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Dammit, another Discworld book means they won't all fit anymore on one row of my bookcase. (The main-line DW books, Tiffany's adventures and pals are living on another row already.)
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Oct 8, 2009 21:20
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I'm only about 1/3 of the way through at the moment but Dr. Hix is the best new character, I imagine he looks and talks like Dr. Orpheus but with the appropriate Anhk-Morporkian accent.
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Oct 9, 2009 16:10
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ONE YEAR LATER posted:Dr. Hix is the best new character He was first seen in Making Money, back when he was still spelling it "Hicks".
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Oct 9, 2009 16:50
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Best addition to the UU faculty then.
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Oct 9, 2009 16:51
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Dunno how true it is, but did people really complain about "Night Watch" being unpleasantly darker than most of Discworld stuff? I think most of the books tend to have subtley creepy overtones.
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Oct 10, 2009 18:31
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penguinmambo posted:Dunno how true it is, but did people really complain about "Night Watch" being unpleasantly darker than most of Discworld stuff? I think most of the books tend to have subtley creepy overtones. I do think that Night Watch had darker undertones than the other books, but that's in no way a complaint. It's my favorite of all the discworld novels. I think they all have some darker elements, but not on the same level as NW.
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Oct 10, 2009 20:25
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Staggy posted:I do think that Night Watch had darker undertones than the other books, but that's in no way a complaint. It's my favorite of all the discworld novels. I think they all have some darker elements, but not on the same level as NW. I feel like that's more a product of the characters, though. Night Watch is easily the darkest of the series, but Thud! was like that too. You see a lot of the darker elements in some of the Witches books, as well. I think Sam Vimes and Granny Weatherwax, through being characters with a lot of darkness surrounding them, have a huge influence on the tone of the rest of the story.
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Oct 10, 2009 21:33
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Night Watch is also my favourite Discworld novel, and I didn't find it a particularly "dark" work.
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Oct 10, 2009 22:47
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shadok posted:Night Watch is also my favourite Discworld novel, and I didn't find it a particularly "dark" work. Well it was pretty dark. I don't know how you couldn't have found it so.
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Oct 10, 2009 23:24
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shadok posted:Night Watch is also my favourite Discworld novel, and I didn't find it a particularly "dark" work. "Dark" in the same way that, after being outside on a bright summer's day, you might find a windowless but nevertheless well-lit room to be dark in comparison.
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Oct 10, 2009 23:27
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I think that Night Watch, along with Small Gods and Carpe Jugulum, have some of the most potent insights into the complex and unpleasant theme that they're ultimately satirizing. I've found them all darker because of that. Small Gods and Carpe Jugulum both explore the ideas of belief, what it means to really be religious, and the struggle of a crisis of faith - this is a somewhat dark topic because a lot of people wrestle with the idea of religion at some point and it can be a pretty privately anguished experience. Night Watch is probably the darkest just because it deals with the ideas of oppression and revolution and what it really takes for people to fight their leaders in the streets, which is a more understandable and universal topic. Other books take on some complex ideas but I don't think fully delve into the darkest aspect of them. Not that I don't love almost every book he wrote, but the rest of them are happy just being funny (e.g. Interesting Times touches on what a mass war / slaughter would be like but doesn't really bring anything away from it, Equal Rites never really scratches below the surface on suffrage, Thief of Time talks a lot about what it means to be human but never really figures it out) The other three are really trying to bring a profound point home, though, and that's what I think makes them dark.
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Oct 11, 2009 03:05
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Didn't Night Watch also have the bit at the beginning about Sybil worrying about Vimes, and her thinking about when he found 'the group of men and that little girl' and him completely losing it? To me, that was a step in the dark for Discworld.
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Oct 11, 2009 04:23
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The_Doctor posted:Didn't Night Watch also have the bit at the beginning about Sybil worrying about Vimes, and her thinking about when he found 'the group of men and that little girl' and him completely losing it? To me, that was a step in the dark for Discworld. Think that was in The Fifth Elephant. Night Watch didn't have anything from Sybil's point of view. MikeJF fucked around with this message at 07:38 on Oct 11, 2009 |
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Oct 11, 2009 07:35
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shadok posted:There's a rumour going around that she may appear, or at least make a cameo, in the next book, which will be another Tiffany Aching book. I always assumed she had disguised herself and was somewhere in the University just chilling with the rest of the wizards - albeit with not quite as deep a voice and a beard that looks ever so slightly fake. I kinda wondered if she'd turn up so it'll be fun to see if she does appear in the Tiffany series as I've been rather enjoying that series.
