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Hedrigall posted:Soul Music isn't just great music puns though, there's so many pop culture references, especially about movies from the 80s and 90s like Blues Brothers, Back to the Future, Jurassic Park, Terminator, and tons more. It's a total romp. A felonious monk?
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Feb 4, 2015 17:57
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bondetamp posted:We're on a mission from Glod. "Are you the Watch?" "No ma'am, we're musicians."
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Feb 4, 2015 18:15
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Kitchner posted:Guards! Guards! - The dragon is the main antagonist and Wonse is named as the person who summoned him early on. IIRC we knew the guys name, but the mystery was more about who the guy was in relation to Ankh Morpork and why he was doing it. The guy was some bureaucrat and his reasons were typical petty ones which puts a rather banal cap on the whole One True King slays the Dragon and claims his Kingdom arc and the detective story flies under the radar. In the end Vimes knows a crime has been committed if he isn't precisely sure exactly what, and he does get his man. Blind Melon fucked around with this message at 18:18 on Feb 4, 2015 |
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Feb 4, 2015 18:15
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Hogge Wild posted:He looked elvish. And at the end of the book, he's working in a chip shop.
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Feb 4, 2015 18:54
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We're Certainly Dwarves. If you like Granny Weatherwax I think her best moments are in Carpe Jugulum. I'm glad this thread has outed the one person who doesn't like Small Gods.
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Feb 4, 2015 19:07
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precision posted:If you like Granny Weatherwax I think her best moments are in Carpe Jugulum. I prefer Granny in Maskerade over CJ. That book has the dinner with Senor Basilica, which is one of my favourite scenes in Discworld; the first signs of Granny going a bit Black Aliss; giving Walter the ghost mask; Esme actually managing to shock Nanny Ogg with her worldliness; and catching the sword.
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Feb 4, 2015 19:27
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The best hidden reference in Soul Music is still that Death arrives for the finale "in a coat he borrowed from [the] Dean."
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Feb 4, 2015 19:34
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Rand Brittain posted:The best hidden reference in Soul Music is still that Death arrives for the finale "in a coat he borrowed from [the] Dean." Holy poo poo
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Feb 4, 2015 19:43
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:Holy poo poo "LIVE FATS AND DIE YO GNU"?
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Feb 4, 2015 19:57
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tooterfish posted:
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Feb 4, 2015 20:08
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Alhazred posted:I refuse to believe that someone bought a Discworld book based on the original covers. I'm another UK goon who started reading (as in really reading a lot for fun) after picking up Pyramids in a library when I was about 12, mostly based on the cover. Ahh good times.
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Feb 4, 2015 20:23
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Rand Brittain posted:The best hidden reference in Soul Music is still that Death arrives for the finale "in a coat he borrowed from [the] Dean." Blimey! I'll have to try and dig it out next time I go round my parents.
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Feb 4, 2015 20:32
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Alhazred posted:I refuse to believe that someone bought a Discworld book based on the original covers. The covers are pretty nice, even if they misrepresent characters (Rincewind isn't exactly an old guy).
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Feb 4, 2015 20:46
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Kurtofan posted:The covers are pretty nice, even if they misrepresent characters (Rincewind isn't exactly an old guy). And foureyed Twoflower. But I still like the old covers.
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Feb 4, 2015 20:52
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Alvarez IV posted:If I've only ever read Good Omens (and enjoyed it thoroughly) and want to read a Discworld entry without having to know all the lore from the rest, what's a good single one to check out? I heard Small Gods and The Last Hero were good for that sort of stuff, is it true and if not what is? I started with Going Postal. IT was a good stand alone book yet it helped you understand the city that most of the books are set in. 
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Feb 4, 2015 21:29
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Guards Guards! or Wyrd Sisters would probably be decent first forays. They both kick off their respective series (Watch and Witches*), and are universally regarded as Good Reads. *Equal Rites doesn't count as a Witches book in my opinion. There's only one witch in it for a start.
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Feb 4, 2015 21:53
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Kurtofan posted:The covers are pretty nice, even if they misrepresent characters (Rincewind isn't exactly an old guy). It took me like a decade reading the books in publication order (I'm old enough to have started when Mort got a US publication!) to realize that Rincewind wasn't supposed to be an old man and the cover of The Light Fantastic is probably the only reason why.
