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withak posted:The one with the tooth fairy is the most assassin-y probably, but it's pretty DEATH-y too. Well, that is a pretty logical progression.
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Sep 29, 2007 01:50
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hogfather wasn't the same. The only assassin in it never had to flip around like a freak or feel out bumps on his darts to read what type poison he was using in the dark... he just stabbed people and was incredibly awkward while doing it. Awkward to be around, socially... he was good at stabbing but I think it loses something when you have a conversation first.
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Sep 29, 2007 02:07
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Calenth posted:I don't know. I didn't feel that Making Money matched up with Going Postal. It was good, but the plot just wasn't compelling in the way that Postal's was -- it lacked tension, on a lot of levels. I felt like it had been written more to be another Moist book than because he had another compelling Moist story to tell. It didn't have as much tension, but that was mostly because it didn't have a villian anywhere near as compelling as Reacher Gilt. I mean, who doesn't love making fun of self-serving objectivists and hardcore libertarians? Sure, I liked how Making Money was the most thorough fictional reaming-out the gold standard and its slavish followers have ever received, but watching a government functionary and The Best Tyrant Ever drive John Galt to ruin brought a tear to my eye. Nomenklatura fucked around with this message at 21:17 on Sep 29, 2007 |
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Sep 29, 2007 21:12
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Who else is going to the booksigning tomorrow? They sell books there right? Because I haven't bought a copy of making money yet so that I could get it signed and not get told I have to buy another one, or whatever. I have never been to a book signing and am just guessing how it goes.
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Sep 29, 2007 21:51
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Krinkle posted:Who else is going to the booksigning tomorrow? They sell books there right? Because I haven't bought a copy of making money yet so that I could get it signed and not get told I have to buy another one, or whatever. I have never been to a book signing and am just guessing how it goes. I was at the signing and got the book signed. The line was huge -- I had no idea he was that popular!
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Sep 29, 2007 21:55
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Nomenklatura posted:You would be referring to the labour theory of value, would you not? It had another rather famous person espousing it. German guy? Big beard? Where on earth are you getting the idea that Reacher Gilt was an objectivist/libertarian? That's loving ridiculous. He was a parody of the Enron / Worldcom folks and other corporate "pirates." Hence the parrot that kept sqauwking out "twelve and a half percent," the historical rate of usury. Adam Smith's central point in Wealth of Nations was that the wealth of nations did not stem from gold (according to the mercantilist theories of the time) but from productive labor. Marx's work built on that theory, but it wasn't what Marx was about. Pratchett's channelling Adam Smith in this book, not Marx. Seriously. Marx wouldn't exactly be a fan of machine-golem slave labor, think about it. Neither Going Postal nor Making Money have anything to do with Objectivism or Libertarianism, except insofar as some libertarians are foolish enough to espouse the gold standard. Admittedly that's more political than Pratchett usually gets (the only other real example I can think of is the Gonne) but none of his books are Bioshock and you're forcing your own reading onto the text if you think they are. Calenth fucked around with this message at 22:40 on Sep 29, 2007 |
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Sep 29, 2007 22:26
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Calenth posted:Admittedly that's more political than Pratchett usually gets (the only other real example I can think of is the Gonne) but none of his books are Bioshock and you're forcing your own reading onto the text if you think they are. But thats what analysing literature is all about!
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Sep 30, 2007 00:31
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Jolly Jumbuck posted:I was at the signing and got the book signed. The line was huge -- I had no idea he was that popular! what kind of line are we talking about here? This thing is at 1 and I'm planning to be there by 11:30. Is this the stay-up-all-night-hope-they-got-more-than-two-wiis-last-december type line or is it more a "wow I can't believe I spent an hour just to get an autograph" line?
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Sep 30, 2007 01:03
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Calenth posted:"twelve and a half percent," the historical rate of usury. Treasure Island - "Pieces of Eight!" 1/8 = 12.5% = "Pieces of Eight".