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Oct 11, 2009 22:57
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Last few posts made me realize how much I wanted to re-read Night Watch, so I just spent half an hour searching through my entire house looking for it! Thank god I found it or I might just have gone crazy.
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Oct 12, 2009 00:55
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shadok posted:Night Watch is also my favourite Discworld novel, and I didn't find it a particularly "dark" work. What about the scenes in the Unmentionables HQ?
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Oct 12, 2009 11:47
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Hemp Knight posted:What about the scenes in the Unmentionables HQ? I didn't find them particularly more bleak than the scenes in the other Watch books where Vimes has to reign in his anger and restrain himself from hurting a criminal. If I was going to pick the "darkest" Discworld book, I'd probably go with Hogfather. Hiring a crazy assassin to murder Santa Claus by using mind control on the world's children? Now that's what I call a dark theme.
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Oct 12, 2009 14:11
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shadok posted:I didn't find them particularly more bleak than the scenes in the other Watch books where Vimes has to reign in his anger and restrain himself from hurting a criminal. you call that a dark theme? I call that a over the top comedic plan. Though I don't call anything in Terry Pratchett really "dark", I dont think really dark would fit what he's trying to portray. One Under by graham Hurley is "dark" I mean, a man died after being chained a mile into a railway tunnel, balls first. And the other murderer is a goodguy killing a paedophile then using his job as morque to dispose of the body. That's dark.
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Oct 12, 2009 14:29
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I'm not sure whether it would be better to post it here or in CC, but lacking any knowledge of that subforum, check it out: Terry Pratchett's running a contest (via the Guardian) for young UK playwrights to do an adaptation of his next book. Unfortunately, the requirement that you need to be 10-17 and British would disqualify most of us, I imagine, but it's still a really cool idea.
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Oct 12, 2009 22:37
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Guitar_Hero posted:I'm not sure whether it would be better to post it here or in CC, but lacking any knowledge of that subforum, check it out: ARGH im 18. drat it.
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Oct 12, 2009 23:05
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Aho! The Megapode! I will never get tired of the Wizards.
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Oct 13, 2009 05:19
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Just got back from a pub quiz. One of the questions was which Lord lent his name to the formalised rules for boxing and I put down Fantaillier 
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Oct 13, 2009 10:06
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Eunabomber posted:Aho! The Megapode! I was tickled by the idea that the servants at Unseen University would collectively refer to the wizards as "the pointies".
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Oct 13, 2009 12:46
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Whenever I want a new book and don't have anything specific in mind, I pick up a Discworld novel. I try to stay in order, but that is difficult. And sometimes I stumble upon a deal too good to be true. A year ago I found several Discworld books with weird-rear end UK covers. I got Guards Guards, Men at Arms, Witches Abroad, Lords and Ladies, and several others at a consignment shop for $0.50 each. Last week, I stumbled upon several hardcover Discworld novels for less than $2.00 each at a used book store. This is how I got Making Money, and it is now my favorite Discworld novel. It's fun. Moist is an excellent character. I hadn't picked up any of his books yet, as I was trying to fill in the gaps in my Rincewind, Witches, and Watch colletions, but I will most certainly pick up the other novels with Moist now. The only sad part is that I'm quite close to completing my Discworld collection. I'm to the point where I am more likely than not to already own the novels I find on the cheap and the shelves at Borders sometimes don't have the one specific book I want.
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Oct 13, 2009 21:04
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By the way, is anyone still updating the Reading Order Guide? It's missing both Making Money and UU by now.
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Oct 13, 2009 21:53
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ConfusedUs posted:This is how I got Making Money, and it is now my favorite Discworld novel. It's fun. Moist is an excellent character. Moist only has 2 books so far (Making Money and Going Postal.) You actually read the weaker of the two.
