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Especially the watch series. I'm almost finished with reading Thud and I have to say it's excellent. It's well paced, the story and the characters are intriguing. Vimes' struggles and reactions to things are particularly great and also the whole exploration of dwarven culture and the deep down dwarves. In retrospect, I feel that the writing is way better than in his early Discworld books. It has less bru-ha-ha funny funny jokes now but a generally better writing style. I feel that's good because some of the jokes were starting to get repetitive and it seems that now he's being humorous by setting up funny situations and characters instead of using so many punchlines. Don't get me wrong, the punchlines were great, they just got a bit repetitive and this is a nice refreshment. I thought a Discworld novel couldn't get better than Jingo, which was exceptionally good, but Night Watch and Thud have proved me wrong. Comparing his later works with stuff like Equal Rites, The Colour of Magic, The Light Fantastic, etc. you gotta hand it to the man for not only evolving his style but improving it on the whole. Anyone got any synonyms for 'evolving' and 'improving' by the way?
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Aug 12, 2007 00:40
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Can you give me a chronological list of the Vimes books? I've read a few Discworld books, but I only enjoyed Night Watch, so I'd love to read that arc in full.
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Aug 12, 2007 02:21
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Randy Marsh posted:Can you give me a chronological list of the Vimes books? I've read a few Discworld books, but I only enjoyed Night Watch, so I'd love to read that arc in full. This is a wikipedia article that lists all the various discworld story arcs in their reading order. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld_reading_order
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Aug 12, 2007 05:37
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They really, really need to make a series of films based on the Guards books because quite frankly they're awesome and more people should be exposed to Vimes and the rest of the Watch.
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Aug 12, 2007 05:48
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I'm not too sure about the quality of the books improving, but they certainly have evolved in complexity from the simple satire they started the books started with. And I'm glad to see other fans of the watch, they have entertained me the most out of Pratchett's wide range of characters.
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Aug 12, 2007 08:51
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pratchett's an unusual one, I started reading his books from the middle (Witches Abroad) and read all of them in a random order. The unusual thing is they do improve, up until book 14 or 15, but then theres a drop-off as he gets less and less funny up until he finally starts getting back into his stride at around book 23 or 24 Just my opinion.
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Aug 12, 2007 08:59
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He has become far less whimsical in his approach to the craziness that the Disc thrives on, which is my explanation to my own head regarding why he has stopped writing people like Rincewind in books and focused more upon Vimes, Vetinari and the watch. This isn't a complaint; I like you really like the newer books such as Thud! and Night Watch for their evolving takes on Vimes and the often ruthless business he does, but I think this comes at the loss of the ludicrous background barbarity that set the tone for the Disc in the earlier books (I'm thinking in particular of the burning of Ankh in the opening third of The Colour of Magic or Cohen's OAP invasion of the Agatean Empire). I think an interesting litmus test of this is the evolution of his villains. People like Edward D'Eath rambled around on their mad little business with an almost constant nod to the force of narration that was compelling them in place of a terribly strong reason for doing whatever. Reacher Gilt however is very much a grubby little bastard who is completely understandable in what he does; he never surprises us, but you can believe why he's doing what he's doing, and from what we see of him we can be sure he'll do his best to get it. He just won't start a cult in the backroom of the tannery to summon Yog Soddof to grant him power to do it, because that's just not done anymore. In short, I think his work has certainly involved and his prose doubtlessly improved, but he's turned a corner at some point after Thief of Time where he decided to take the books into a grittier direction, perhaps to keep his own interest in them.
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Aug 12, 2007 17:11
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I have basically been wondering, lately, where the gently caress the next discworld book is. I read them all in '06, and while he had been pumping one out a year for a while it's been none since 2005 that hasn't been a childrens book. drat 
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Aug 12, 2007 18:35
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Krinkle posted:I have basically been wondering, lately, where the gently caress the next discworld book is. I read them all in '06, and while he had been pumping one out a year for a while it's been none since 2005 that hasn't been a childrens book. drat Making Money is out later this year.
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Aug 12, 2007 19:06
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If you go back and read The Colour of Magic his writing style is almost unrecognizable. It's basically superficial, picaresque silliness about being a wizard. He himself says that he only really started to find his voice at Sourcery. Or, as Neil Gaiman put it, "Now the jokes follow the plot rather than the plot following the jokes."
