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precision posted:Finding out Pratchett thinks highly of Dawkins would be the second most depressing thing I've ever heard about him. He makes it clear he thinks Dawkins is a stubborn bloody-minded academic, but also one who happens to be right and also necessary for science to keep being pushed forward. If Dawkins had been raised differently, he would've been a raging evangelical fundamentalist Christian. Sort of like how Pratchett writes the blustering wizards and priests. Mister Roboto fucked around with this message at 05:10 on Oct 19, 2013 |
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Oct 19, 2013 05:06
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Douglas Adams also had a lot of respect for Dawkins, although Dawkins hadn't made as much of an rear end of himself by the time Adams died. Dawkins is a significant figure in British atheism, especially for their generation, and I can imagine that Pratchett respects him without agreeing with all of his views. Kind of like how you'd be nice to a racist grandparent who you nonetheless admired.
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Oct 19, 2013 06:49
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Both my dad and girlfriend are very fond of Dawkins, and while I agree with almost everything he says about the importance of science and the damage that organised religions have inflicted (and continue to do so) his spluttering incandescence is letting the side down. Jeremy Hardy, my favourite comic/current events commentator (of the News Quiz) described him as a Evangelical Atheist, which is pretty accurate. MikeJF posted:Just out of curiosity, where do you live? There's some cases where the standard accepted way things are in Britain would be pushing the atheist/humanist agenda in America. I'm also in the UK. Shelvocke fucked around with this message at 15:28 on Oct 19, 2013 |
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Oct 19, 2013 15:24
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Yeah, Dawkins' problem is much more one of tone than content, though I do take issue with his stubborn refusal to separate "church", "religion" and "spirituality". Like that one guy said, "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians." Or how we Gnostics dismiss mainline Christianity with "They have the cross, we have the Christ." I can't find much recent info about The Watch series, is it ever happening? I thought it was in post already. It better not end up like Radio Free Albemuth. e: VVVV I know, I was just trying to be clever.  precision fucked around with this message at 22:08 on Oct 19, 2013 |
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Oct 19, 2013 22:02
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That guy was Ghandi I believe.
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Oct 19, 2013 22:05
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I think Dawkins has reached the combo of age + credentials and fame where he does not care nor see the VALUE in caring about being nice or diplomatic. He's a curmudgeonly old man who also happens to be very smart and educated. Which is a shame, because at this point, his horrible rear end in a top hat behavior just fuels the persecution syndrome of the religious and also is exactly the nasty personality that atheists need to disassociate with.
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Oct 20, 2013 06:16
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Mister Roboto posted:I think Dawkins has reached the combo of age + credentials and fame where he does not care nor see the VALUE in caring about being nice or diplomatic. He's a curmudgeonly old man who also happens to be very smart and educated. Pretty much my thoughts entirely. He's a dickish evangelist, and dickish evangelists piss me off, regardless of the thing they're evangelising for. E: but Pterry's pretty awesome. I need to read the latest.
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Oct 20, 2013 10:20
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precision posted:Yeah, Dawkins' problem is much more one of tone than content Lately Dawkins' problems have had much to do with content: http://www.newstatesman.com/religion/2013/08/atheism-maturing-and-it-will-leave-richard-dawkins-behind
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Oct 20, 2013 11:18
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http://www.amazon.co.uk/Terry-Pratchett-Witches-Board-Game/dp/B00DYQQDVC/ref=pd_sim_b_10 Witches, Martin Wallace's board game follow-up to Discworld: Ankh-Morpork is out. I had a chance to see it playtested at the last DWCon, it seems OK but I didn't get to sit down with it myself. It's a task completion game with a push-your-luck mechanic - occasionally you'll need to take a break or risk venturing into "gingerbread cottage country". Also Amazon have a date of June 2014 for The Long Childhood, the third in the Long Earth series. Lastly, Monday week sees the release of Steeleye Span's Wintersmith, a concept album based on the Tiffany Aching novels.
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Oct 20, 2013 12:29
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Wintersmith does sound like a contending name for a Finnish metal band.Alhazred posted:Lately Dawkins' problems have had much to do with content: http://www.newstatesman.com/religion/2013/08/atheism-maturing-and-it-will-leave-richard-dawkins-behind The comment section on that article is exactly as hateful and idiotic as I thought it would be.
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Oct 20, 2013 18:29
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Wait... this Steeleye Span? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zzwbYyvWiU I can't imagine that will be a good album, and I normally like old British folk rock.
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Oct 20, 2013 21:28
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precision posted:Wait... this Steeleye Span? Yes, that Steeleye Span. And I'll wait until I've heard it before saying it'll be bad.