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Oct 13, 2009 22:41
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I've been reading lots of Discworld books lately (They're like candy with a heroin filling) and working slowly through this thread until I just now hit the end. I wish I were British so I could have grown up on these books. They're incredible! I don't remember why I started (I think it was some offhand comment somewhere on the internet about his books being to Fantasy what Hitchhiker's Guide was to sci-fi. I now realize that while Pratchett has a similar shtick to Adams with the cleverness and puns, everything Adams does well, Pratchett does better). For the past couple of weeks I've been reading nothing but Discworld and I don't see myself stopping until I've finished the whole series, and I already dread running out even though there's so much to go. I started with Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic, which seemed a logical starting point. I wasn't super impressed with them once the novelty of the concept wore off, but the way that Pratchett approached the Fantasy genre was awesome enough to continue. After that, I decided to start into the Watch storyline with Guards! Guards! because I've always been a fan of minor, background characters getting their side of the story (Like the henchmen in Venture Brothers. In the case of Guards! it was your stereotypical fantasy city guards). The whole City Watch storyline is nothing short of incredible, most notably the last two. The climax of Thud! is one of the only things I've read that can be described as simultaneously badass, dramatic, and hilarious. The whole part around this bit: Thud! posted:'Is that my cow?' the creature demanded, stepping forward unsteadily. It shook its head sadly. Just amazing. I can honestly say I've never read a passage in a book that was that flat-out awesome. I know probably everybody reading this has read it and I'm preaching to the choir with the majority of this massive post, but it bears repeating. drat. I normally try to avoid preaching to other people about books (since everybody has differing opinions and most of the time I don't like their recommendations either), but I've been trying to get everybody I know to start reading Discworld. One of my friends usually doesn't read anything lighter than The Odyssey or The Brothers Karamazov but he's a big Tolkien fan so I'm hoping he'll check it out. Another of my friends barely reads at all but I know he has it in him to read (since he recently went crazy reading just about everything by H.P. Lovecraft) and he seems intrigued. I'm trying to get him to read Guards! Guards! and he seems somewhat receptive. I guess I'm just trying to say that I've never read books this good that I want my friends to read them just so I can talk to them about the books. I want somebody willing to play Thud with me if I can somehow make a set. I want my friends to form a book club and read a new Discworld book each week. Everybody should read these books, if only so I'd have other people with whom to bask in the greatness. I do have one question, though, since you guys seem to be Discworld experts. I read The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic and enjoyed them to some extent, though I had to force myself to finish the second one. I then read the Watch series straight through and loved every minute of it. Somewhere in there I got about 1/3 through Hogfather and like 30 pages into Small Gods before getting distracted and falling right back into the Watch books (I really was enjoying them, but Vimes and Carrot were calling my name). At present, I'm about 4/5 through Sourcery and enjoying it, though not nearly as much as the Watch books. Does anybody have any recommendations as to where I should go next? The "industrial revolution" books always seemed interesting, and the witches books are beginning to intrigue me from the discussion in this thread. I enjoy Rincewind's books (I love the concept of the incompetent "wizzard") but I think I'd do better with them peppered among the other ones, rather than reading them straight through. I probably wouldn't have liked Sourcery if I jumped in right after The Light Fantastic. I love Rincewind as a character but the stories he's involved in don't interest me as much. I know somebody has recommendations for me (if anybody actually bothered to read that brick wall of text). tl;dr-Discworld is so awesome I just wrote a whole essay basically saying "it's awesome" over and over. If I loved the Watch and am (lovingly) lukewarm on Rincewind, what should I read next? Alvie fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Oct 14, 2009 |
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Oct 14, 2009 23:31
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I recommend going to The Truth or Going Postal next. Neither one has much effect on the other and Moving Pictures is honestly one of the weakest Discworld books.
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Oct 15, 2009 00:31
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Alvie posted:you liked that about thud? It actually annoyed me, it seemed pretty silly and broke my connection to Vimes, thud ws my first vimes novel (outside of his minor appearence in monstrous regiment) and I was liking the grim character, but I found that in Thud, like in so many vimes novels (Jingo anyone?) Vimes builds himself up for an awesome finish and then it just fades away leaving me feeling cheated. I mean Granny Weatherfax rises to the occasion, Vimes seems to always get cut short at the last second. Plus it was hard to read that scene without breaking immersion.
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Oct 15, 2009 00:37
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Mokinokaro posted:I recommend going to The Truth or Going Postal next. Neither one has much effect on the other and Moving Pictures is honestly one of the weakest Discworld books. I was thinking of going in that direction since I don't particularly want to move away from Ankh-Morpork quite yet. Is Moving Pictures really that much worse than the other books? I kinda don't want to read any of the sequences out of order to avoid weaker books, since then ultimately the only Discworld books I haven't read will be the weaker ones. On the other hand, I'm finding Sourcery somewhat weak compared to the Watch books and I would like to pick up with a good one. Should I read The Truth or the Moist books first? Edit: d3c0y2 posted:you liked that about thud? It actually annoyed me, it seemed pretty silly and broke my connection to Vimes, thud ws my first vimes novel (outside of his minor appearence in monstrous regiment) and I was liking the grim character, but I found that in Thud, like in so many vimes novels (Jingo anyone?) Vimes builds himself up for an awesome finish and then it just fades away leaving me feeling cheated. Alvie fucked around with this message at 00:48 on Oct 15, 2009 |
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Oct 15, 2009 00:41
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Goddamit, the local shipments of Unseen Academicals have been delayed or something; Amazon won't ship until November and the bookstores wont have the books for two weeks or so. 
