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precision posted:It was in dire need of a good hard editing Yeah, it's the one where I started to get sad, because it was clear he couldn't do his iterative pass editing anymore. 
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Oct 1, 2017 01:29
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How would you rank the death books Imo Mort Hogfather Soul music Reaper man Never read thief of time
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Oct 20, 2017 00:31
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Hogfather Reaper Man Soul Music Thief of Time Mort That’s a pretty tough one, honestly.
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Oct 20, 2017 00:50
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Hogfather best
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Oct 20, 2017 02:35
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Hogfather best
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Oct 20, 2017 02:46
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The Death segments of Reaper Man are better than Hogfather, but Hogfather is the better experience overall. Then Mort, Thief of Time, Soul Music,
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Oct 20, 2017 02:49
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Hogfather best My sister wanted to borrow this one in paperback and much to my horror I have lost it a second loving time.
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Oct 20, 2017 02:58
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Oct 20, 2017 05:22
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Reaper Man A-Story Thief of Time Mort Hogfather Soul Music Reaper Man B-Story
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Oct 20, 2017 05:39
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Thief of Time is clearly the best; it has Lu-Tze  Hogfather is pretty great too: "All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable." REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE. "Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—" YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES. "So we can believe the big ones?" YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING. "They're not the same at all!" YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED. "Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—" MY POINT EXACTLY. I'd put Soul Music third, because it has some of the best puns/referential humor in all of Discworld, and I loving love The Blues Brothers. And Reaper Man takes fourth, because it has what might be the best monologue in all of Discworld (and the source of this thread's title): LORD, WE KNOW THERE IS NO GOOD ORDER EXCEPT THAT WHICH WE CREATE. . . THERE IS NO HOPE BUT US. THERE IS NO MERCY BUT US. THERE IS NO JUSTICE. THERE IS JUST US. ALL THINGS THAT ARE, ARE OURS. BUT WE MUST CARE. FOR IF WE DO NOT CARE, WE DO NOT EXIST. IF WE DO NOT EXIST, THEN THERE IS NOTHING BUT BLIND OBLIVION. AND EVEN OBLIVION MUST END SOME DAY. LORD, WILL YOU GRANT ME JUST A LITTLE TIME? FOR THE PROPER BALANCE OF THINGS. TO RETURN WHAT WAS GIVEN. FOR THE SAKE OF PRISONERS AND THE FLIGHT OF BIRDS. LORD, WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT FOR THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN? but is dragged down by the B-plot. Mort is still good but I never found it as compelling as the average Discworld book (a high bar, for sure).
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Oct 20, 2017 05:52
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Hogfather, entirely because of the conversation about the difference between the Sun and a flaming ball of gas. Pratchett loving got it.
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Oct 20, 2017 12:00
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Hogfather and Mort are equally the best, then Reaper Man and Thief of Time are equally second best
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Oct 21, 2017 01:04
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Hogfather, easily. The best part of the Death books was always the philosophical moments threaded through them and while Reaper Man definitely has the single best one, Hogfather probably has the second through tenth. Plus probably the best purely evil crazy villain Pratchett ever wrote. And the whole "Death as the Hogfather" sequence which, honestly, I would happily read an entire series of books consisting of nothing but Death and Albert hanging out and giving each other poo poo.quote:“All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."
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Oct 21, 2017 06:31
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Hogfather.
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Oct 21, 2017 11:33
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I know that Reacher Gilt is supposed to be based on some English businessman, but the whole "I outright advertise I'm a fraud and a conman, but you can trust me not to con you" has got to be based on Trump. You know, if Gilt was vulgar enough to go for golden toilets instead of a pirate outfit.
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Oct 21, 2017 18:54
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Xander77 posted:I know that Reacher Gilt is supposed to be based on some English businessman, but the whole "I outright advertise I'm a fraud and a conman, but you can trust me not to con you" has got to be based on Trump. You know, if Gilt was vulgar enough to go for golden toilets instead of a pirate outfit. Gilt means covered with a thin layer of gold to give the appearance of actually being properly gold, a good metaphor for new money people.
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Oct 21, 2017 19:56
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What's the Father Christmas's Fake beard book like?
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Oct 21, 2017 20:16
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The_Doctor posted:a good metaphor for new money people.
