Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
Bilirubin
Feb 16, 2014

The sanctioned action is to CHUG


FactsAreUseless posted:

This is the first time I've ever heard someone accuse a bookstore employee of being on cocaine.

It was the first time I've ever encountered it. He did everything but say "wow groovy cat *snap snap*" when I told him the reason I was in the bookstore was because I needed a new book :psyduck:

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

BizarroAzrael
Apr 6, 2006

"That must weigh heavily on your soul. Let me purge it for you."

EvilTaytoMan posted:

Well I just did in Going Postal. :colbert:

Talking of references in Going Postal, was one of the undelivered letters that "spoke" to Moist supposed to be one of Carrot's letters home? Only supposedly his letters got there, since it's been shown that Carrot's dad writes his replies on the back of them.

Trin Tragula
Apr 22, 2005

"Well, I was going to buy a book, but now I think I'll go to [INSERT NAME HERE] instead, thanks. Tell your manager."

FactsAreUseless
Feb 16, 2011

BizarroAzrael posted:

Talking of references in Going Postal, was one of the undelivered letters that "spoke" to Moist supposed to be one of Carrot's letters home? Only supposedly his letters got there, since it's been shown that Carrot's dad writes his replies on the back of them.
Carrot's letters are identical to all dwarven letters home, so probably not.

Ika
Dec 30, 2004
Pure insanity

I also thought the post office had been closed for quite a number of years, so since before carrot went to the city.

tooterfish
Jul 13, 2013

It technically wasn't closed, just so mismanaged that it was completely useless.

It did still have people working there before Moist showed up. Well, two people at least.

Jedit
Dec 10, 2011

Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

tooterfish posted:

It technically wasn't closed, just so mismanaged that it was completely useless.

It did still have people working there before Moist showed up. Well, two people at least.

That's right, but Carrot used the traditional mountain method of sending mail, viz. giving it to someone heading in that general direction.

freebooter
Jul 7, 2009

DoctorWhat posted:

Nobby's a bit of a joke, sadly.

Cherri might be considered a form of LGBTQ, though.

I always thought dwarves "coming out" as female was an analogy for homosexuality. Especially in the Fifth Elephant when the king's right hand dwarf, a super traditionalist, ends up having a huge breakdown and screaming at Cheery and saying it's "not fair" because "why can she do it when I can't." Which is pretty clearly a nod to the sort of super right-wing homophobic Republican politicians in the US who often turn out to be closeted themselves.

Trin Tragula
Apr 22, 2005

You're kind of right, but on slightly closer inspection, there's just no way that the situation can be anywhere near that simple. We're talking about a culture where Carrot Head Banger can be accepted without question as a dwarf even though he doesn't have a beard, which even Cheery thinks is inherently and vitally dwarfish. There's all kinds of questions of gender and identity washing around in there, far too many for it to be a simple and easy "lady dwarfs = gays" (or "= transpeople", or whatever) analogy.

This is one of the things that really get to me about him dying - given what little he managed to show in Raising Steam (and there's hints in Thud with Sally von Humpeding also), he was clearly planning to develop those themes about the complexity of identity and contemporary human social norms even further and I was really looking forward to it, and then he simply ran out of time to do it in.

Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Apr 7, 2015

MonsieurChoc
Oct 12, 2013

Every species can smell its own extinction.

Bilirubin posted:

It was the first time I've ever encountered it. He did everything but say "wow groovy cat *snap snap*" when I told him the reason I was in the bookstore was because I needed a new book :psyduck:

Actually, that sounds like a David Lynch moment. Did he talk to you about your favorite brand of gum?

Tac Dibar
Apr 7, 2009

Well, I've been really undecided on which one of the books I would be re-reading first now that Terry's dead. In the end I went for Monstrous Regiment, and I'm glad I did. It's one of those books that I didn't like that much the first time I read it, but which I now really enjoy. As someone said, it contains some great characters and situations. Jackrum is great as the archetypal sergeant. He's also a typical Pratchett character in that he often hides the fact that he's competent and clever behind a stereotypical "jolly old sarge" facade.

