|
I would say it's on the same level as the previous ones. Not bad but not particularly great either.
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2016 17:38
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 19, 2024 13:12 |
|
|
Skippy McPants posted:I like the ideas behind Snuff. The stuff about the Goblins and the dreadful algebra of necessity was good, but the actual writing craft was sorrowful. One of the weirdest parts of Snuff was the small subplot in the begining with Vimes and the cleaning ladies. It didn't really relate to the rest of the story and on its own, the moral of it was just dreadful.
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2016 23:57
|
|
|
Rand Brittain posted:I don't actually think anything was wrong with Unseen Academicals except that it was chock-full of references that only make sense to British people, more than any other Discworld book I could name. I think my biggest problem with Unseen Academicals is that there isn't really anything at stake. The wizards have to play football but they don't have to win and the villain is just a bully that no one really likes.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2016 09:32
|
|
|
Alhazred posted:I think my biggest problem with Unseen Academicals is that there isn't really anything at stake. The wizards have to play football but they don't have to win That's not how Ridcully thinks. Honestly, I thought it was good to have a book where nothing much was at stake for once. Not everything has to be a major disaster.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2016 10:42
|
|
|
I've gone through the list of discworld novels to see which ones I've missed - are these must-reads? Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents Wee Free Men A Hat Full of Sky Wintersmith Unseen Academicals I shall wear Midnight Snuff Raising Steam The Shepherd's Crown. I don't think I want to read the books that are so obviously influenced by Pterry's embuggrance like (according to this thread) snuff and the crown. I don't think my heart could take it.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2016 15:03
|
|
|
I'd say yes to the first three. A resounding meh! to everything else, though I shall wear Midnight and WIntersmith have a few moments.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2016 15:12
|
|
|
double nine posted:I've gone through the list of discworld novels to see which ones I've missed - are these must-reads? The Amazing Maurice is really clever, and despite being a "young adult" book it's one of the darkest Discworld books. It deals with some very serious themes, like death.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2016 15:16
|
|
Hedrigall posted:The Amazing Maurice is really clever, and despite being a "young adult" book it's one of the darkest Discworld books. It deals with some very serious themes, like death. It was one of several Pratchett books I sadly lost in a move which I miss dearly to this day  .
|
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2016 16:04
|
|
|
Jedit posted:Not everything has to be a major disaster. It needs to be something. But there really isn't anything that happens in the book. Trevor Likely doesn't even have to practice to be good at football. And because nothing is at stake it feels really hollow when Pepe decides to cut up Andy Shank because Shank didn't really do anything to deserve it He was just a bully, and as I mentioned he wasn't even a powerful bully because everyone would be happy to just leave him. double nine posted:
Alhazred fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Jul 22, 2016 |
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2016 18:16
|
|
|
double nine posted:I've gone through the list of discworld novels to see which ones I've missed - are these must-reads? Amazing Maurice and Wee Free Men are the must-reads. I'm personally ambivalent to the rest of the Tiffany Aching books, but they're the most consistant in quality of the latter written books, and it's nice to see her evolve as a character. UA, Snuff and, Raising Steam were underwhelming in different ways - I couldn't enagage with UA, Snuff felt like it was Vimes going through the motions, and Raising Steam was a weak amalgam of themes and concepts that had been better covered in his earlier stories, and felt a bit of a rehash. They're still worth a read, but I don't think they're among his best.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2016 19:03
|
|
|
The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents is one of my favorite discworld books. It's probably around #4-8th best discworld book. Go read it!
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2016 19:50
|
|
|
What's at stake in Unseen Academicals is the success of Vetinari's attempt to shift Ankh-Morpork's crowd psychology into something a little less unhealthy.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2016 22:07
|
|
|
I really enjoyed Wintersmith, personally. I'd recommend all the Aching books, even I Shall Wear Midnight and The Shepherd's Crown are a big step above his last few non-Tiffany books. Amazing Maurice is a must-read.
