|
Someone ought to preemptively murder Kevin J Anderson just in case.
|
#
?
Aug 21, 2009 20:15
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 12, 2024 11:32 |
|
|
Entropic posted:Someone ought to preemptively murder Kevin J Anderson just in case. I had to wiki that name, and I really did not need to know there are ELEVEN post-Herbert Dune novels. ELEVEN.
|
|
#
?
Aug 21, 2009 20:20
|
|
|
That reminds me, whatever happened to that thing where some guy was hired to write another Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy novel?
|
|
#
?
Aug 21, 2009 20:48
|
|
|
Unfortunately still happening. Rather soon, in fact. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_Another_Thing..._(novel)
|
|
#
?
Aug 21, 2009 21:01
|
|
|
Entropic posted:Someone ought to preemptively murder Kevin J Anderson just in case. I remember he was one of many who hosed around with the Star Wars canon. His particular 'contribution', that the core of the second Death Star was actually a copy of IG-88 that would send a signal causing all the droids in the galaxy to rise up and eliminate all sentient life, was one of the stupidest things I've ever read. At least Pratchett knows that he will die soon and he can make his will known, hopefully his family will respect his wishes. Adams' death was completely unexpected, so he never had the chance, and Herbert probably expected to survive, although his risk of dying was high enough that he probably should have gotten his affairs in order.
|
|
#
?
Aug 22, 2009 00:42
|
|
|
Here's hoping that his daughter doesn't decide to play Brian Herbert with Discworld. After playing through the Overlord games i really don't think she's inherited her fathers gift.
|
|
#
?
Aug 22, 2009 02:25
|
|
|
Well, Pratchett has written enough and sold well enough that his family won't have to worry about money until the Century of the Fruitbat, while I believe Douglas Adams didn't leave a whole lot of cash behind. Sure, his books sold well, but there are only seven of them. I mean, Terry is very close to JK Rowling rich. That's why it amazes me that he still has so much passion and creativity to put out so many novels instead of just loving around and doing... whatever the Hell Robert Jordan did instead of writing.
|
|
#
?
Aug 22, 2009 02:44
|
|
|
precision posted:Well, Pratchett has written enough and sold well enough that his family won't have to worry about money until the Century of the Fruitbat, while I believe Douglas Adams didn't leave a whole lot of cash behind. Sure, his books sold well, but there are only seven of them. I think you underestimate how obscenely rich Rowling is - she has about 500 million pounds compared to Pratchett's 40. I like Pratchett's books, I loved them more when I was a kid. Rereading them now I definitely notice a couple of irritating habits. Particularly reusing lines from other novels such as "it's as X as an X thing." Don't get me wrong though, I'm still a big fan. The Watch books are definitely my favorite.
|
|
#
?
Aug 22, 2009 16:51
|
|
|
Jesus gently caress, Rowling is a billionaire(ss?)? The only annoying thing I can think of about Terry right at the moment, and he does it a fair bit, is what I would refer to as "pointing out a joke too much". The best example is in The Truth where, fairly early, a character asks Mr. Pin "Why does your partner keep saying 'ing'?" It's like, dude, Terry, the joke was working, it was ---ing brilliant, we didn't need it spelled out for us.
|
|
#
?
Aug 22, 2009 17:58
|
|
|
precision posted:The only annoying thing I can think of about Terry right at the moment, and he does it a fair bit, is what I would refer to as "pointing out a joke too much". The best example is in The Truth where, fairly early, a character asks Mr. Pin "Why does your partner keep saying 'ing'?" It's like, dude, Terry, the joke was working, it was ---ing brilliant, we didn't need it spelled out for us. I think its actually fun in a meta way that he does this.
|
|
#
?
Aug 22, 2009 22:36
|
|
|
precision posted:The only annoying thing I can think of about Terry right at the moment, and he does it a fair bit, is what I would refer to as "pointing out a joke too much". The best example is in The Truth where, fairly early, a character asks Mr. Pin "Why does your partner keep saying 'ing'?" It's like, dude, Terry, the joke was working, it was ---ing brilliant, we didn't need it spelled out for us. Think about a conversation where a person cut off parts of words. Wouldn't you wonder why?
|
|
#
?
