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bravesword posted:
No. His characterisation changed in later books to make him a useless coward, but originally Rincewind was meant to be a fairly average student until the Spell occupied all the magical storage units in his brain and stopped him learning any other magic. Similarly, Dr Rjinswand is genuinely a qualified scientist, but he is completely specialised in a field of applied nuclear physics that is so narrow as to be absolutely useless in any other context.
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Mar 13, 2023 16:55
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Alhazred posted:The true Terry Pratchett experience is to read whatever books that are available in your public library, slowly realizing there's is an order and go from there. When I was 14 in the mid-90s and Later, in early university, I hear these Pratchett books are pretty good, eh? Picked up TCOM, laughed my rear end off, never looked back. Still no idea what the one from the library was, though I've certainly read it at least twice by now. Phy fucked around with this message at 18:18 on Mar 13, 2023 |
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Mar 13, 2023 18:14
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Did anyone else ever wonder what Rincewind's Spell would have done if he'd cast it before he was supposed to?
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Mar 13, 2023 18:15
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Cause his brain to dribble out his ears, along with anyone nearby.* *20 mile radius.
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Mar 13, 2023 18:33
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Tsilkani posted:This is a nice guide to the various subseries within Discworld, but really, read what you want. You're going to read them all eventually. I enjoy seeing this diagram, because I actually did start with Sourcery. My family was on a cross-country trip when I was a lad, around 1990 or so, and like most trips we took it was pretty much fueled by books. Having a steady supply of reading material was the only way my parents could keep us from murdering each other in the back seat. We would have to stop periodically to refill as we finished the ones we had. Sourcery looked interesting, so I shoveled a copy into my bag along with a few trash books I don't remember, and then read it while my parents drove us through Montana or somewhere. Of course, then nothing would do but to go back and find out where this "Rincewind" person came from, and then I had to go forward and catch up. It actually took me a while to do that, because I wasn't exactly overburdened with money back then and we weren't doing trips that required reading material often enough to keep up with Terry's ridiculous level of output. When I was a little older and had a job, I made sure to prioritize picking up each one as it came out (in some cases, a little earlier, as with an uncorrected proof of Wintersmith that someone managed to snag me), and I did that right up until the end. I still have that copy of Sourcery, although it's lost the covers now along with a couple of other pages. When my wife and I finally bought a house a few years ago, after being in apartments for decades, I suggested to her and the kids that we all leave something there to signify our intention to come back and occupy the place (since we couldn't move in right away). My copy of Sourcery is what I left, since I knew that was something I'd go back for.
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Mar 13, 2023 19:36
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bravesword posted:It’s been an age since I reread Colour of Magic, but isn’t it strongly implied that he’s a bit of a fraud even as Rjinswand? No, it's just they needed an MD, not a Ph.D
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Mar 13, 2023 19:38
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It may help to remember that Rjinswand was an expert in "breakaway oxidation phenomena" in nuclear reactors. That is to say, he was an expert in them being unexpectedly and uncontrollably on fire. (It may also be worth mentioning that Terry Pratchett was, at one point*, a press officer for nuclear power plants.) * Specifically, a few months after Three Mile Island.
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Mar 13, 2023 19:43
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More to the point, he was employed by the Central Electricity Generating Board while writing The Colour of Magic. He didn't give his notice until mid-1987, after publishing Equal Rites.
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Mar 13, 2023 23:36
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e X posted:If you read a lot of '70 and '80 fantasy, TCOM and TLF are fun in as general parodies of that specific moment in time of the genre. Especially early Ankh-Morpork is so spot on for the murderous nature of a lot of these novels. Yeah, I find they read fine as parodies but without the character-driven nature of later books they can be a bit opaque if you don't hook into that, which I think is where most of the cautions come from. For example I think it was decades after I read them that I learned about the Wandering Hero archetype (who doesn't have their own stories as much as they wind up in others', for example Conan and Mad Max) and I suddenly got the joke about Rincewind being a Wandering Coward. I mean, I'd found it funny before but I hadn't really gotten the joke.
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Mar 14, 2023 00:06
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Strange Cares posted:Did anyone else ever wonder what Rincewind's Spell would have done if he'd cast it before he was supposed to? Without the other seven Great Spells? Nothing much. But it would have returned to the Octavo, which is why it always tries to get itself said when Rincewind is about to die. Otherwise, as Trymon discovered, it would have lodged itself in the nearest magically receptive head.
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Mar 14, 2023 00:26
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been a very long time since i read the original two novels - it woulda done bad things to rincewind as well, right?
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Mar 17, 2023 23:29
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Inexplicable Humblebrag posted:been a very long time since i read the original two novels - it woulda done bad things to rincewind as well, right? You mean apart from him shortly being dead from the situation he was in? Not that we know. He reads all eight Spells at the end of TLF with no ill effects. It's trying to learn all eight Spells at once that turns your brain into a portal to the Dungeon Dimensions.