In my opinion the last really good Pratchett books - the last ones to feel "right" - are Going Postal and Empire. You could argue that Making Money is ok, but in my opinion this is the first book where something is seriously missing. As I recall, there wasn't anything really interesting going on, and I was more worried about what would happen to the bad guy and his hand than I was about the protagonist. Also, the financial markets would have been good potential object for satire, e.g. stock market swindles and so on, possibly with CMOT Dibbler getting involved. I remember that I was really looking forward to Making Money, but was disappointed in the end.

If you have read the book "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" (1841) by Charles Mackay (Pterry probably knew of it), some of the stories on financial bubbles in that book read like something straight out of Discworld. For example this one, which allegedly happened in the early 1700s. This was at the time of the "South-Sea bubble", when the general public got the idea that they could make big money by buying shares in private enterprises. So creative individuals provided the public with all kinds of more or less credible schemes. This particular one was started by some person unknown, and was called “A company for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is.”

Charles Mackay posted:

The man of genius who essayed this bold and successful inroad upon public credulity, merely stated in his prospectus that the required capital was half a million, in five thousand shares of 100l. each, deposit 2l. per share. Each subscriber, paying his deposit, would be entitled to 100l. per annum per share. How this immense profit was to be obtained, he did not condescend to inform them at that time, but promised that in a month full particulars should be duly announced, and a call made for the remaining 98l. of the subscription. Next morning, at nine o’clock, this great man opened an office in Cornhill. Crowds of people beset his door, and when he shut up at three o’clock, he found that no less than one thousand shares had been subscribed for, and the deposits paid. He was thus, in five hours, the winner of 2000l. He was philosopher enough to be contented with his venture, and set off the same evening for the Continent. He was never heard of again.

So basically, this guy makes a public announcement that people can buy shares in his enterprise, "which is really great, but I can't tell you what it is." He sets up shop, and people line up around the block to buy his shares. At the end of the day he calmly packs up his earnings, gets on a boat and is never seen or heard of again. That's the kind of thing I would have hoped to see more of in Making Money.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

Just imagine Terry's take on bitcoin for a minute. That alone would have been worth a book. Warehouses filled with little imp cages.

Effectronica
May 31, 2011
Fallen Rib

My Lovely Horse posted:

Just imagine Terry's take on bitcoin for a minute. That alone would have been worth a book. Warehouses filled with little imp cages.

LMAO!!!

FactsAreUseless
Feb 16, 2011

Imagine what Pratchett would have said about Star Citizen. Imagine it. Imagine all the things he would have said about Star Citizen, only the things would be dwarves and imps and magic instead of spaceships and lies.

Kesper North
Nov 3, 2011

EMERGENCY POWER TO PARTY

My Lovely Horse posted:

Just imagine Terry's take on bitcoin for a minute. That alone would have been worth a book. Warehouses filled with little imp cages.

:vince:

pseudorandom name
May 6, 2007

My Lovely Horse posted:

Just imagine Terry's take on bitcoin for a minute. That alone would have been worth a book. Warehouses filled with little imp cages.

Madly scribbling calculations on tiny little sheets of paper with tiny little pencils, generating so much heat from the friction that the warehouse burns down.

FactsAreUseless
Feb 16, 2011

FactsAreUseless posted:

Imagine what Pratchett would have said about Star Citizen. Imagine it. Imagine all the things he would have said about Star Citizen, only the things would be dwarves and imps and magic instead of spaceships and lies.
I just imagined this and I do NOT recommend you do so. I'm still laughing. I can't stop laughing.

Effectronica
May 31, 2011
Fallen Rib

FactsAreUseless posted:

I just imagined this and I do NOT recommend you do so. I'm still laughing. I can't stop laughing.

I've got 911 on speed-dial if you need it.

FactsAreUseless
Feb 16, 2011

Effectronica posted:

I've got 911 on speed-dial if you need it.
You know who else had 9/11 on speed dial? George W. Bush.

angerbot
Mar 23, 2004

plob
I don't know if this is old news but The Shepherd's Crown is being published Sep 10.

http://www.thestar.com.my/Lifestyle/Books/News/2015/04/11/Terry-Pratchetts-final-Discworld-book-out-in-September/

FactsAreUseless
Feb 16, 2011

I'm glad he's going out with a Tiffany Aching book.