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Feb 4, 2015 23:03
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tooterfish posted:Guards Guards! or Wyrd Sisters would probably be decent first forays. They both kick off their respective series (Watch and Witches*), and are universally regarded as Good Reads. Guards! Guards and Wyrd Sisters are great not just for their plots, but for the meticulously woven, perfectly characterised conversations between all the characters in the quieter moments. The scenes in Wyrd Sisters where the witches are discussing what to have for tea, or what to call the baby, or...disagreeing with the plots to certain very famous plays involving dead kings are utterly glorious. "This cauldron's all full of yuck" and "he was hung up by his figgin from the town hall" are snippets that will never, ever fail to raise a smile for me.
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Feb 4, 2015 23:23
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precision posted:It took me like a decade reading the books in publication order (I'm old enough to have started when Mort got a US publication!) to realize that Rincewind wasn't supposed to be an old man and the cover of The Light Fantastic is probably the only reason why. Without scrutinising the cover for whatever reason, I immediately thought Rincewind in Colour was at most in his mid-thirties, and pretty much as Kidby subsequently depicted him.
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Feb 4, 2015 23:31
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From what I recall there aren't really any signifiers about his age are there? And all the other wizards are really old and when they're not (Ponder Stibbons) their lack of oldness is constantly mentioned. I think that didn't help.
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Feb 4, 2015 23:50
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precision posted:From what I recall there aren't really any signifiers about his age are there? And all the other wizards are really old and when they're not (Ponder Stibbons) their lack of oldness is constantly mentioned. I think that didn't help. Depends on the book. Colour of Magic makes it clear it's quite young by his backstory, doesn't it?
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Feb 5, 2015 00:07
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MikeJF posted:Depends on the book. Colour of Magic makes it clear it's quite young by his backstory, doesn't it? Yes. In TCOM it's stated that Rincewind is 33. tribbledirigible posted:"LIVE FATS AND DIE YO GNU"? That's the jacket, yes, but the reference is to a line from American Pie: The Jester sang for the King and Queen In a coat he borrowed from James Dean
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Feb 5, 2015 02:49
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I haven't actually read a book with Rincewind in it but the brief moments he showed up in a couple other books I have read, I got the impression he was young.
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Feb 5, 2015 03:50
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Kurtofan posted:(Rincewind isn't exactly an old guy). By now he probably is.
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Feb 5, 2015 08:22
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Blind Melon posted:IIRC we knew the guys name, but the mystery was more about who the guy was in relation to Ankh Morpork and why he was doing it. The guy was some bureaucrat and his reasons were typical petty ones which puts a rather banal cap on the whole One True King slays the Dragon and claims his Kingdom arc and the detective story flies under the radar. In the end Vimes knows a crime has been committed if he isn't precisely sure exactly what, and he does get his man. It's established pretty early on that it's Wonse and he wants the King back. Considering he's portrayed as manipulative it's hardly a surprise that he wants to control said King. I'm not talking about if Vimes knows who dunnit I'm talking about the reader. Not many crime novels, as far as I'm aware, tell the reader who committed the crime early on and then spend the rest of the novel exploring why they did it. As for someone else's point via the Scone of Stone in Fifth Elephant yeah I guess that's true, who stole the Scone is probably the "mystery" part of the story as opposed to the murders carried out by Wolfgang and his psychopaths. So maybe 2/3 of the watch novels out of all of them kept the reader in suspense. I think Feet of Clay kept me wondering whodunit the longest, but none of them really felt like a crime novel per se.
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Feb 5, 2015 11:10
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It's been a while, but isn't the reveal with Wonse that he works for the Patrician? VV Something like that. I remember some sort of reveal. Blind Melon fucked around with this message at 11:56 on Feb 5, 2015 |
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Feb 5, 2015 11:46
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If I remember right, it's not until quite late on that it's revealed that Wonce and the leader of the brethren were one and the same.
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Feb 5, 2015 11:51
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It's been a while since I've read it so maybe I'm mistaken. If it is ill just take back what I said about them not really having many mysteries
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Feb 5, 2015 12:07
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Guards Guards is definitely a semi-mystery novel, even including Vimes having a notebook full of clues he tries to piece together.