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Oct 15, 2009 01:07
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d3c0y2 posted:you liked that about thud? It actually annoyed me, it seemed pretty silly and broke my connection to Vimes, thud ws my first vimes novel (outside of his minor appearence in monstrous regiment) and I was liking the grim character, but I found that in Thud, like in so many vimes novels (Jingo anyone?) Vimes builds himself up for an awesome finish and then it just fades away leaving me feeling cheated. Have you read Night Watch? The ending(s) there are amazing. Best Vimes book, hands down.
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Oct 15, 2009 01:22
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Alvie posted:I was thinking of going in that direction since I don't particularly want to move away from Ankh-Morpork quite yet. Is Moving Pictures really that much worse than the other books? I kinda don't want to read any of the sequences out of order to avoid weaker books, since then ultimately the only Discworld books I haven't read will be the weaker ones. On the other hand, I'm finding Sourcery somewhat weak compared to the Watch books and I would like to pick up with a good one. Moving Pictures has a strong start and ending, but the book is full of quite cringeworthy puns and doesn't really affect the world much in the end. Start with The Truth. A lot of the characters show up in minor roles in the later novels, including the Moist ones.
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Oct 15, 2009 03:02
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Alvie posted:I dunno. I liked the whole plotline about him always reading to his son at 6:00, with absolutely no exceptions. The "If you do it for good reasons, then later you'll do it for bad reasons" thinking fit Vimes' character really well. I knew when he was in the cave and 6:00 was approaching something bad was going to happen, and I thought the resulting scene was a pretty awesome example of Vimes just snapping and going crazy (In conjunction, of course, with the Summoning Dark taking over). Him reciting the book while going insane was just a sign of how much he cared about his son, and how much missing his 6:00 appointment affected him. The end of the battle may have been a bit anticlimactic, but that's part of Vimes' character too. Just like with Carcer, he was able to fight his urge to exact justice on his own in favor of proper procedure. Again, it comes back to his whole slippery slope way of thinking. He can't kill Carcer or the grags for a good reason, or he'd end up killing criminals for bad reasons. Seconding everything here; this scene was so quintessentially VImes, I couldn't put the book down while reading it.
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Oct 15, 2009 06:35
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Biplane posted:Have you read Night Watch? The ending(s) there are amazing. Best Vimes book, hands down. See how they rise up, rise up, rise up...
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Oct 15, 2009 06:41
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Guitar_Hero posted:See how they rise up, rise up, rise up... ... arse up, arse up...
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Oct 15, 2009 06:52
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Guitar_Hero posted:See how they rise up, rise up, rise up... You weren't there.
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Oct 15, 2009 09:07
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Off the top of my head, I think Unseen Academicals has the most references to other books in it out of all of them. You've got Vimes, Rincewind, William de Worde, a cameo by the Low King, Mr. Shine references, a Moist reference, a Reverend Oats reference, a Small Gods reference, a Moving Pictures reference, and I'm sure a bunch of others I can't think of at 6:30 in the morning.
ONE YEAR LATER fucked around with this message at 11:36 on Oct 15, 2009 |
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Oct 15, 2009 11:33
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ONE YEAR LATER posted:Off the top of my head, I think Unseen Academicals has the most references to other books in it out of all of them. You've got Vimes, Rincewind, William de Worde, a cameo by the Low King, Mr. Shine references, a Moist reference, a Reverend Oats reference, a Small Gods reference, a Moving Pictures reference, and I'm sure a bunch of others I can't think of at 6:30 in the morning. You forgot the traditional DEATH cameo too.
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Oct 15, 2009 11:38
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The_Doctor posted:You weren't there. See those things up in the sky, Carcer? They're the moon and the stars shining down on us. And tomorrow, they'll be shining down all the sweeter on my son Sam because they won't be shining down on you.
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Oct 15, 2009 12:05
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