Aug 23, 2009 01:04
|
|
|
I thought it was funny that another character was confirming that the guy was actually saying --ing out loud.
|
|
#
?
Aug 23, 2009 01:18
|
|
|
DontMockMySmock posted:As an American who has never been to London, it is very easy to see parallels between Ankh-Morpork and big American cities - the Ankh, for example, is very reminiscent of the L.A. "river" (actually an aqueduct), which is very smelly and filled with feces and dead hookers and gangsters. On the other hand, from an intellectual standpoint, I can recognize it a parallel of the Thames in London. Other things are so obvious that even an ignorant American can see, such as Old Tom = Big Ben. So basically, it's partly London, but mostly it's just so stereotypically "big city" that you could imagine it's major metropolis. Quoth the man himself: quote:I had no particular city in mind when I designed Ankh-Morpork; it was just the stock Mediaeval European city inside a wall; a wiggly river runs through it. But in my mind's eyes you'd get a pretty good attempt at replicating A-M if you could splice together the great trading city of Tallinn with large parts of central Prague - the Charles Bridge needs only the hippos to become the Brass Bridge. I visited both of these cities because of Discworld, and it was like going home. Mind you, for the perfect Ankh-Morpork cocktail you'd have to find a way of distilling into the mix something from eighteenth-century London, nineteenth-century Seattle and twentieth-century New York...
|
|
#
?
Aug 23, 2009 20:16
|
|
|
LGBT War Machine posted:Think about a conversation where a person cut off parts of words. Wouldn't you wonder why? Sure, but real life =/= funny novels with wizards in.
|
|
#
?
Aug 23, 2009 21:24
|
|
|
precision posted:Sure, but real life =/= funny novels with wizards in. Doesn't mean that there can't be a realistic conversation. Otherwise you'd think that Terry was just censoring the naughty words and it wouldn't be so funny.
|
|
#
?
Aug 23, 2009 22:40
|
|
|
LGBT War Machine posted:Doesn't mean that there can't be a realistic conversation. Otherwise you'd think that Terry was just censoring the naughty words and it wouldn't be so funny. But having read the Disc books in order and by that time knowing they were "adult" books, I found it very easy to come to the conclusion that he wasn't censoring his own novel and that it was a joke. Maybe I'm just smart like that. 
|
|
#
?
Aug 23, 2009 22:43
|
|
|
LGBT War Machine posted:Otherwise you'd think that Terry was just censoring the naughty words and it wouldn't be so funny. If this was the first Pratchett novel you've ever read, you might think that for maybe the first few dozen pages. I could be wrong, but doesn't someone say "gently caress" sometime in The Truth? That would be a pretty big clue that it's not censorship. Also, who censors a book by putting hyphens in place of words?
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2009 03:20
|
|
|
DontMockMySmock posted:I could be wrong, but doesn't someone say "gently caress" sometime in The Truth? I want to say there are few "poo poo"s in the Disc series, but nothing racier. Pretty sure Good Omens had "gently caress" somewhere in there, but one could always blame that on Neil Gaiman, I suppose.
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2009 03:25
|
|
|
precision posted:I want to say there are few "poo poo"s in the Disc series, but nothing racier. There's also plenty of "bugger"s but I don't know how racy that is in England. vv Ah yes, I forgot "bloody." vv DontMockMySmock fucked around with this message at 03:52 on Aug 24, 2009 |
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2009 03:36
|
|
|
He uses "bloody" rather a lot, and from my understanding "bloody" is worse than "gently caress" in Britland. So actually this whole conversation might be really moot since we're all dumb Americans.
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2009 03:46
|
|
|
I just started reading this series and I'm confused. Do I following the discworld reading guide or do I follow how Pratchett released his books?