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Mar 18, 2023 02:56
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idonotlikepeas posted:It may help to remember that Rjinswand was an expert in "breakaway oxidation phenomena" in nuclear reactors. That is to say, he was an expert in them being unexpectedly and uncontrollably on fire. (It may also be worth mentioning that Terry Pratchett was, at one point*, a press officer for nuclear power plants.) There's a little subtlety here as well - this is a real problem and a life-limiting factor in the design of the specifically British plants that he was press officer for.
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Mar 20, 2023 15:34
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Jedit posted:No. His characterisation changed in later books to make him a useless coward, but originally Rincewind was meant to be a fairly average student until the Spell occupied all the magical storage units in his brain and stopped him learning any other magic. Similarly, Dr Rjinswand is genuinely a qualified scientist, but he is completely specialised in a field of applied nuclear physics that is so narrow as to be absolutely useless in any other context.
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Mar 21, 2023 20:07
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It did make me smile in Raising Steam when it was mentioned in passing that Rincewind was a professor now. He's finally made it 
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Mar 21, 2023 21:07
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Youremother posted:It did make me smile in Raising Steam when it was mentioned in passing that Rincewind was a professor now. He's finally made it In the first Science of Discworld book he is made Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography, a post whose main duties include "going into portentially dangerous situations (under threats of violence from the Archchancellor)" and not any actual teaching or anything. He also seems to retain his post as Librarian's assistant. I can't remember whether that is mentioned at all in The Last Hero, which was published just a couple years later.
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Mar 21, 2023 21:54
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DontMockMySmock posted:In the first Science of Discworld book he is made Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography, a post whose main duties include "going into portentially dangerous situations (under threats of violence from the Archchancellor)" and not any actual teaching or anything. He also seems to retain his post as Librarian's assistant. I can't remember whether that is mentioned at all in The Last Hero, which was published just a couple years later. I haven't read the science of Discworld books but I have seen Rincewind identified as Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography, so it might be in there.
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Mar 21, 2023 22:15
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He provides an invaluable service to the University, which is; canary in the coalmine. If you look around and Rincewind is running, or worse, taking off his sock and looking around for a half-brick, you know things are about to go bad.
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Mar 21, 2023 23:33
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Adeptus posted:That image irrationally irritates me, it makes it look so much more complex than it really is. The books are a) fine read in any order you want, and b) published in chronological order, so work just great in that order. Same. Anytime anyone says they are thinking of getting into Discworld a bunch of jokers come out of the woodwork to make it seem like a terrifying and labyrinthine endeavour.
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Mar 22, 2023 08:45
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Honestly Rincewind got as close to a happy ending as he was ever likely to get: only occasional mortal peril, something approaching respect from other wizards (Ridcully when he's feeling generous, maybe Stibbons), a warm place to sleep (on account of all the coal) and a steady supply of potatoes.
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Mar 22, 2023 12:31
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Pwnstar posted:Same. Anytime anyone says they are thinking of getting into Discworld a bunch of jokers come out of the woodwork to make it seem like a terrifying and labyrinthine endeavour. I think figuring out where to recommend people to start with Discworld is easier than a lot of fans make it out to be, especially if you know the person you're making the recommendation to and where their interests lie. Intimidated by the big interconnected world? Start with Small Gods. Not intimidated by ongoing storylines and/or enjoyed Small Gods but still not fully sold on the series? Try Guards! Guards! or Wyrd Sisters depending on what you're into. From there if you're fully on board with Pratchett you can go back to The Colour of Magic or if you want to stick with the Witches or the Watch you can continue with those sub-series before going back to the beginning. I love the first few Discworld books and I think if you're familiar with '70s and '80s fantasy (or you have OCD about reading in publication order) they're a good place to start but I think there's potential for a lot of readers in the 2020s to bounce off of them and the series as a whole if they start there, which would be a shame considering the existence of much more approachable books that work equally well as starting points.
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Mar 22, 2023 12:50
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Nah, every book in chronological order or bust. if you can't handle Terry at his worst you don't deserve him at his best.
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Mar 22, 2023 13:17
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iirc while rincewind’s post occasionally involves mortal peril, that’s mostly because he’s still rincewind. otherwise it consists of sorting rocks and dirt samples, exactly the sort of pointless tedium that’s his idea of paradise
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Mar 22, 2023 13:42
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Rincewind of the later books is definitely much more "coward who just wants to be left alone" than his depiction at the start of TCOM. On the other hand, I can definitely see why (Barely) living through the events of The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic, then playing a pivotal role in a duel between sourcerers not long after in Sourcery and finally having to escape hell in Eric would leave someone pretty hosed up and with no greater desire than to sit in a quiet room where nothing unexpected ever happens while eating some potatoes.
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Mar 22, 2023 14:25
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CommonShore posted:I haven't read the science of Discworld books but I have seen Rincewind identified as Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography, so it might be in there. I suppose the position was open since the beginning of The Last Continent, wasn't that the professor that got eaten by a dinosaur in the past?