Zulily Zoetrope fucked around with this message at 00:39 on Jul 23, 2016 |
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2016 22:12
|
|
|
Oxxidation posted:The degradation started around Unseen Academicals and became undeniable by Snuff. I wish I'd never read the latter. I often hear Thud! trotted out as the start of the degradation, but I really enjoyed Thud! and it's among my favorites. Then again, I am a sucker for most of the Dwarf stuff.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2016 23:05
|
|
|
With the exception of The Shepherd's Crown, for obvious reasons, I feel the Aching books were better because they focussed on an interesting, likeable character, and were buttressed by simple, clear character arcs in each book. By comparison, Snuff and Raising Steam were books about ideas--civil rights and the Industrial Revolution (kinda sorta)--with Vimes and Lipwig acting as more of a narrator who interacts with the story at large, instead of the focus of a story that had a lot of interesting things going on in the background (e.g. Fifth Elephant and Going Postal). It goes without saying that writing a story about an abstract concept instead of a character is more difficult at the best of times. I suspect that Pterry had a great deal he wanted to say about those things, but felt he didn't have the time to weave them into a story about a person, the way he did with The Truth, with the result that his later books were less compelling. Bah, this thread is so long, someone's bound to have pointed this all out already. I found Unseen Academicals forgettable--literally. The only thing I remember was that there was an orc in it, and something about football.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2016 23:11
|
|
|
Interview with Rob recently revealed that Pterry had as many as ten Discworld books at some stage of planning from concept to plot outline when he died. The next novel in the sequence would have been Clang!, a story about bellringers in a city under siege. The only other one I know of was a story centring on the development of radio. I wonder what the others were?
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2016 23:48
|
|
|
Rand Brittain posted:I don't actually think anything was wrong with Unseen Academicals except that it was chock-full of references that only make sense to British people, more than any other Discworld book I could name. I found it meandering to the point of absolute tedium. It feels like a thousand page novel.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2016 02:46
|
|
|
Development of radio feels kind of unnecessary with the klacks as an internet analogue already in place. To tell the truth, I never did like all these “technology x gets invented“ books all that much and think it's kind of a pity he made that later Discworld's main premise, even though some of them were quite good. My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 07:53 on Jul 23, 2016 |
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2016 07:50
|
|
|
Jedit posted:Interview with Rob recently revealed that Pterry had as many as ten Discworld books at some stage of planning from concept to plot outline when he died. The next novel in the sequence would have been Clang!, a story about bellringers in a city under siege. The only other one I know of was a story centring on the development of radio. I wonder what the others were? There was also Raising Taxes which would have been interesting. I'm almost glad the book about sieges didn't get written, since there is no way it would have been nearly as good as the description of urban warfare in Night Watch.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2016 08:41
|
|
|
e X posted:One of the weirdest parts of Snuff was the small subplot in the begining with Vimes and the cleaning ladies. It didn't really relate to the rest of the story and on its own, the moral of it was just dreadful.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2016 10:14
|
|
|
There was always the much rumored one where Carrot was going to be taking a bunch of inner city kids from Ankh Morpork out camping.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2016 10:17
|
|
|
RoboChrist 9000 posted:I often hear Thud! trotted out as the start of the degradation, but I really enjoyed Thud! and it's among my favorites. Then again, I am a sucker for most of the Dwarf stuff. Yeah, Thud and Wintersmith are good - Thud is one of my favourites too.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2016 10:38
|
|
|
For a while I thought the issues with Snuff was that it was essentially a civil rights allegory written by someone for whom civil rights was a noble cause that he supported - but essentially something that happened to someone else. Written from the perspective of a focal character for whom yadda yadda, see above. But then I considered that Thud is actually an excellent portrayal of ethnic / religious tensions from an outsiders perspective, so I dunno.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2016 10:45
|
|
|
My Lovely Horse posted:Development of radio feels kind of unnecessary with the klacks as an internet analogue already in place. Pterry was on record as saying that Discworld technology had advanced as far as it was ever going to. He brought up crystal radio because the Disc already had all the necessary technology for it. The "what if technology?" books are an inevitable destination for a series of books that is a social analogue. War and international relations are all well and good, but there comes a point where you've said all you can say because they never really change. At that point you either have to end the analogy or find a different thing that creates social change and response. The obvious and most variable target is technological advance.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2016 11:24
|
|
|
When I read Snuff I had no idea Terry Pratchett was wrong in the head so it seemed fine to me. Just read it for yourself if you haven't already I mean it's not like it takes more than a few days 
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2016 13:03
|
|
|
Was Snuff the snot goblin one? Because that one made me wonder if he'd had a stroke and motivated me to find out what was going on.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2016 13:22
|
|
|
double nine posted:I've gone through the list of discworld novels to see which ones I've missed - are these must-reads? Even the Brain Problems books like Snuff and Raising Steam are worth reading, they're just not up to the normal exceedingly high Discworld standard. Read them all.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2016 14:28
|
|
|
I found The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents lacking in both humour and excitement but it was written for kids I guess
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2016 14:31
|
|
|
VagueRant posted:I have zero recollection of this. Could you elaborate? Iirc, Vimes and Sybil are going to spent some time in the Ramkin country house and all the (female) servants there are incredible servile, i.e. never making eye-contact, never talking with him, which of course, grates him to no end since it makes him feel like an aristocrat. He tries to kind of force them to interact with them, which doesn't work at all, and than Sybil calls him out, explaining that this no contact business is actually for the benefit of the women, since it stops the lords from abusing them. It's been awhile since I read the book, so maybe I got some details wrong, but the entire thing comes of as incredible awkward.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2016 15:02
|
|
e X posted:Iirc, Vimes and Sybil are going to spent some time in the Ramkin country house and all the (female) servants there are incredible servile, i.e. never making eye-contact, never talking with him, which of course, grates him to no end since it makes him feel like an aristocrat. He tries to kind of force them to interact with them, which doesn't work at all, and than Sybil calls him out, explaining that this no contact business is actually for the benefit of the women, since it stops the lords from abusing them. Oh god this happened. I forgot it because I filtered most of Snuff out aside from the bitching barge river fight at the end.