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2009 04:01
|
|
|
oxy posted:I just started reading this series and I'm confused. As long as you don't go reading a particular series out of order it doesn't really matter. You can't go wrong reading them in order of publication.
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2009 04:11
|
|
|
precision posted:He uses "bloody" rather a lot, and from my understanding "bloody" is worse than "gently caress" in Britland. No, it isn't.
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2009 04:23
|
|
|
I wonder what word I'm thinking of, then. When I was growing up, I recall that Monty Python was allowed to use the word "gently caress" but that some specifically British profanity was not allowed on the BBC. Was it "bollocks" or something?
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2009 04:57
|
|
|
From Wikipedia:Wikipedia posted:Bloody is the adjectival form of blood but may also be used as an expletive attributive (intensifier) in Australia, Britain, Ireland, Canada, South East Asia, New Zealand, and Sri Lanka. Nowadays it is considered (by most of the population of these countries) to be a very mild expletive, and unlikely to cause offence in most circles. So, obviously, Aussie Crawl is right on this one. Wikipedia posted:Etymologically, a "Bugger" was a "Bulgre" (French Bougre). Originally, it was derived from the French word "Bouggerie" ("of Bulgaria"), meaning the medieval Bulgarian clerical sect of the Bogomils, which facing severe persecution in Bulgaria spread into Western Europe and was branded by the established church as particularly devoted to the practice of sodomy. I just thought this was interesting, the article didn't say anything about how "severe" of a curse it is. But, one might imagine that it is on the same status as "gently caress," since they both mean "sodomy" or "sex." Wikipedia posted:The relative severity of the various profanities, as perceived by the British public, was studied on behalf of the Broadcasting Standards Commission, Independent Television Commission, BBC and Advertising Standards Authority. The results of this jointly commissioned research were published in December 2000 in a paper called "Delete Expletives?". This placed "bollocks" in eighth position in terms of its perceived severity, between "prick" (seventh place) and "arsehole" (ninth place). By comparison, the word "balls" (which has a similar literal meaning) was down in 22nd place. Of the people surveyed, only 11% thought that "bollocks" could acceptably be broadcast at times before the notional 9pm "watershed"[3] on television (radio does not have a watershed). In the interest of  , I went to the reference:[quote="Advertising Standards Authority, British Broadcasting Corporation, Broadcasting Standards Commission and the Independent Television Commission"] code:Bugger is lower than I expected, and I was VERY surprised at some of these. Does "spastic" have a meaning that I don't know? And since when is "Jew" a slur, rather than the actual name of a race? Is "slag" something other than the re-hardened remains of molten metal? And what exactly is a "paki?" I'm guessing it's a racial slur. And why is "wanker" worse than things like "whore" and "friend of the family?" I guess it's just an England thing. Why is "bugger" so low, if it means the same thing as "gently caress" or "shag?" Speaking of which, way to go England for raising "friend of the family" from number 11 to number 5  In any case, we have our answer, which is that "gently caress" is worse than anything else other than "oval office," which is pretty taboo even here in the dirty, infantile USA. One time a couple years ago, me and one of my roommates were having a bit of an insult-fight (all in good fun) and I threw the word "oval office" out there in some sort of reference to his mother, and hers being cavernous, and he got like really really offended. Not at the insult, just that I used the word "oval office," which I thought was weird considering he throws "gently caress" around constantly.
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2009 05:47
|
|
|
"Spastic" is essentially the British version of "retard".
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2009 06:26
|
|
|
DontMockMySmock posted:Why is "bugger" so low, if it means the same thing as "gently caress" or "shag?"  Yet "tupping" isn't considered much of a swear...You really want to look for logic or consistency in what arbitrary words a society considers "offensive"?
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2009 06:36
|
|
|
Also, "bugger" isn't exactly the same as "gently caress". "Playing Silly Buggers" probably doesn't make people think "playing silly intercourse".
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2009 06:39
|
|
|
Why doesn't 'cock' show up on that list?