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Oct 20, 2013 22:44
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I've been on a rereading kick (sitting around on my Kindle) and there are the same super clever and well written jokes in the later stuff (except Snuff) but every one of the books stops telling them right. It's weird to say his single greatest ability was formatting, but that specifically is what makes the later books no where near as memorable as the early. The big difference between, say, Feet of Clay and Thud! (I actually prefered Thud! on the first read, it's got some really powerful tone and atmosphere) is that the narrator would tell us about the Ramkin women's pluck and resolve in a series of quips, footnotes and quick short shots, while in Thud! she just rants for like a gigantic paragraph instead. There are good jokes in there! And then like with the drat Koom Vally/dam Koom Vally, I feel like that would have landed really well if it let the reader work it out, instead of having Vimes muse on it for a page and just smack us up the side of the head with it. Also the tone gets a bunch darker? It works in a bunch of places, but in the previous books a character biting it was a big deal, it's significant and powerful and used sparingly. In Thud an office just, up and dies. It's not a big deal, you've gotta threaten his family now, because stakes must be raised. If there's something horrible, it used to be alluded to and the reaction of the characters winds up being more powerful then out and out saying or showing it. Contrast Om finding out about torture with like, that weird miscarriage scene in one of the later Aching books. What I'm saying is, I really honestly think Terry is still at or near the top of his writing game, he just needs a really good editor, one who can tell him ''this shouldn't be a speech, this should be a footnote''.
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Oct 22, 2013 20:59
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CoolCab posted:words As I think someone suggested earlier, nobody really wants to say no to Terry right now, what with the whole dying-slow-of-a-brain-wasting-disease thing.
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Oct 22, 2013 21:30
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I actually kind of like it when Terry doesn't even try to be subtle. The recording of Bloodaxe and the Troll King along with the whole Tak bit in Thud! is one of my favorite things in the series. "Art thys thyng workyng?" 
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Oct 23, 2013 01:12
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Redmark posted:I actually kind of like it when Terry doesn't even try to be subtle. My favorite joke of his that's both completely unsubtle but also took me a while to get was having a band in Soul Music named "We're Certainly Dwarves".
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Oct 23, 2013 21:07
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precision posted:My favorite joke of his that's both completely unsubtle but also took me a while to get was having a band in Soul Music named "We're Certainly Dwarves". Motherfucker and I'm listening to them right now too.
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Oct 24, 2013 00:09
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precision posted:My favorite joke of his that's both completely unsubtle but also took me a while to get was having a band in Soul Music named "We're Certainly Dwarves". Surprisingly, a lot of people also fail to realise who the Surreptitious Fabric are meant to be. The Velvet Underground. Then there's the amazingly subtle joke that Death steals the Librarian's bike and the Dean's "BORN TO RUNE" jacket to go collect Imp and the Band With Rocks In, he's described as wearing "the coat he borrowed from the Dean". This is a direct lift from the lyrics of American Pie, where the original line is "in a coat he borrowed from James Dean". The song is about The Day The Music Died, the name given to the plane crash that killed Buddy Holly and Richie Valens. And what does "imp y celyn" mean in Welsh/Llamedosian? "Bud of the Holly".
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Oct 24, 2013 01:04
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I got nearly every reference in Soul Music (everything mentioned above), but can someone explain We're Certainly Dwarves? It's not just "Yes", is it?
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Oct 24, 2013 11:08
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AlphaDog posted:I got nearly every reference in Soul Music (everything mentioned above), but can someone explain We're Certainly Dwarves? It's not just "Yes", is it? They Might Be Giants.
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Oct 24, 2013 11:09
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AlphaDog posted:I got nearly every reference in Soul Music (everything mentioned above), but can someone explain We're Certainly Dwarves? It's not just "Yes", is it? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhjSzjoU7OQ e:fb
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Oct 24, 2013 11:11
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Pope Guilty posted:They Might Be Giants. Oh, loving seriously? Of course it is. I was even getting into listening to them at about the same time I was getting into Pratchett.
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Oct 24, 2013 11:19
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Jedit posted:Surprisingly, a lot of people also fail to realise who the Surreptitious Fabric are meant to be. The Velvet Underground. This and many other reasons is why I loving love Soul Music. Not a big fan of the animated version though, apart from the music. Still, it was nineties Channel Four. SeanBeansShako fucked around with this message at 15:35 on Oct 24, 2013 |
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Oct 24, 2013 14:42
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Didn't Soul Music come out in '94?
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Oct 24, 2013 15:30
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Yeah it was nineties.
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Oct 24, 2013 15:35
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CoolCab posted:What I'm saying is, I really honestly think Terry is still at or near the top of his writing game, he just needs a really good editor, one who can tell him ''this shouldn't be a speech, this should be a footnote''. Shelvocke posted:As I think someone suggested earlier, nobody really wants to say no to Terry right now, what with the whole dying-slow-of-a-brain-wasting-disease thing. In the past Terry's said he considers his editor to be an integral part of the process, to keep his head out of his rear end so he can see what he's writing*. While I hate to think they really have started walking on eggshells about telling him to fix poo poo, I think you're probably right that that's what they're doing. *probably not his words
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Oct 25, 2013 10:34
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precision posted:I can't find much recent info about The Watch series, is it ever happening? I thought it was in post already. It better not end up like Radio Free Albemuth. I was at this: http://www.badgeronline.co.uk/evening-terry-pratchett-friends-review/ last month, and according to Rod Brown, the script is currently being written. No word on when we'll get it or anything, but it's still being worked on at least.