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Sep 30, 2007 01:23
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Eela6 posted:I think you're reading too much into it. I assumed it was a straight-up homage to Long John Silver. Actually you're probably right on that, esp. since now that I check instead of relying on memory, it's 12% for usury, and that's only in the U.S. and only since the '80s. Either way, though, he's a pirate, not a libertarian or objectivist. Calenth fucked around with this message at 02:48 on Sep 30, 2007 |
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Sep 30, 2007 02:46
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Krinkle posted:what kind of line are we talking about here? This thing is at 1 and I'm planning to be there by 11:30. Is this the stay-up-all-night-hope-they-got-more-than-two-wiis-last-december type line or is it more a "wow I can't believe I spent an hour just to get an autograph" line? It's more of the second kind. It was just weird because the DC book festival was the largest I'd ever seen, and yet on the mall, most of the people in line were for his signing. This thread showed he was fairly popular on the SA forums, but the magnitude of his total popularity in the DC area amazed me. The signing area would have been about 1/4 the size if he hadn't been there.
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Sep 30, 2007 03:29
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Well he is the world's most shoplifted author so he must be doing something right!
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Sep 30, 2007 03:34
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Calenth posted:Where on earth are you getting the idea that Reacher Gilt was an objectivist/libertarian? Honestly, it's not one of Pratchett's subtler jokes. (Which is what makes this even funnier.) Oh, and the "productive theory of labour"? Yeah, that's Marx. No, sorry, Marx. Maybe Smith earlier, but 9 out of 10 economists agree: if you're into LtoV, you're probably a Marxist. They'd also note that Pratchett stepped squarely into the lump-of-labour fallacy, but that's besides the point. It's the Discworld, not Samuelson's Economics. Edit: holy poo poo, wait, you think Discworld isn't political? The politics are barely concealed! Did you even read Interesting Times, for example, or did you miss that half the damned book was Rincewind going on and on about how tyranny and dictatorship works? Nomenklatura fucked around with this message at 09:03 on Sep 30, 2007 |
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Sep 30, 2007 08:55
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Nomenklatura posted:Oh, and the "productive theory of labour"? Yeah, that's Marx. No, sorry, Marx. Maybe Smith earlier, but 9 out of 10 economists agree: if you're into LtoV, you're probably a Marxist. They'd also note that Pratchett stepped squarely into the lump-of-labour fallacy, but that's besides the point. It's the Discworld, not Samuelson's Economics. Sorry, but the political philosophy he's playing with in Making Money is clearly Adam Smith's. The whole thing is a parody and examination of Industrial Revolution capitalism, it's Smith from beginning to end. More on-topic, I hope he doesn't go back to Vimes for quite a while. The Vimes arc seemed pretty much complete after Fifth Elephant and the next two (whilst really good) felt a bit like they were dragging things out. I'd like him to bring back Rincewind for nostalgia's sake.
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Sep 30, 2007 10:04
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I really hope Pratchett will go back to Death/Susan soon. I'm rather curious as to what happened to Lobsang.