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2009 06:40
|
|
|
Entropic posted:Why aren't "screw" and "gently caress" equally offensive in north america? Just 'cuz, that's why. Also note that buggery refers to sodomy. I don't know, every once in a while I get this weird delusion that other human beings are intelligent and logical. It's pretty stupid of me, I suppose.
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2009 07:27
|
|
|
Entropic posted:Why doesn't 'cock' show up on that list? Well, in the late 70s there wasn't any outrage over saying The Buzzcocks on British television, so maybe they're not as shy about body parts.
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2009 07:59
|
|
|
DontMockMySmock posted:Bugger is lower than I expected, and I was VERY surprised at some of these. Does "spastic" have a meaning that I don't know? And since when is "Jew" a slur, rather than the actual name of a race? Is "slag" something other than the re-hardened remains of molten metal? And what exactly is a "paki?" I'm guessing it's a racial slur. And why is "wanker" worse than things like "whore" and "friend of the family?" I guess it's just an England thing. "Bugger" is quite a mild expletive. "Sod" and "sodding" also derive from sodomy/sodomite and are not considered particularly strong. "Spastic" is used as a derogatory generic term for the disabled, but it's falling out of common usage. Whether "Jew" is a slur or not depends on the context, of course. "Slag" is a synonym for "slut". "Paki" is short for Pakistani and is used as a generic racial slur for all South Asians. DontMockMySmock posted:Why is "bugger" so low, if it means the same thing as "gently caress" or "shag?" You're trying to invent a logic for something that has none. Profanity is a weird product of culture, time and place. Probably the oddest expletives in the modern world are particular to Quebec, where - thanks to its weird relationship with France and the Catholic Church - about the worst thing you can say translates to "Sacred chalice of the holy tabernacle steeple." On the other hand you can say "C'est complètement gently caressé" to your saintly grandmother.
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2009 08:04
|
|
|
precision posted:Well, in the late 70s there wasn't any outrage over saying The Buzzcocks on British television, so maybe they're not as shy about body parts. "Cock" has a lot of other meanings than "penis", even apart from the bird. The band was not named after bionic chainsaw penises.
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2009 08:12
|
|
|
Sure, but "bitch" means "female dog" and you couldn't say that on American network TV until the late 80s/early 90s. And hell, you couldn't say "pregnant" on television in the 50s. All of this stuff really is just pretty arbitrary, I think that's all there is to it.
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2009 08:57
|
|
|
precision posted:Sure, but "bitch" means "female dog" and you couldn't say that on American network TV until the late 80s/early 90s. The keyword there is "American": America is the country where people get upset about the word "niggardly" because they don't know what it means but it sounds like "friend of the family". America is the country that banned the word "flick" from comic books in case the letters L and I ran together and looked like a U. There was no "outrage over saying The Buzzcocks on British television" because it's not an offensive word and nobody thought it was.
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2009 13:02
|
|
|
All things considered it is quite close to the short American list, except that there is no "cocksucker" or "tits". Also, I thought "Paki" was a neutral term rather than a racial slur, but Wikipedia says differently.
|
|
#
?
Aug 25, 2009 00:16
|
|
|
After I'm finished reading the Rincewind series which one should I move onto next?
|
|
#
?
Aug 25, 2009 00:33
|
|
|
Try the other wizards/Death ones.
|
|
#
?
Aug 25, 2009 02:05
|
|
|
The_Doctor posted:Try the other wizards/Death ones. I wouldnt mind reading the other wizards one. Which books and in what order do they go? The reason I ask is cause http://www.lspace.org/books/reading-order-guides/the-discworld-reading-order-guide-1-5.jpg doesn't mention the wizards.
|
|
#
?
Aug 25, 2009 04:04
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 12, 2024 11:32 |
|
|
I think he means the Death series. After the first one, most of them have secondary plots involving the wizards.
|
|
#
?
Aug 25, 2009 04:28
|
|