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Aug 12, 2007 19:22
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I think he still has a habit of not deciding what he wants a character to be. Vimes, Nobbs and Fred Colon are handled in a hamfisted way. He seems to want Vimes to be a barely controlled animal that is just as vicious and single-minded as the criminals he seeks to stop but then he'll go and lapse into a caricature of a Sam Spade routine. Nobbs and Colon come out of their Laurel and Hardy schtick long enough to serve as big arrows to plot points before falling back into character as barely sentient paper weights. I was really annoyed by Going Postal. The characters were pretty decent but the ending was just too hokey with "THESE ARE THE SPIRITS OF THE CLACKSMEN WHO DIED" tripe. It seemed like at first he wanted to make fun of the internet and the rampant investing in technology that happened in the late 90s but then decided to make the novel into something totally different. I think the main evil guy was just too two-dimensional. He seemed to represent uncaring, selfish BIG BUSINESS but just seemed piratical and thin. It was the same way with Thud!. The characterization of the Waiting Dark (or whatever it was called) seemed tacked on. I really enjoyed the way that he fleshed out Koom Valley and the cultures of the trolls and dwarves, though. I think that his most fully realized book has to be Small Gods, though.
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Aug 12, 2007 19:36
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Nilbop: Yeah, I fully agree on what you wrote. I think most Discworld fans were happy to see him switch to a more grittier Discworld, as was he himself. Mr. SM Holocaust: Hmm, I kind of disagree with your view on Vimes. I think the character is really well fleshed out and Terry wants to (especially in the latter books) point out the conflict between the cop and the man in Vimes and does it quite well. I think Vimes is really the best and most complex character in all of the books. The only thing I don't like is where he's taken Carrot. He started out as a very naive, straight, simple but good dwarf stuck in a human's body but lately he's become too much of a know-it-all and the thing about everyone liking him and instantly doing what he says is exaggerated and doesn't come off right.
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Aug 12, 2007 20:06
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Mr. SM Holocaust posted:I think that his most fully realized book has to be Small Gods, though. Yeah Small Gods is a great book, but Witches Abroad is probably the second most laugh out loud funny. Nightwatch is definitely his best book in broader terms, I think. It's the only one I actually felt moved by.
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Aug 13, 2007 00:12
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kizeesh posted:Nightwatch is definitely his best book in broader terms, I think. It's the only one I actually felt moved by. Night Watch was generally very excellent and I consider it to be his best book too. Jingo, Night Watch and Thud are the (watch) books that I enjoyed the most. Jingo was very laugh out loud funny and had a good story and some stealth philosophy to boot. Although Guards Guards is a classic.
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Aug 13, 2007 00:19
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I recently was in Italy and was running out of books in English, so a friend of mine lent me Carpe Jugulum and I liked it. It certainly wasn't a great book, but it was a lot of fun. So now I just went back and read The Colour of Magic and I'm reading The Light Fantastic. I'm not an expert, having only read three, but the later book was definitely a lot better written and less all-over-the-place jokey than these first two. On the other hand, all three are so light I hardly feel like I'm reading a book. It's more like looking at the comic section of the newspaper or browsing through the SA front page.
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Aug 13, 2007 00:29
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Randy Marsh posted:Can you give me a chronological list of the Vimes books? I've read a few Discworld books, but I only enjoyed Night Watch, so I'd love to read that arc in full. http://www.lspace.org/books/reading-order-guides/the-discworld-reading-order-guide-1-5.pdf
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Aug 13, 2007 01:28
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Way-hey! A Terry Pratchett thread! Now, I fully subscribe to Gaiman's view on the subject of Terry's writing, but the "always improving and evolving" notion is a bit of an oversimplification, really. I, for one, really love the Young adult novels, and sometimes move me emotionally more than a Feet of Clay or a Fifth Elephant. I am a huge fan of his work and collected almost all of his books, but I still like going back to his early writings where language and jokes lead the way. I hope that Pterry lives on to write the fiftieth-sixtieth Discworld book, each becoming more and more gritty (and less over(t)ly giddy =), and maybe more.
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Aug 13, 2007 01:39
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I echo pretty much every sentiment in the thread. I enjoy the hell out of every second of his books, but they're definitely not what I'd call dense prose, not even his latest, grittiest stuff. But like maxnmona said - it's like the comics page. You know there's plenty of other stuff you could be reading that's more informational, educational, or well-written, but gently caress that. You just want to have fun without worrying about thinking too hard.
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Aug 13, 2007 09:27
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Well I think Pratchett sucks  No, not really  I was into Pratchett back in ye olden days when you couldn't find them in the US. During a class trip to Germany, instead of buying souvenirs I hit the english-language section of the bookstores and got as many Pratchett books (with the awesome cartoonish covers) as my suitcase would hold. Then about a year later they finally hit the New World and the whole collection was in every store, but with crappy 5-minutes-in-Photoshop covers.I didn't enjoy the newspaper book or the postal system book as much, so I'm not expecting Small Gods-level greatness for the money book, but I'll be reading it anyway as soon as I get my hands on it. A bad Pratchett book is still a drat good book. (Except Monstrous Regiments, not even a Vimes cameo could save that one.)