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Sep 30, 2007 12:59
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Nomenklatura posted:REACHER GILT. A guy spending an entire book screaming about government interference in private enterprise. No, he spends the whole book being a pirate. It's excruciatingly obvious who the parallels are too -- the Enron/Worldcom folks also blathered about private enterprise. Not everyone who says the words "private enterprise" is a libertarian or objectivist. quote:Oh, and the "productive theory of labour"? Yeah, that's Marx. No, sorry, Marx. Maybe Smith earlier, but 9 out of 10 economists agree: if you're into LtoV, you're probably a Marxist. They'd also note that Pratchett stepped squarely into the lump-of-labour fallacy, but that's besides the point. It's the Discworld, not Samuelson's Economics. Do you know what the labor theory of value is? Like I said before -- it's extremely loving obvious that Pratchett is referring to Adam Smith here, not Marx. The entire point of Smith's Wealth of Nations was that the wealth of nations derives from work and productive labor, not gold stockpiles. That's what the title is there for. quote:The judicious operations of banking, by substituting paper in the room of a great part of this gold and silver, enables the country to convert a great part of this dead stock into active and productive stock. quote:The real price of everything, what everything really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it. What everything is really worth to the man who has acquired it, and who wants to dispose of it or exchange it for something else, is the toil and trouble which it can save to himself, and which it can impose upon other people. What is bought with money or with goods is purchased by labour as much as what we acquire by the toil of our own body. That money or those goods indeed save us this toil. They contain the value of a certain quantity of labour which we exchange for what is supposed at the time to contain the value of an equal quantity. Labour was the first price, the original purchase-money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all the wealth of the world was originally purchased; and its value, to those who possess it, and who want to exchange it for some new productions, is precisely equal to the quantity of labour which it can enable them to purchase or command. Historically prior to Adam Smith, the wealth of nations was measured by gold stockpiles (to oversimplify a little). This philosophy was referred to as mercantilism. Adam Smith's revolutionary point was that this wasn't true; wealth derived from productive labor, not gold stockpiles. Pratchett mocks this even as far back as The Color of Magic, when the Patrician asks Rincewind what would happen if everyone in Ankh-Morpork had gold, and Rincewind ignorantly replies "uh, we'd all be rich?" quote:Edit: holy poo poo, wait, you think Discworld isn't political? The politics are barely concealed! Did you even read Interesting Times, for example, or did you miss that half the damned book was Rincewind going on and on about how tyranny and dictatorship works? The politics are generally very conventional and mainstream; he doesn't get controversial, and he doesn't get into political theory. He'll pick issues here and there, like women in the military or gun control, but he isn't a theorist and he doesn't address political theory in his writing the way that someone like, say, China Mieville or Heinlein does. Or, for that matter, Ayn Rand. Yes, the books get political, but they aren't Bioshock. Calenth fucked around with this message at 14:18 on Sep 30, 2007 |
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Sep 30, 2007 13:51
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peanut- posted:
Yeah. Pratchett's kinda stuck right now because his best characters (Granny Weatherwax, Vimes, Carrot) have pretty much completed their character arcs. You can tell he's trying to start new "franchises" with Moist and Tiffany Aching.
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Sep 30, 2007 14:23
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Calenth posted:Yeah. Pratchett's kinda stuck right now because his best characters (Granny Weatherwax, Vimes, Carrot) have pretty much completed their character arcs. You can tell he's trying to start new "franchises" with Moist and Tiffany Aching. With Weatherwax, Vimes, Carrot and Moist I felt they were really part of the 'overall' Discworld story but Tiffany Aching felt like it just took place there. Like when an author writes a story set in another's fantasy world.
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Sep 30, 2007 17:49
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Grum posted:With Weatherwax, Vimes, Carrot and Moist I felt they were really part of the 'overall' Discworld story but Tiffany Aching felt like it just took place there. Like when an author writes a story set in another's fantasy world. That's a good insight, you're right, it does have that feel. I think it's because the tone is different since they're children's books, and the action all takes place in a completely new and un-crazy part of the Disc (i.e., a big open field without distinguishing characteristics, not Ankh-Morpork and not Lancre).
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Sep 30, 2007 18:04
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Just got back from my five hour drive into PA. Here is Terry Pratchett signing the book of the guy after me. None of the pictures I took before turned out   Here is the autograph. Can anyone read this?  I think it says "big whiskers" but I can't be sure. I have a pretty crummy beard so I don't know if he was referring to that. He offered to whisper the answer to the crossword puzzle to anyone who asked, I asked him to write it on the last page  If I can't figure it out by the epilogue I'll be glad to have it spoiled.
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Sep 30, 2007 23:26
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Big Wish? Big Wisy? I think he went a bit mad.