Jedit
Dec 10, 2011

Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

He aten't dead. :colbert:

The website for the 2016 International Discworld Convention went live today, for those who are interested. Membership sales open in early May, and I recommend booking early if you want to stay at the venue.

DrNewton
Feb 27, 2011

Monsieur Murdoch Fan Club

Doubtful Guest posted:

Can anyone recommend somewhere to start my Brother-in-law with the Discworld?

He's dyslexic and isn't really much for reading, but he went through the audiobooks of Game of Thrones after enjoying the TV series, and I've had success with The Lies of Locke Lamora series and the Rivers of London series, and made some interested noises about Pratchett.

Based on those, it seems like the City Watch books would be the best place to start - unless you think he's going to miss too much of the backstory of the world? The more you read of the world, the more you soak up the background, but I don't know if you need more of a sense of the world before you get into really Ankh-Morpork focussed stuff like The Truth or any of the Moist Von Lipwig stuff? I was a bit disappointed by some of the more recent books - Snuff, Unseen Academicals and Raising Steam, so I'd like to root him into the Golden Age stuff.

There's also the fact that he'll be listening to all the audiobooks and the quality of some of the early ones just feel like they've been copied from the tapes - even though Planer is perfect for Rincewind. (I vaguely remember Tony Robinson doing some too, but those are dim memories from a decade ago.)

Unless you think that jumping into some of the later books doesn't need the backstory - Can you get into Thief of Time or Hogfather without having the grounding in who Susan is, and therefore who Death (and of rats), Mort, etc are?

Dyslexic here. I also work in a book store. I want to give you some tips.

I tried to read the discowold books a few times, on and off over the past 4 years. I first tried ebooks but got confused by the non chapters. I finally started reading Discworld books when I came across a bunch of adbandon discworld books while waiting for the bus. I picked up Going Postal because 1. clean cover, 2. was in trade paperback, so larger in size, larger in text size, and the line spacing was fair 3. it was formatted into chapters.

Going Postal got me reading the series. Then I bought Guards! Guards! and wasn't as impressed (but that is me just finding the book very boring). THEN I got Mort in Trade PaperBack, again, big text, big in size, easier to read at least visually. Mort got me hooked.

I made the mistake of buying Small Gods in mass paperback and couldn't get past the turtle meeting some boy because I found it so hard to read the small letters.

What I am trying to say is, with dyslexic, its not the story that puts us off, its the books formatt visually. If the text is extremely small, with squished fonts and line space, then reading is utter hell.

I always help parents who have teens with dyslexic and I often pick books that have clean fronts, and large formats as well as finding a story they may enjoy. Those tend to be more successful when the parents come back then books that were formatted poorly.

Sources: Me (Have dyslexic), My Job (Works in Book Store).


Forget everything I said. I didn't read your whole post. Audiobooks are nice.
I still think Going Postal is a good one to start off with. (I will always have a soft spot for you Moist :3)

DrNewton fucked around with this message at 03:13 on Apr 13, 2015

Redmark
Dec 11, 2012

This one's for you, Morph.
-Evo 2013
Seconding Going Postal. There's not much knowledge presumed, and the plot is pretty straightforward without having to know Pratchett's style.

That and I honestly think it's one of the best books in the series, despite not being particularly subtle.

daggerdragon
Jan 22, 2006

My titan engine can kick your titan engine's ass.
Regarding audiobooks: how do they handle the footnotes? :aaaaa:

Pidmon
Mar 18, 2009

NO ONE risks painful injury on your GREEN SLIME GHOST POGO RIDE.

No one but YOU.

daggerdragon posted:

Regarding audiobooks: how do they handle the footnotes? :aaaaa:

Immediately jumping to them mid-sentence as an aside, no real indication that it's a footnote rather than normal text. But the reader normally switches to their 'narrator' voice rather than a character voice.

thespaceinvader
Mar 30, 2011

The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

Pidmon posted:

Immediately jumping to them mid-sentence as an aside, no real indication that it's a footnote rather than normal text. But the reader normally switches to their 'narrator' voice rather than a character voice.