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Oct 21, 2017 21:43
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Xander77 posted:I don't live in a culture where "new money people" actually means anything, but I'm pretty sure that's not it. No one in England gave a poo poo about Trump in 2007, I highly doubt Pratchett was satirising a man who was irrelevant until nearly a decade after the book was published.
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Oct 21, 2017 23:30
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The one thread I thought I could be free in. THE ONE THREAD.
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Oct 21, 2017 23:37
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I wish people just read the books and go  at this thread.
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Oct 21, 2017 23:42
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I figured he was based on one of the American Railroad robber barons. The whole Gilt/gilded age thing is a neat detail then as well.
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Oct 21, 2017 23:48
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I heard Reacher Gilt was partly based on John Galt.
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Oct 22, 2017 00:52
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It even has the line "Who is Reacher Gilt"
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Oct 22, 2017 00:55
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Xander77 posted:I know that Reacher Gilt is supposed to be based on some English businessman, but the whole "I outright advertise I'm a fraud and a conman, but you can trust me not to con you" has got to be based on Trump. You know, if Gilt was vulgar enough to go for golden toilets instead of a pirate outfit. You're mistaking applicability for allegory. Maybe Pratchett had a particular businessman in mind, but Glit was written broadly enough that you could hang him on nearly any notable robber baron of the last few hundred years. That the character evokes real people—both past and present—is less a sign of specific caricature and more a sad commentary on how often such people crop up. As it relates to Trump, there's at least one significant difference between him and Glit. At the end of Going Postal, when offered a choice between death or repudiating his ideals, Glit chose the former. I suspect that Trump would opt to take Vetinari's deal and save his own skin. Skippy McPants fucked around with this message at 14:23 on Oct 22, 2017 |
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Oct 22, 2017 10:04
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Screaming Idiot posted:The one thread I thought I could be free in. THE ONE THREAD.
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Oct 22, 2017 10:21
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It's 2017, and politics is the new black. Folks who've previously enjoyed the privilege of opting out will have to acclimate. Also, the notion that this thread should be apolitical is silly. Pratchett built his stories on a bedrock of ideology, and he was never bashful about that fact.
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Oct 22, 2017 10:32
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In principle, sure, but everything's got so bloody serious over the last year and a half. Gone are the days when both sides yell and call each other names then nip out the back for a quiet pint afterwards.
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Oct 22, 2017 11:38
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Twelve and a half percent! Twelve and a halve percent!
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Oct 22, 2017 11:48
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The Evil Thing posted:In principle, sure, but everything's got so bloody serious over the last year and a half. Gone are the days when both sides yell and call each other names then nip out the back for a quiet pint afterwards. That's what happens when one side decides the other side doesn't deserve to live 
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Oct 22, 2017 12:55
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The Evil Thing posted:In principle, sure, but everything's got so bloody serious over the last year and a half. Gone are the days when both sides yell and call each other names then nip out the back for a quiet pint afterwards. As I said, those privileged few who previously enjoyed the comfort of a life secure from the whims of policy now find themselves unsettled and worrying that they might not be so safe anymore. I'm unsympathetic to their discomfort and the complaint that "everything is so political now," because what is a new experience for them has always been the day-to-day reality for marginalized people.
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Oct 22, 2017 13:32
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Skippy McPants posted:Pratchett built his stories on a bedrock of ideology, and he was never bashful about that fact. Pretty much - the equality of women and their role in society (and perception of that), gender and sexuality, race, religion, cultural differences (and sometimes the tension that arises from that), euthenasia, and the inequalities of the ever-present class system, to name but a few. Some is subtextual, and allegorical, but most of it is pretty overt - but it's nice for a change that Pratchett didn't seem to have awful politics. Coming off the bad books thread, it's pretty reassuring to not have Discworld with some of the weird racial/sexual garbage that plagues bad fantasy.
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Oct 22, 2017 13:44
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Skippy McPants posted:As it relates to Trump, there's at least one significant between him and Glit. At the end of Going Postal, when offered a choice between death or repudiating his ideals, Glit chose the former. I suspect that Trump would opt to take Vetinari's deal and save his own skin. No, Gilt didn't choose death. It was just the result of his actions. When presented with the choice Moist opened the door and looked through it before deciding to serve. Gilt rushed through the door without looking, because he wasn't going to serve anyone - and that's exactly what Trump would do in the same position.