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Oct 1, 2007 02:04
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Calenth posted:No, he spends the whole book being a pirate. It's excruciatingly obvious who the parallels are too -- the Enron/Worldcom folks also blathered about private enterprise. Not everyone who says the words "private enterprise" is a libertarian or objectivist. GILT. GILT!!! G*LT!!! Ring a bell, perhaps? Maybe a guy named John G*lt? Made a free energy machine in that rather long book by that unfortunately unattractive Russian woman? Might ring a bell. Take your time. As for being an objectivist: first, he was a banker. Second: A passage. Terry Pratchett as Reacher G*lt posted:"Don't patronize me, my lord", said Gilt. "We own the Trunk. It is our property. You understand that? Property is the foundation of freedom. Oh, customers complain about the service and the cost, but customers always complain about such things. We have no shortage of customers at whatever cost. Before the semaphore, news from Genua took months to get here, now it takes less than a day. It is affordable magic. We are answerable to our shareholders, my lord. Not, with respect, to you. It is not your business. It is our business and we will run it according to the market. I hope there are no tyrannies here. This is, with respect, a free city." Third: Another Passage. Terry Pratchett as Reacher G*lt posted:Reacher Gilt chuckled. "Sorry, my lord? Did I understand you correctly? You really intend to continue with this follow, in the face of everything? The Post Office? When we all know that it was a lumbering, smug, overstaffed, overweight monster of a place? It barely earned its keep! It was the very essence and exemplar of public enterprise!... A classic example of a corroded government organization dragging on the public purse." "Property is the foundation of freedom"? "The very essence of a public enterprise"? "We will run it according to the market"? "a lumbering, smug, overstaffed, overweight monster... a classic example of a corroded government organization?" The man is the living, breathing, Discworld version of a Randroid. If he turned out to be a liar, a cheat, and a pirate, and was soundly beaten and humiliated by (what amounts to) a politician, that is because Terry Pratchett is serving notice of how he feels about their ilk, and if it drives them to this level of denial, so much the better. quote:The politics are generally very conventional and mainstream; he doesn't get controversial, and he doesn't get into political theory. He'll pick issues here and there, like women in the military or gun control, but he isn't a theorist and he doesn't address political theory in his writing the way that someone like, say, China Mieville or Heinlein does. Or, for that matter, Ayn Rand. Yes, the books get political, but they aren't Bioshock. Well, almost everybody. Nomenklatura fucked around with this message at 05:33 on Oct 1, 2007 |
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Oct 1, 2007 05:28
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Krinkle posted:I think it says "big whiskers" but I can't be sure. I have a pretty crummy beard so I don't know if he was referring to that.  Hell if I know what it says. It's driving me mad.
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Oct 1, 2007 07:58
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bobula posted:
It obviously says "Lots of Wives". He wants you to be a polygamist. On a more serious note, I think the purpose of these words is specifically to drive people mad. That is, they don't really mean anything at all.
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Oct 1, 2007 08:30
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Nomenklatura posted:Reacher. Gilt. gild1 /gɪld/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[gild] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation –verb (used with object), gild·ed or gilt, gild·ing. 1. to coat with gold, gold leaf, or a gold-colored substance. 2. to give a bright, pleasing, or specious aspect to. Gilt was certainly a critique of lack of government oversight of free enterprise, but you're really reaching to call him an Objectivist parody. He didn't act like a Rand character, even in an overexagerrated and ridiculous way. If he kept crowing about the importance of some invention of his or tried to blow the clacks rather than let them be nationalized or something, then yes, sure. As is he's a run of the mill con man without any special relation to the people you think he's lampooning.
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Oct 1, 2007 08:39
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bobula posted:
I see "big wifes". The guy ahead of me got "sold!" and the guy after me got "best of luck" I get Big Wicsrs
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Oct 1, 2007 11:31
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Nomenklatura posted:Reacher. Gilt. Do you know what the word "gilt" means? It means "gold-covered" or something thathas been faked to look like gold. Reacher Gilt -- someone grasping for gold, who's also somewhat fake. It isn't a galt reference. Hence the "reacher" part. quote:gild 1 (gĭld) Pronunciation Key He's named "reacher gilt" because he's a Grasping Fake. It has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with objectivism. As before -- Discworld isn't Bioshock. quote:The man is the living, breathing, Discworld version of a Randroid. If he turned out to be a liar, a cheat, and a pirate, No, he isn't. You're being an ideologue. As others have pointed out, the doctrine he's spouting is pre-adam-smith Mercantilist rhetoric. They used a lot of the same rhetoric. (It's also worth noting that Reacher always makes those speeches as obvious-to-the-reader lies -- it's quite obvious he doesn't believe it himself). He's just a con man who uses some market-oriented rhetoric. The book is very obviously a critique of things like Enron and Worldcom, but Ayn Rand isn't here. Calenth fucked around with this message at 14:27 on Oct 1, 2007 |
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Oct 1, 2007 14:22
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LooseChanj posted:Well, that is a pretty logical progression. Pyramids was also pretty good for showing an insight into Guild life and what one of it's members does afterwards.