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Aug 13, 2007 10:16
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why am i the only person that loves The Color of Magic and The Light Fantastic??
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Aug 13, 2007 11:25
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I like Pratchett (hell, I have every single Discworld book), but some of his books are too much "there's some evil thing that I'm not going to explicitly mention until the main character in the end does something that I'm also not going to really describe and then it's finished." I think Hogfather was one of those; not really having a plot, but just people running around to stop Something Evil. Or maybe it's just me not understanding everything because English is still not my primary language. I should really start reading his latest book though, I've had it for months.
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Aug 13, 2007 11:54
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Fistula Juice posted:why am i the only person that loves The Color of Magic and The Light Fantastic?? I actually prefer T Pratchett's earlier work, like The Color of Magic and The Light Fantastic. In the later books it kinda feels like he's put more thought into it, yeah, but that's sort of killed the spontaneity and sillyness of it. Latest books feel like it's still sillyness, but it's like he's trying to validate the sillyness, and he also uses italics way too much. He's giving rules to his world and that's making it a lot less exciting for me. The tone of the books, seeing as he's now putting thought into the plot rather than letting his innate humour run wild, comes across as kind of irritatinly smart alec. This is probably just me though. Oh and all of his characters kind of feel the same now. I don't know how to explain it because they all have separate characteristics and, you know, ways of speaking and things like that, but deep down they all seem to be exactly the same.
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Aug 13, 2007 13:44
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I read them all in order a couple of years ago. Given that, I think there were some real clunkers in the middle. Like the Australia one. Puns about Australia = not funny.
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Aug 13, 2007 15:00
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Leospeare posted:(Except Monstrous Regiments, not even a Vimes cameo could save that one.) Yeah, what the gently caress was up with that one? It became a bit hammy to have loving EVERYONE BE A CHICK. I also agree that Hogfather and the like can have dense, what the hell is going on? plots. A lot of the time I'm still not sure what's happening.
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Aug 13, 2007 18:18
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In Hogfather, the Auditors hire an assassin to kill the Hogfather because he doesn't fit their idea of a perfect universe. Teatime is selected because he's loving crazy, crazy enough to come up with a plan to take out anthropomorphic personifications. He ends up taking over the Tooth Fairy realm and using the teeth collected from children (old magic, the oldest magic there is) to make them stop believing in the Hogfather, killing him. Death takes over the roll of the Hogfather because it's a job that must be done or else the sun won't rise (or so he says) and Susan gets drawn into everything because after all she's his granddaughter and that's just how these stories work. That's the short of it, there's more but I won't go into it unless you want me to. As for Monstrous Regiment, if you realize the title is taken from this it makes the ending less unbelievable.
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Aug 13, 2007 21:26
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Yeah, I didn't really like Monstrous Regiment too much. I did like the military setting, the wars and all, and I think he should do more stuff about war and such, but the book would have been a thousand times better if it was just Polly who was the chick and not loving EVERYONE. I wasn't familiar with that Scot John Knox thing when reading it, but even if I was, I still think it was a stupid choice.
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Aug 13, 2007 21:33
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I liked monstrous regiment. The thing you are all complaining about... I have no loving clue why that bothers any of you. It made complete sense in the context of the story.
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Aug 13, 2007 22:05
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Krinkle posted:I liked monstrous regiment. The thing you are all complaining about... I have no loving clue why that bothers any of you. It made complete sense in the context of the story. I agree here but with the exception of Maladict(a) and Jakrum that was revealed far too early. I really liked the book though. It's not up with my favorites, but I thought it was pretty good.
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Aug 13, 2007 23:38
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I tought it was okay when Wazzer, Tonker and a few of those guys turned out to be women, it fitted and made sense because they were little girly boys anyway, but Maladict, Jackrum and those officers, it felt really off. I think the fact that pretty much EVERYONE (except for Blouse) turned out to be a woman added nothing to the story or the message, it just made things strange.
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Aug 13, 2007 23:45
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I would agree with the general consensus that he's gotten better with time. Although Small Gods is my favorite(it being written about in the middle of his career, if I remember correctly), the later half of the series has been consistently awesome.
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Aug 14, 2007 00:02
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I like the way that one-off gags and allusions in various books get spun off into full-blown novels; William de Worde is the most egregious, but there are a few others as well. Of course, the biggest allusion of them all is that sooner or later the Patrician is going to die, and when he does - well, one suspects that will be the Last Ever Discworld Book.
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Aug 14, 2007 01:12
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Trouble Man posted:I like the way that one-off gags and allusions in various books get spun off into full-blown novels; William de Worde is the most egregious, but there are a few others as well. I am going to wikipedia these but on the very likely event that wikipedia doesn't know what you're talking about, could you please elaborate? What is william de Worde from? What is the Patrician an allusion to?
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Aug 14, 2007 01:54
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Krinkle posted:I am going to wikipedia these but on the very likely event that wikipedia doesn't know what you're talking about, could you please elaborate? What is william de Worde from? What is the Patrician an allusion to? William de Worde is from a footnote in a Discworld book that predates The Truth*, in which he is the main character, by several years - I'm very sorry, but I honestly can't recall which one.
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Aug 14, 2007 06:58
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I am as big a Pterry fan as they come. I am not going to reiterate what has already been said but I will point out what may be the biggest thing that makes him shine so brightly. I have never read another author who so consistently ended his or her books so well. Nearly every single one of his books ends in such a way that I am completely satisfied. Often, as is the case with The Bromeliad, the endings are beautiful, too. I have been saying for many years, that in the future, when this time is regarded as the past, he will be regarded as the greatest satirist of our time. Other than that, I just want to point out how much worldly wisdom is infused into each new title. He really has a solid grasp of human nature and a sense for what is right and what is wrong. Thud! above all the others, perhaps, shows this off. It really is an amazing book about the fight for peace and the love of a father. Edit: Making Money is out on September 1st.
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Aug 14, 2007 08:43
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Captain Hero posted:Edit: Making Money is out on September 1st. I'm a little iffy about this - we've already had two "jerk with a heart of gold introduces a MODERN THING" books.
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Aug 14, 2007 09:11
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Trouble Man posted:I'm a little iffy about this - we've already had two "jerk with a heart of gold introduces a MODERN THING" books. Discworld is a universe where things are less as they are and more like people imagine them to be. We do little imagining about dragons and wizards, and a lot about the post office and bureaucracies and telecommunications and reporters. For example, the machine built by B.S. Johnson is a great symbol of how most of us imagine the postal system works. The truth is too complex and mundane for us to care.
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Aug 14, 2007 09:45
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Trouble Man posted:Of course, the biggest allusion of them all is that sooner or later the Patrician is going to die, and when he does - well, one suspects that will be the Last Ever Discworld Book. Him and Angua. Terry's been less than subtle about that from time to time, particularly in the Art of Discworld book which collects lots of lovely Paul Kidby art. This makes me rather unhappy because, while I'm not too attached to Angua, if she pops it this is going to gently caress up Carrot and his sphere of Perfect Vision, which isn't really something I want happening. Oh, but he also implies that if Vetinari does ever cop it there will likely be a struggle for power ended with Carrot taking the throne. Hell, it'd be just about the only thing that'd stop the city from tearing itself apart. You only really get a sense of just how integral Vetinari is to the city from about Jingo onward. It'd be a scary(er, er) place without him around. On a side note: David Jason as Rincewind this Christmas! Who's looking forward to it and who remains cautious but optimistic?
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Aug 15, 2007 14:28
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Nilbop posted:Him and Angua. Terry's been less than subtle about that from time to time, particularly in the Art of Discworld book which collects lots of lovely Paul Kidby art. This makes me rather unhappy because, while I'm not too attached to Angua, if she pops it this is going to gently caress up Carrot and his sphere of Perfect Vision, which isn't really something I want happening. I think it's about time for a balls-out Angua-centric book to finally settle her poo poo. The Fifth Elephant was close but no cigar. It ends yet again on that 'I love him and I'll stay ... for now' note. Serious literary blueballs there. You know if Pratchett ever writes the Post-Vetinari scramble for 3/4 of the book it'll look like Carrot will take the throne, then there'll be some twisty left-field resolution to the problem. Perhaps Vimes would be talked into becoming Patrician with Carrot as a good-natured eminence gris. Which would be great, because we all want more books full of Vimes maundering about his demons and duties.
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Aug 15, 2007 15:08
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To me it seems like he's getting too fond of the characters to change things. I dont think he's ever killed off a major character and it doesent look like he intends too any time soon. I think thats wnat makes Carrot a lot less interesting character these days than he was at the beginning, the natural progression for his character would be for Angua to leave or the Patrician to die but Terrys reluctant to make big changes to the world, so the character just stagnates.
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Aug 15, 2007 15:43
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Nilbop posted:
I know that i'm not really looking forward to it, all previous attempts at comics, animated movies, and that hogfather thing, has been disastrous in my opinion. Why does the actors have to use such silly voices all the time, it sounds as they're all trying to distance themselves from what they regard as something beneath them. What i'd like to see, is a mmorpg like WOW based on discworld.
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