reaper Man is a close second. In unrelated observational news, whenever I watch the tv show Lost, Ben always reminds me of the Patrician -- that man ALWAYS has a plan. Yeah, but the Patrician isn't a douche and Discworld has a coherent plot.
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Mar 19, 2009 05:53
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Guys, I was wondering if you could help me out. I've been asked to recommend a Discworld book for my dad's friend's 14-year-old son. He's never read any of them before. I'm not a fan of Colour of Magic/Light Fantastic so I was looking for something other than them. Perhaps Guards, Guards! because apparently he likes detective fiction. Do you reckon that would be intelligible to a first-timer? Any other suggestions? Thanks 
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Mar 19, 2009 20:36
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Guards Guards is an excellent spoof of the whole "guards in fantasy" thing. Pick up a later one as they become more of a comedy detective novel.
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Mar 19, 2009 22:07
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Even starting at Men At Arms they're more detective novels. Actually, that's probably the closest one to a detective story in the first half of the series.
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Mar 20, 2009 01:31
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