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Oct 1, 2007 14:34
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Nomenklatura posted:The man is the living, breathing, Discworld version of a Randroid. If he turned out to be a liar, a cheat, and a pirate, and was soundly beaten and humiliated by (what amounts to) a politician, that is because Terry Pratchett is serving notice of how he feels about their ilk, and if it drives them to this level of denial, so much the better. Your interpretation is interesting. Your insistence that it is the only interpretation is stupid. And stop insulting people.
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Oct 1, 2007 15:49
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PresterJohn posted:Your interpretation is interesting. Your insistence that it is the only interpretation is stupid. And stop insulting people. He isn't the only one insisting that there is only a single possible interpretation of the character. Here I always thought that part of the great thing about Pratchett was that things could be taken on several different levels, but multiple people in here are treating a fairly reasonable interpretation as though it was objectively (ho ho ho) incorrect. In short: A plague on both their houses. I like both readings.
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Oct 1, 2007 16:35
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Nomenklatura posted:Actually, the Discworld has become one of the most brilliant and most comprehensive commentaries on modern society out there. That's why it's popular; He's brilliant, and it's brilliant, because it reminds people of the world they live in, while at the same time being drawn in broad enough strokes that everybody can get it. wow really, I can see how "guns are bad" and "women should be in the military!" are brilliant commentaries on modern society
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Oct 1, 2007 16:51
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mistermojo posted:wow really, I can see how "guns are bad" and "women should be in the military!" are brilliant commentaries on modern society You have certainly boiled down Pratchett's work to the essentials without losing any nuanced subtleties, yes sir.
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Oct 1, 2007 16:59
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Wasn't there a line "Who is Reacher Gilt" in Going Postal? That's an Atlas Shrugged joke right there.
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Oct 1, 2007 17:32
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Patrovsky posted:It obviously says "Lots of Wives". He wants you to be a polygamist. Crap, I was hoping I was the only one who came to that conclusion. I'll have to be satisfied with that.
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Oct 1, 2007 19:45
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Clearly he wants you to have as many wives as the market will bear.
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Oct 1, 2007 19:49
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Jolly Jumbuck posted:It's more of the second kind. It was just weird because the DC book festival was the largest I'd ever seen, and yet on the mall, most of the people in line were for his signing. This thread showed he was fairly popular on the SA forums, but the magnitude of his total popularity in the DC area amazed me. The signing area would have been about 1/4 the size if he hadn't been there. I was kind of disappointed because at a normal signing you can talk to him for a bit while he signs, and he'll add a custom dedication. This time they were hustling people through as fast as possible -- hand over the book, he scrawls a signature, get out.