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Oct 22, 2017 13:57
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Jedit posted:No, Gilt didn't choose death. It was just the result of his actions. When presented with the choice Moist opened the door and looked through it before deciding to serve. Gilt rushed through the door without looking, because he wasn't going to serve anyone - and that's exactly what Trump would do in the same position. Ehhh, I don't buy that. Glit was prideful, but he wasn't an idiot. He was a grifter, like Moist. The pair of them were very nearly alike, save that one of them was a decent person. Glit would know to be deeply suspicious of any deal offered by Vetinari, especially after receiving the same "nature of angels" talk that Moist got. Of course, we don't get to see exactly how things played out, but my read was always that he was acutely aware of his options in that meeting and chose death over serving under Vetinari. Skippy McPants fucked around with this message at 14:24 on Oct 22, 2017 |
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Oct 22, 2017 14:11
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Skippy McPants posted:Ehhh, I don't buy that. Glit was prideful, but he wasn't an idiot. He was a grifter, like Moist. The pair of them were very nearly alike, save that one of them was a decent person. Glit would know to be deeply suspicious of any deal offered by Vetinari, especially after receiving the same "nature of angels" talk that Moist got. Of course, we don't get to see exactly how things played out, but my read was always that he was acutely aware of his options in that meeting and chose death over serving under Vetinari. I just re-read the scene to refresh my memory. It's slightly ambiguous: Vetinari talks about admiring a man who believes in freedom of choice, which suggests that Gilt did choose to die. But at the same time the gap between Vetinari telling Gilt he can leave at any time and Vetinari calling for Drumknott is not very long, so it's also implied that Gilt left immediately after Vetinari said he could. His last words, then, would be him incredulously asking if Vetinari thought Gilt would work for him. I favour my interpretation because as you say, Gilt and Moist are very alike in many ways. Moist agreed to take the job rather than die, but then immediately tried to escape his obligations. I cannot believe that Gilt wouldn't do the same and instead choose to die on a point of pride. For one thing it's against their "me first" ethos, for another it would be a tacit admission that he's not as smart as Vetinari.
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Oct 22, 2017 14:46
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It is ambiguous enough that either might be correct, but I can't get past that fact that Glit wasn't an idiot. I don't think he would act without due caution. I also said that Moist was a decent person. Glit, on the other hand, was a ruthless bastard and knew Vetinari to be the same. I think he would have a much clearer idea about the full implications the choice on offer during that meeting. But again, there's nothing spelled out in the text, and it's mostly down to a personal assessment of Glit's character. Agree to disagree, I suppose.
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Oct 22, 2017 15:27
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Skippy McPants posted:As I said, those privileged few who previously enjoyed the comfort of a life secure from the whims of policy now find themselves unsettled and worrying that they might not be so safe anymore. Look, I'm not unsympathetic, but I don't think the solution to a group of people being hard done by in a society is a race to the bottom for everyone.
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Oct 22, 2017 15:37
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The Evil Thing posted:Look, I'm not unsympathetic, but I don't think the solution to a group of people being hard done by in a society is a race to the bottom for everyone. You're right, that's not a solution, but it's also not what's happening. There's a difference between being civil and being just. Too often, people comfortable with the status quo mistake abandoning courtesy in the pursuit of justice for an injustice. It's not.
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Oct 22, 2017 15:48
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Been years since I've read it but think I read it as he was so arrogant and high off his own supply, so to speak, that he figured that there was some sort of trick or way out of it or that Vetinari would have missed something, so he just walks to his death.
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Oct 22, 2017 15:53
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Skippy McPants posted:You're right, that's not a solution, but it's also not what's happening. There's a difference between being civil and being just. Too often, people comfortable with the status quo mistake abandoning courtesy in the pursuit of justice for an injustice. It's not. "Abandoning courtesy"... what a delightfully empty and innocuous description of what's been happening over the past two years. People are free to be rude; I object to them throwing things and beating each other up. And, I don't dispute that there's a difference between civility and justice, but the former tends to lead to the latter. It's a regrettable fact of human psychology that we're more likely to care if injustices happen to people we like.
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Oct 22, 2017 16:59
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