|
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2016 15:27
|
|
|
Jerry Cotton posted:I found The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents lacking in both humour and excitement but it was written for kids I guess I feel sorry for you if you don't enjoy the kids books. I read the Bromeliad last month after postponing it for 25 years and it was pretty great. Also made me feel like I lived in a world where Pterry was still alive and writing books.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2016 19:22
|
|
|
Cardiac posted:I feel sorry for you if you don't enjoy the kids books. I was over 30 when I read it. If you think more needs to be said then I posit the problem lies with you.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2016 20:27
|
|
|
My Lovely Horse posted:Development of radio feels kind of unnecessary with the klacks as an internet analogue already in place. Quite good? Quite good? Tell that to "The Truth", a wonderful novel about moveable type, second only to "Night Watch".
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2016 21:55
|
|
|
Is not the very first Discworld novel about a third-world country clashing with modern things and stuff?
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2016 22:38
|
|
|
UnquietDream posted:Quite good? Quite good? Tell that to "The Truth", a wonderful novel about moveable type, second only to "Night Watch". Going Postal is also definitely up there.
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2016 02:48
|
|
|
e X posted:Iirc, Vimes and Sybil are going to spent some time in the Ramkin country house and all the (female) servants there are incredible servile, i.e. never making eye-contact, never talking with him, which of course, grates him to no end since it makes him feel like an aristocrat. He tries to kind of force them to interact with them, which doesn't work at all, and than Sybil calls him out, explaining that this no contact business is actually for the benefit of the women, since it stops the lords from abusing them. Wasn't this actually a thing, though? Naive young noblemen and impressionable housemaids falling in love was a bad time for everyone involved. Having the housemaids turn and face the wall whenever a member of the family went past certainly wasn't a great solution, but must have done something, or the practice wouldn't have caught on. I guess it's possible Sybil was sugarcoating things, but I didn't read anything in particular about "abuse".
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2016 12:33
|
|
|
The Evil Thing posted:Wasn't this actually a thing, though? Naive young noblemen and impressionable housemaids falling in love was a bad time for everyone involved. Having the housemaids turn and face the wall whenever a member of the family went past certainly wasn't a great solution, but must have done something, or the practice wouldn't have caught on. I always thought that sidestory merely served to reinforce the greater "the nobs are untouchable" issue that Vimes rails against and eventually overcomes -- more or less.
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2016 20:55
|
|
|
Screaming Idiot posted:I always thought that sidestory merely served to reinforce the greater "the nobs are untouchable" issue that Vimes rails against and eventually overcomes -- more or less. Oh, it absolutely does that too. My point was that it was reference to an historical situation rather than some weird fantasy Pratchett made up.
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2016 22:13
|
|
|
Well, ever since Pratchett passed I decided to re-read all the Discworld books (at least, the ones I still had access to) before reading the Shepherd's Crown. Did just that during my vacation this July after going through Snuff and Raising Steam, and while SC definitely feels incomplete, it sure as hell reads and flows better than the former two. I'm glad that Pratchett was still able to write two good books (UA and SC for me) during his final stretch towards the desert. Thanks for the memories, Terry.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2016 20:18
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 19, 2024 13:12 |
|
|
I guess this makes me a terrible Pratchett fan, but I could never get through the Witches series. As a guy who's just done the Death/Watch and a couple of other books, does Shepard's Crown work as a standalone? Always felt like the Watch books very carefully re-established every character for just such a situation.
|
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2016 21:26
|
|