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Oct 1, 2007 22:07
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Mukaikubo posted:He isn't the only one insisting that there is only a single possible interpretation of the character. Here I always thought that part of the great thing about Pratchett was that things could be taken on several different levels, but multiple people in here are treating a fairly reasonable interpretation as though it was objectively (ho ho ho) incorrect. Ferrinus posted:
Don't mean at all to be suggesting that multiple readings aren't possible. They are. I just think Nomenklatura's reading of Going Postal as a discworld version of Bioshock is invalid and incorrect, because, as Ferrinus points out, Gilt just doesn't act remotely like an Ayn Rand character. Everything that Nomenklatura points out as "omg ayn rand" is better explained by "corporate pirate," and the "corporate pirate" also explains other things that the Ayn Rand reading doesn't, like the parrot. On top of that, there are elements that would be necessary in an Ayn Rand parody -- like Gilt building the clacks himself then dynamiting it or something -- that are simply absent from the book. It's not that other readings aren't possible, it's that there's not enough "there" there to support his reading. I'll grant the "who is Reacher Gilt" as a possible oblique Rand reference, but there's still not enough there to read Postal as an attack on Objectivism -- it's just an attack on con men. Nomenklatura posted:Actually, the Discworld has become one of the most brilliant and most comprehensive commentaries on modern society out there. That's why it's popular; He's brilliant, and it's brilliant, because it reminds people of the world they live in, while at the same time being drawn in broad enough strokes that everybody can get it. I didn't say that he didn't comment on politics. I said he wasn't an ideologue. These are different things. It's possible to hold a wide variety of political views without being a doctrinaire (Marxist, Objectivist, whatever). And Pratchett isn't -- his views come across pretty clearly as mainstream-british-left-liberal, which is fine, but he's not an ideologue and his works aren't ideological. On the contrary, they're pretty balanced, which is part of why they have such widespread appeal. Politically, they're mainstream, and they never really get that controversial politically. Calenth fucked around with this message at 00:26 on Oct 2, 2007 |
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Oct 1, 2007 22:38
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An all assassin book would be really nice. But if you want a real assassin (not pteppic, who doesn't have the heart to kill a person), they have to kill innocent (well, technically) people in cold blood and from how I understand Pratchett, he doesn't do that with the protagonists. It would really rock to have some kind of anti-hero.
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Oct 1, 2007 22:49
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Bonus posted:An all assassin book would be really nice. But if you want a real assassin (not pteppic, who doesn't have the heart to kill a person), they have to kill innocent (well, technically) people in cold blood and from how I understand Pratchett, he doesn't do that with the protagonists. What is the name of the female assassin Vimes meets at the beginning of Thud? Written well, she'd be a good character for a book about the guild of assassins. In fact, if we consider his theme of modernization, she could be a character who experiences from within a kind of change in the Guild from a school which provides an excellent and well-rounded education and training to murder people into a school which simply provides a well-rounded education. A driving force could be something whereby the Guild becomes aware that most students do not practice their trade, and that the recent Guild practice of not accepting contracts (first Vetinari, then Vimes) is detrimental to their stated purpose - that is, to ensure that the stock and trade of murder is left to professionals who will render unto their clients with dignity, grace, and discretion. It is detrimental for the simple reason that any person who wishes to see anyone on the 'Not Accepting Contracts' list will not simply give up, they will simply seek alternative methods of inhumation. That's how we get -ing characters who are -ing irritating and not -ing funny, because they get -ing hired by people too -ing determined to see Vetinari in the -ing ground to just give up because the -ing Assassins said no. Oh, and also: Nomeklatura, Calenth is right. Calenth, Nomenklatura is right. The beauty of Pratchett's work is that there are many layers of meaning hidden in everything. Even some of the puns have multiple meanings. For examples of such puns, see also Dragon King of Arms and his poisson lamp. Pratchett is so loving cheeky about his future plotlines that he hints about them several books in advance, and when there's a mystery, he normally gives you the answer in the first chapter, but it takes the entire novel for the answer to suddenly come together and make sense. Honestly, look at Jingo. An island rises from the water, artificially inducing an international crisis? And then the island sinks back to the bottom of the ocean, leaving the only man who knew the secret as the winner in the whole affair? The theft of the Rascal is the most important piece of information given to us in Thud! Also, I find it amusing that the principle driving force behind Vetinari's Undertaking and the modernization of Ankh-Morpork is a perpetual motion device. Keshik fucked around with this message at 05:40 on Oct 2, 2007 |
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Oct 2, 2007 05:33
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bobula posted:Crap, I was hoping I was the only one who came to that conclusion. I'll have to be satisfied with that. Just as long as you actually follow his words.
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Oct 2, 2007 07:28
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