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Feb 5, 2015 12:57
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Itym: From whence it cometh none knowe, nor wither it goeth, nor where it bideth betweentimes It's fun to see Vimes
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Feb 5, 2015 13:15
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Whodunits are not the only kind of detectoring story, just the same as sword-and-sorcery isn't the only kind of fantasy; the Watch stories appropriate and jettison elements from all kinds of sub-genres as the author sees fit. Kitchner posted:Not many crime novels, as far as I'm aware, tell the reader who committed the crime early on and then spend the rest of the novel exploring why they did it. It's called either an inverted story or a howcatchem, depending on your feelings about language. They're a recognised sub-genre. Became more popular after Columbo did it on TV, but the basic concept goes back to stuff like The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton, which starts with Holmes telling Watson what an rear end in a top hat Milverton is and why something drastic needs to be done about him.
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Feb 5, 2015 13:25
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tooterfish posted:Itym: From whence it cometh none knowe, nor wither it goeth, nor where it bideth betweentimes I figure that the genre being parodied* is police procedural rather than whodunit. The fun isn't in the reader trying to figure out what happened, it's in watching the characters figure it out. e: Beaten. I like "howcatchem" as a way to describe it, too. e2: I feel like this ties in with Vimes' internal monologues about Clues. *This doesn't feel like quite the right word after Light Fantastic, but you know what I mean. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 13:37 on Feb 5, 2015 |
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Feb 5, 2015 13:32
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Aside: "Howdunnit" is an elusive but fun genre too. One example is Jack Glass by Adam Roberts, a near-future solar system opera which features three different murders, and in each case we know who did it, but the how is the interesting part, and each time involves a cool SF idea. If you don't care about spoilers: one of them is a gun that fires backwards in time.
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Feb 5, 2015 13:39
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Blind Melon posted:It's been a while, but isn't the reveal with Wonse that he works for the Patrician?
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Feb 5, 2015 15:23
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If I remember rightly, it isn't revealed that Wonse is also the leader of the Bretheren until quite a while into the book. He certainly has a few exchanges with Vimes before the reader finds out.
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Feb 5, 2015 18:55
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Decided to pick up I Shall Wear Midnight off my shelf the other night and re-read it, this ones quite a bit grimmer than the other Tiffany Aching books but I think it's a great read. I've been on a huge binge on The Witches books, I can't get enough of reading anything that involves either Granny or Nanny Ogg, they're loving hysterical. Though I remember reading at some point that Pratchett hinted that Nanny was actually a more powerful Witch than Granny at some point, but I'm not sure where I read it.
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Feb 10, 2015 01:12
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Flipswitch posted:Decided to pick up I Shall Wear Midnight off my shelf the other night and re-read it, this ones quite a bit grimmer than the other Tiffany Aching books but I think it's a great read. Not more powerful, more talented. Nanny says it to Agnes in Lords and Ladies: that she's a naturally talented witch and Granny isn't, but Granny is a stronger witch because she works what little talent she has a lot harder.
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Feb 10, 2015 01:43
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Monstrous Regiment is a bit of a weird Discworld book because it's not set near any of the other ones and has entirely separate characters. It's a little predictable but I don't think it's bad or actively makes you want to stop reading it. Unlike the feeling I got from Unseen Academicals. Unrelated to less good books, and more related to Rincewind, both The Last Hero and The Art of Discworld books are great and the depiction of Rincewind in them is pretty good. It's commented that he has similar looks and build to Shaggy from Scooby Doo, especially since they both spend a lot of time running away from things.
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Feb 10, 2015 01:57
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What's the general take on the Hogfather TV adaptation? I just got through the audiobook and have been looking into it a little. (I always thought David Jason was playing Rincewind on TV. Albert makes a lot more sense!)
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Feb 10, 2015 03:31
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VagueRant posted:What's the general take on the Hogfather TV adaptation? I just got through the audiobook and have been looking into it a little. (I always thought David Jason was playing Rincewind on TV. Albert makes a lot more sense!) It's not bad. The actors they chose are pretty good. I bought the DVD for $5 on clearance and I thought that was about the right price. David Jason played both Albert and Rincewind.
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Feb 10, 2015 03:38
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