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Oct 25, 2013 18:51
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I know it's a bit much for me constantly harping on the watch series but I started listening to the audiobook for Jingo today after finishing Night Watch and... Well, I spotted the Buggy Swires/Wee Mad Arthur thing previously, but it's really odd for... Well, at the end of Feet of Clay, book 19, Vimes decides to hire Reg Shoe and put him on the street outside a posh dickhead's house because the guy was constantly complaining about dwarves and trolls - it was during the part where Dorfl was liberating all the workplaces he and the other golems worked at. However, Jingo (book 21) starts with Vimes thinking that Carrot's been undermining him by signing up a number of new officers without his direct knowledge, such as... Well, the first example is Reg Shoe. Interestingly, Wee Mad Arthur first shows up (and is recruited) in Feet of Clay, and Buggy Swires is first mentioned during the opening of Jingo.
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Oct 29, 2013 06:53
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Pidmon posted:I know it's a bit much for me constantly harping on the watch series but I started listening to the audiobook for Jingo today after finishing Night Watch and... Now read Thief Of Time again. e: Seriously, it's like he wrote that book just so he would never be asked about this sort of thing ever again.
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Oct 29, 2013 07:02
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AlphaDog posted:Now read Thief Of Time again. I know, I know, but it's still a bit of an audio double-take.
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Oct 29, 2013 07:03
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Yeah, that's not a dig at you or anything. I'm just sure he realised at some point that Discworld had inconsistent continuity and that that's an awesome idea for a plot.
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Oct 29, 2013 07:04
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AlphaDog posted:Yeah, that's not a dig at you or anything. I'm just sure he realised at some point that Discworld had inconsistent continuity and that that's an awesome idea for a plot. It wasn't the first time he'd used a plot to allow himself to rewrite the books, either. Discworld magic used to be a parody of the D&D system, where you spend weeks learning a spell then forget it when you cast it and can only memorise a certain number of spells at a time. Then came Sourcery, and although the sourcerer is gone his presence gave a hefty recharge to the Disc's magical field. Now it's much easier to cast spells.
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Oct 29, 2013 09:25
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Space Butler posted:I was at this: http://www.badgeronline.co.uk/evening-terry-pratchett-friends-review/ last month, and according to Rod Brown, the script is currently being written. No word on when we'll get it or anything, but it's still being worked on at least. I would gladly give up my entire life and job here and move to Britain for a chance to work on that project. That's a life's goal of mine, but damned if I know a way to even approach it.
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Oct 29, 2013 12:10
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Anyone know what is up with Raising Steam? The US release date has been pushed back to March, but the UK release is still next week. It's been a long time since the releases were staggered.
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Nov 2, 2013 01:04
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Mister Roboto posted:I would gladly give up my entire life and job here and move to Britain for a chance to work on that project. That's a life's goal of mine, but damned if I know a way to even approach it. Figure out the email of someone who's part of the project. Not just like any random project member, you'll want like an HR director or someone fairly close to the top of the food chain, but if you can contact HR or a hiring manager that would be best. Email them-just once, never more than once until they've already responded-telling them that you're really interested in what they're doing and that you want to be a part of it. Tell them your credentials, if you have some kind of demo reel or portfolio of whatever you're looking to contribute that'll do you tons of good. If they think you're worth bringing on board they'll get in contact, if they don't, at least you tried.
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Nov 2, 2013 03:05
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Yesterday Rhianna Pratchett announced that she's adapting Wee Free Men to a feature length movie.
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Nov 2, 2013 10:04
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Pidmon posted:I know it's a bit much for me constantly harping on the watch series but I started listening to the audiobook for Jingo today after finishing Night Watch and... Are you me? Finished my n'th re-read of nightwatch and moved on to Jingo. Lovin' it.
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Nov 2, 2013 12:54
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Iacen posted:Yesterday Rhianna Pratchett announced that she's adapting Wee Free Men to a feature length movie.
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Nov 3, 2013 03:49
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Edit: drat it. Wrong tab.
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Nov 3, 2013 04:13
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FactsAreUseless posted:There was supposed to be a Wee Free Men movie directed by Sam Raimi coming out in 2008. We'll see whether this one actually happens. I read somewhere it's Pratchett himself who didn't like the way Hollywood tries to focus-group everything, which prevents anything major developing over here. Which is fine by me and is his right.
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Nov 3, 2013 05:05
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