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Mar 22, 2023 14:34
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A Moose posted:I suppose the position was open since the beginning of The Last Continent, wasn't that the professor that got eaten by a dinosaur in the past? he was clandestinely vacationing on the god of evolution’s island/workshop and got et by an alligator-ish thing there it tried to do the same for the rest of the wizards but then became a chicken because the faculty were feeling peckish
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Mar 22, 2023 21:46
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Asgerd posted:Nah, every book in chronological order or bust. if you can't handle Terry at his worst you don't deserve him at his best. While I disagree that chronological order is necessary (my early reading order was just "this used book looks interesting") I would like to say that despite their differences from later books in the series, The Colour of Magic, The Light Fantastic, and Equal Rites are in no way Terry at his worst.
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Mar 23, 2023 06:50
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I just go with whatever I think the person I'm talking to likes best. Like I have a friend who really likes Christmas stuff, so I gave him Hogfather. While it is the second to last Death book, there wasn't anything that stopped him from jumping in and enjoying the book (and wanting to read the rest). I bounced off Equal Rites, but got talked into picking up a second which was Monstrous Regiment. That sold me on the whole series. Honestly, I mostly use Going Postal as a starting point.
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Mar 24, 2023 01:05
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I actually read all of the Watch series in reverse order, god knows why I did it. Maybe my thoughts on reading order aren't very well founded.
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Mar 24, 2023 01:21
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I picked up carpe jugulum when it came out simply on the strenght of the title and the book blurb, but it was when the vampires all get weatherwaxed that i knew i found a love for life. Queue several years of ordering books, waiting months, and giddily going to the store , because pratchett still was 10 years away from having a translation in my native language.
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Mar 24, 2023 21:16
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Oxxidation posted:he was clandestinely vacationing on the god of evolution’s island/workshop and got et by an alligator-ish thing there No, it was a T-Rex. There was a bunch of science press around that time that theropod dinosaurs are closest genetically to chickens and ostriches, but chicken got the press.
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Mar 26, 2023 00:06
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I like to recommend Mort to people starting off. It's early in the publishing order, so they can choose to read on from there, and Death is one of the greatest selling points for the series for a lot of new readers. It also gets people nicely primed for Reaper Man, which remains one of my favourite Discworld books.
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Mar 26, 2023 00:18
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Beachcomber posted:No, it was a T-Rex. There was a bunch of science press around that time that theropod dinosaurs are closest genetically to chickens and ostriches, but chicken got the press. Emus are basically velociraptors, which may have had feathers, with feathers.
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Mar 26, 2023 01:19
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IshmaelZarkov posted:I like to recommend Mort to people starting off. It's early in the publishing order, so they can choose to read on from there, and Death is one of the greatest selling points for the series for a lot of new readers. It also gets people nicely primed for Reaper Man, which remains one of my favourite Discworld books. seconded, Mort is where I started
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Mar 26, 2023 01:22
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mllaneza posted:Emus are basically velociraptors, which may have had feathers, with feathers. Now, if you want a really fun compare and contrast, look at cassowaries vs Velociraptor with regard to toe claws: cassowaries have a single long and relatively straight stabbing claw that's used as a tool for self--defense via aggressive kicks, while Velociraptor -- like most maniraptorans with the one big 'sickle claw' -- appears to have used its own heavily-curved and razor-pointed weapon (which was quite blunt on the inner surface, and so not really designed to cut or slash) sort of like modern eagles use their similarly enlarged talons: to help it easily pin down struggling prey while it tore chunks off them with its mouth.
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Mar 26, 2023 01:50
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divabot posted:seconded, Mort is where I started
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Mar 26, 2023 02:34
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divabot posted:seconded, Mort is where I started I started with Sourcery and loved it, but Mort is probably objectively better. Honorable mention to Pyramids.
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Mar 26, 2023 03:07
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ulmont posted:I started with Sourcery and loved it, but Mort is probably objectively better. Honorable mention to Pyramids. Djelibeybi and Ptracey are top tier
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Mar 26, 2023 06:35
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mllaneza posted:Emus are basically velociraptors, which may have had feathers, with feathers. Emus are arguably more deadly than velociraptors was. Drakyn posted:Now, if you want a really fun compare and contrast, look at cassowaries vs Velociraptor with regard to toe claws: cassowaries have a single long and relatively straight stabbing claw that's used as a tool for self--defense via aggressive kicks, while Velociraptor -- like most maniraptorans with the one big 'sickle claw' -- appears to have used its own heavily-curved and razor-pointed weapon (which was quite blunt on the inner surface, and so not really designed to cut or slash) sort of like modern eagles use their similarly enlarged talons: to help it easily pin down struggling prey while it tore chunks off them with its mouth. Here's a fun fact: There has been found archaeological remains that implies that people in New Guinea domesticated cassowaries. Imagine how much you must want meat if you decide to try and raise that bird.
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Mar 26, 2023 11:19
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Alhazred posted:Emus are arguably more deadly than velociraptors was. I mean humans domesticated cattle, wild cattle are not to be hosed with.
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Mar 26, 2023 12:10
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