How the hell do they manage those ridiculous page-long 4-or-5-deep footnote nests in the early books?

Rand Brittain
Mar 25, 2013

"Go on until you're stopped."

thespaceinvader posted:

How the hell do they manage those ridiculous page-long 4-or-5-deep footnote nests in the early books?

Sequentially.

(The Planer audiobooks also apply a deep reverb to footnote text so that it sounds like it's being read to you from the bottom of a hole.)

FactsAreUseless
Feb 16, 2011

I really hate the audiobooks, but I think I might be in the minority.

Flipswitch
Mar 30, 2010


I used to hate them but they've grown on me.

I'm also really glad we're ending on a Tiffany book for some reason.

FactsAreUseless
Feb 16, 2011

Flipswitch posted:

I used to hate them but they've grown on me.

I'm also really glad we're ending on a Tiffany book for some reason.
They're mostly the strongest of his late-period books (everything from Monstrous Regiment onward) aside from Nation, and the whole series felt like he had a solid direction and was getting ready to use it as a sendoff to one of his most developed characters.

VagueRant
May 24, 2012
If I ever finish the Thief of Time and the Death series (having done The Watch), is the Tiffany series the one I should go for next?

DontMockMySmock
Aug 9, 2008

I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

VagueRant posted:

If I ever finish the Thief of Time and the Death series (having done The Watch), is the Tiffany series the one I should go for next?

The Witches series should probably be first.

[optional: Equal Rites,] Wyrd Sisters, Witches Abroad, Lords and Ladies, Maskarade, Carpe Jugulum.

SystemLogoff
Feb 19, 2011

End Session?

Read Equal Rites later, skip right into Wyrd Sisters.

(Laugh your rear end off at Witches Abroad)

Leinadi
Sep 14, 2009
I'm re-reading some of the older books at the moment. Finished up Equal Rites and I actually think it holds up really well. It's not as... good a book as the later offerings but in many ways, it's actually funnier as well. Re-reading Pyramids at the moment which I love, it was always one of my favorites among the earlier offerings.

Cicadalek
May 8, 2006

Trite, contrived, mediocre, milquetoast, amateurish, infantile, cliche-and-gonorrhea-ridden paean to conformism, eye-fucked me, affront to humanity, war crime, should *literally* be tried for war crimes, talentless fuckfest, pedantic, listless, savagely boring, just one repulsive laugh after another
Equal Rites is weird because the part with Simon is basically identical to the plot of Sourcery. Both books start with a dying wizard leaving a staff to their descendant, both books have someone abusing magic and ending up in the Dungeon Dimensions.

FactsAreUseless
Feb 16, 2011

Cicadalek posted:

Equal Rites is weird because the part with Simon is basically identical to the plot of Sourcery. Both books start with a dying wizard leaving a staff to their descendant, both books have someone abusing magic and ending up in the Dungeon Dimensions.
If you spend your time abusing your staff, you have to go to the dungeon. Didn't your mom teach you that?

SeanBeansShako
Nov 20, 2009

Now the Drums beat up again,
For all true Soldier Gentlemen.

Cicadalek posted:

Equal Rites is weird because the part with Simon is basically identical to the plot of Sourcery. Both books start with a dying wizard leaving a staff to their descendant, both books have someone abusing magic and ending up in the Dungeon Dimensions.

I thought I was going crazy having not read either of them in years but holy drat!

Ah well, to be fair to Terry such a dramatic opening is hard to resist using twice. Wizards most of the time know how to go our in style.

Wrestlepig
Feb 25, 2011

my mum says im cool

Toilet Rascal
I liked the dungeon dimensions. I wished they came back but they probably wouldn't fit.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

SeanBeansShako
Nov 20, 2009

Now the Drums beat up again,
For all true Soldier Gentlemen.
I like to think they never went away, all the horrible things there are just terribly bored because the Wizards have moved on though.

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply