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sebmojo posted:Whichever book you find first as a tattered paperback somewhere
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Mar 28, 2024 04:53
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YggiDee posted:I think that's the thing, each book is part of like, the long running drama that is Discworld but each novel is still a self-contained narrative. You're given enough previous information that starting a series halfway through isn't going to cause problems. Exactly. And with Interesting Times I remember there being so much good stuff relating to Cohen and the Horde and general ribbing of tea ceremonies and One Big Mother that it didn't matter that I didn't know of Rincewinds' and Twoflowers' previous adventures.
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Mar 28, 2024 05:09
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LifeLynx posted:Where would y'all recommend on starting Terry Pratchett? I've been seeing his quotes pop up in a lot of different places, and I think it's a sign I should read his stuff. The most recent was the instruction booklet for the board game Welcome to Doomrock. Every book is standalone enough that the correct answer is "whichever book you pick up because it looks interesting". There's read lists, and recurring characters, and people will argue about a "proper" start but like Trin Trigula said above you, starting with a book that you're not as interested in is going to bounce right off. Once you've read one of the books and say "I want to know more about this character, or that place" then you can look at various reading lists people have done with some context. The first couple (Colour of Magic and Light Fantastic, some people add Equal Rites but I like it) are a little rough when he hasn't quite found his voice yet, but the wit's still there. The first two books are very much parodies of old sword and sorcery stuff like Conan, complete with parodying their writing styles to an extent, so they can be a little confusing and difficult to get into if you don't notice that's what's going on. I re-read them last year, though, and they're a lot more readable than I remember. Just weird compared to his other books. The last few (most folks start this section at Unseen Academicals) are when his condition was deteriorating and the voice of the books suffers as the editing process became more difficult. Again, not a great place to start if you're trying to get into the series by getting a sense of the author. Also he knew things were ending, so these stories are kinda wrapping things up. Giving characters, if not an ending, some resolution and stability. Anything in-between you're not really going to go wrong. And even those ends aren't *bad* if something speaks to you, just not ideal if you're neutral on them. Personally I like Small Gods because of the subject matter and the standalone setting doesn't commit a new reader to any place to go from there, others think it's a bad place to start for the same reasons.
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Mar 28, 2024 05:23
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Bruceski posted:Every book is standalone enough that the correct answer is "yo, whichever one i select". Deep cut
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Mar 28, 2024 05:35
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sebmojo posted:Deep cut A good cut
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Mar 28, 2024 05:37
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I read them in publication order and enjoyed the progression of the world as Pratchett developed it in his mind. At first I was going to skip the young adult books but that was the absolute wrongest idea.
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Mar 28, 2024 07:29
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freelop posted:I read them in publication order and enjoyed the progression of the world as Pratchett developed it in his mind. The Tiffany Aching books are solid gold, and anyone who has slept on them needs to fix that asap. They're some of Pratchett's very best books.
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Mar 28, 2024 08:02
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Bruceski posted:A good cut a very Cool cut
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Mar 28, 2024 08:04
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freelop posted:I read them in publication order and enjoyed the progression of the world as Pratchett developed it in his mind. yeah, the only difference is they have chapters really.
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Mar 28, 2024 08:07
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sebmojo posted:yeah, the only difference is they have chapters really. Along with Going Postal for some obscure reason.
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Mar 28, 2024 08:08
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My route was Guards! Guards!, Men at Arms, Moving Pictures then publication order. Decided I like the world itself enough to read everything rather than picking and choosing. Witches + Aching is my favourite series but Night Watch is my favourite book.
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Mar 28, 2024 09:17
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sebmojo posted:yeah, the only difference is they have chapters really. I was looking for a quote that I swear I read from some interview where he says something like "the difference between my adult books and my young adult books is that the YA books are darker". Couldn't find that quote but did find this one quote:"My advice is this. For Christ's sake, don't write a book that is suitable for a kid of 12 years old, because the kids who read who are 12 years old are reading books for adults. I read all of the James Bond books when I was about 11, which was approximately the right time to read James Bond books. So you work out this kind of little equation in your head and you think, yeah, like Nation – the one that's just come out – that's a book for kids. And people will say: 'Well it covers very adult subjects ...' Yeah, that's why it's a book for kids. Because you want kids to grow up to be adults, not just bigger kids." nice slam on ian fleming lmao
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Mar 28, 2024 09:34
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When do the clacks towers show up? It seems around Carpe Jugulum they begin to be mentioned more heavily but without much explanation.
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Mar 28, 2024 10:27
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Beer_Suitcase posted:When do the clacks towers show up? It seems around Carpe Jugulum they begin to be mentioned more heavily but without much explanation. https://wiki.lspace.org/Clacks
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Mar 28, 2024 11:13
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DontMockMySmock posted:I was looking for a quote that I swear I read from some interview where he says something like "the difference between my adult books and my young adult books is that the YA books are darker". Susan is used to express this sentiment pretty often. Something along the lines of, the difference between a shepherd and a teacher is that sheep will never be anything more than sheep, but children should grow up into adults.
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Mar 28, 2024 11:39
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My first Discworld book was a Thud! because it was in my college bookstore’s display and I picked it up on my scholarship’s book allowance.
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Mar 28, 2024 12:30
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DreamingofRoses posted:My first Discworld book was a Thud! because it was in my college bookstore’s display and I picked it up on my scholarship’s book allowance. Thud is great, one of his better ones imo.
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Mar 28, 2024 20:44
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Thud! was also my first DW book; picked it up randomly while browsing in a bookstore after college classes that day long ago. Changed my life, pretty much, and for the better.
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Mar 30, 2024 06:29
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What's the general consensus on Eric? I never see anyone so much as mention it. I treated myself today to The Last Hero (I have the original release but it is too absurdly gigantic to actually read) and the illustrated version of Eric, which I didn't know was a thing. I don't think I've seen any Josh Kirby illustrations that aren't full cover pieces, so that'll be fun to look through.
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Mar 30, 2024 23:11
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Eric is a weird book, it's like barely half the length of all the others and I think the illustrated version is the original version.
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Mar 30, 2024 23:29
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Welp, I've arrived at Unseen Academicals on my series re-read 
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Mar 31, 2024 00:54
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Osmosisch posted:Welp, I've arrived at Unseen Academicals on my series re-read Hah, me too. I don't find it nearly as gripping as even the book right before it, Making Money, which was better than I remembered. I do think there is a significant quality drop off, but it is made a lot worse by the fact that I do not care about sports and do not know almost anything about English football culture. I find myself not making time to read it the way that I do for other discworld books.
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Mar 31, 2024 02:31
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Doctor_Fruitbat posted:What's the general consensus on Eric? I never see anyone so much as mention it. YggiDee posted:Eric is a weird book, it's like barely half the length of all the others and I think the illustrated version is the original version. Yeah it's really written to be read with full illustrations, there's a lot of details that are referred to in the text or that are glossed over in the plot because Terry assumes that you're looking at the pictures.
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Mar 31, 2024 04:04
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I’d love if they got Paul Kidby to do a new illustrated Eric.
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Mar 31, 2024 12:57
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The_Doctor posted:I’d love if they got Paul Kidby to do a new illustrated Eric. Last Hero is basically Kidby's Eric. I feel like that one is pretty under discussed as well. By far the best appearance for Cohen, and maybe the best Rincewind book too.
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Mar 31, 2024 13:12
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The_Doctor posted:I’d love if they got Paul Kidby to do a new illustrated Eric. Don't get me wrong, Kidby is great, but I don't feel like he has the Heironymous Bosch-brain urge that Kirby did to fill every last inch with the greasy little guys that any vision of Hell deserves.
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Mar 31, 2024 15:58
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My library had The Last Hero and it's what got me reading the rest of the series. It's a real good one!
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Mar 31, 2024 18:14
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Something I forgot about Eric is that you have the proto-UU staff, like he clearly saw how much potential there was to have a bunch of bickering old men instead of the cutthroat backstabbers of previous books and immediately ran with it.
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Mar 31, 2024 19:47
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Undead Hippo posted:Last Hero is basically Kidby's Eric. There's a few pictures towards the end of the book that devastated me in the best way. When the nameless bard performs his song following the heroic sacrifice of the Silver Horde with tears streaming down his face. And when Cohen realizes that Carrot's the Hero because he's willing to stand up to the Horde on his own.
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Mar 31, 2024 19:56
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citybeatnik posted:And when Cohen realizes that Carrot's the Hero because he's willing to stand up to the Horde on his own.[/spoiler] Yeah, I love that bit, "You think he's a hero? Hah! What kind of hero works for fort-three dollars a month? Plus Allowances!" and they all go quiet as they do the mental arithmetic of the hero code that they've all relied on for years.
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Mar 31, 2024 23:14
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Osmosisch posted:Welp, I've arrived at Unseen Academicals on my series re-read It's the longest Discworld novel apparently. Since it's also one of the worse ones, it's length really exacerbates that problem.
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Apr 4, 2024 22:18
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I just finally finished Unseen Academicals and it's got a lot of good and cool parts but also lots of parts that overstay their welcome. It's hard to even say why it's bad; it's not, really, it just seems that way after a long string of amazing books from the prime of Discworld. Nutt and Glenda are good characters. Also I find it funny that in a book ostensibly about association football, only half a football game is actually depicted.
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Apr 4, 2024 22:47
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No, it's about the crowd.
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Apr 4, 2024 23:28
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Terry writing a book about football, despite no interest in football, then depicting only half a match, with the book’s actual point of interest being the shared cultural psychogeography of the crowd watching, acting as one beast, is more on brand for him than at first glance.
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Apr 5, 2024 01:58
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Yeah, I don't think UE is a bad book, it's just not as good as the preceeding ones. Raising Steam is a bad book.
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Apr 5, 2024 09:45
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DontMockMySmock posted:I just finally finished Unseen Academicals and it's got a lot of good and cool parts but also lots of parts that overstay their welcome. It's hard to even say why it's bad; it's not, really, it just seems that way after a long string of amazing books from the prime of Discworld. Nutt and Glenda are good characters. Things I strongly dislike about it: - The total assassination of Vetinari's character as a cool and collected behind-the-scenes person (and Lady Margolotta along with him) in favour of a weird monologuer. A completely different character. - The mythologising of the football crowd, which, if you want to be fair, does fit the belief->power thing of Discworld but is too close to Roundworld stuff to be comfortable for me - In general the trend of shoehorning Roundworld things into Discworld even when they don't particularly fit. It's the same reason I don't get on with the Moist books, even though they're less bad about it. Going Postal in particular is pretty nonsensical in this respect, but the scathing takedown of neoliberal privatisation makes me forgive it. - Just the utter pointlessness of anything happening here except with Nutt/Glenda There's still plenty to love as well (I'm always happy when the wizards figure as anything more than bit characters, and I like Dr. Hicks a lot), but this book is really were things were going completely off the rails in PTerry's condition and it shows. Currently halfway through Snuff which suffers from some similar problems but at least it's found a mostly-new setting to do things in so it's less offensive about the discrepancies.
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Apr 5, 2024 11:14
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:Yeah, I don't think UE is a bad book, it's just not as good as the preceeding ones. Raising Steam is somewhere between an OK book and a good book, it’s just bad Pratchett. If it had been written by a fan author deliberately wanting to continue some of the thematic aspects of Discworld while, out of respect for Pratchett, employing a different perspective and style, it’d look like a credible effort. Or, if Pratchett hadn’t been suffering the embuggerance and had just made the decision to drastically experimemt with style and plotting, we’d probably call it a failed experiment. It’s only the specific circumstances of its writing that renders it a disappointment or even a personal affront. It’s a monument to losing Pratchett while he was still alive, as opposed to The Shephard’s Crown, which is a memorial.
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Apr 5, 2024 18:54
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:Yeah, I don't think UE is a bad book, it's just not as good as the preceeding ones. Raising Steam at least have a plot.
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Apr 6, 2024 10:33
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Strange Cares posted:Yeah it's really written to be read with full illustrations, there's a lot of details that are referred to in the text or that are glossed over in the plot because Terry assumes that you're looking at the pictures.
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Apr 8, 2024 14:45
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Bundle of Holding has the GURPS DIscworld RPG bundle for $14.95. The bundle includes the GURPS Discworld Roleplaying Game as well as GURPS Low-Tech and GURPS Fantasy-Tech 1: The Edge of Reality as pdfs.
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Apr 10, 2024 03:13
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