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LooseChanj posted:Oops, sorry. Trust me though, you're not missing much. It's the only discworld novel I didn't enjoy much. Unusually weak book, mostly because the main characters are not all that compelling. On the other hand, Ponder Stibbons and Gaspode get their introduction, and Detritus starts to move out into the spotlight. As for Making Money, it's not as strong as Going Postal, and probably not even as good as The Truth. Part of the problem, at least for me, was the shaky use of economics. The Golem Standard was clearly written in to introduce the Labor Value of money, which is essentially what we use today. But the element it introduces -- AM suddenly has an unstoppable army able to CONQUER THE WORLD -- overshadows its use as a mere monetary basis. It's hard to get excited about, you know, fiscal backing when the entire city is fighting over a superweapon. And for a book primarily about classical economics, the treatment of the Golem Army takes an unexpected turn. Pratchett seemed to be arguing for a Nobility of Work theory, where the city and people gain worth simply by working. And also that turning the Golem Army loose would shock the social order of the City to its core. The second part is definitely true. But the first? The Golems are the equivalent of fairly impressive machines that improve productive capacity. Aren't a lot of AM residents still starving & underhoused, thanks mostly to the limitations of local technology? You could feed a lot of people with those Golems. And they're going to be underused simply to run telegraphs? I don't know.
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Oct 14, 2007 16:14
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Grum posted:It's covered in the book, using them would supply all the labour so the people who are starving and underhoused would now be starving, underhoused and unemployed and that'll just make things worse. Really, all the bases are covered by Moist's and Vetanari's conversation, trying to go deeper is, well, going too deep -- it's a Discworld novel for god's sake. But that makes no sense. Perhaps they'll be unemployed. But starving and underhoused? The golems are capable of growing all the food and building all the housing. The golems really represent a world of no scarcity. I can accept that scarcity is an important thing because it forces us to be productive, create new technology, and otherwise grow the civilization. But it's not *all* bad to have an untiring army of workers who can do everything for you. I think Pratchett was referring to a situation where the money economy dries up. Which it would, just like in a credit crunch. But we wouldn't need money anymore, golems would provide everything we would ordinarily buy. I thought a more realistic fear was that we'd all end up like the humans in Asimov's more decadent societies. The robots do all the work, we just sit around and drink beer and get stupid. Is that so bad? It's not even clear we'd be unemployed. Wright's The Golden Age is a great riposte to the "If they do all the work, there'll be no work" argument.
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Oct 14, 2007 22:54
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Obviously you're wrong in a way that can be proven objectively.
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Oct 15, 2007 19:45
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John Dough posted:It's a classical democracy: rich/landowning/taxpaying male citizens can vote. Makes you wonder what Vetinari has planned for whatever happens to A-M after he sees the Reaper Man. I'd also thought that he was gearing it up for a modern republic, but he sneers at Pseudopolis in Unseen Academicals. The two most likely options in the event of his untimely death are: 1. Neutered Patrician with a powerful guild council. 2. Patrician with a powerful aristocracy. 3. King Carrot the First. #1 and #2 are the options the bad guys favor in the Watch books. #3 would drive Vimes spare.
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Nov 17, 2009 00:10
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Sophia posted:I think Tiffany Aching and young Susan in Soul Music were great and believable young female characters Come on, the elephant in the room here is that all of Pratchett's young female characters are pretty much exactly the same person. Reliable. Level-headed. Fairly reserved. It's a weird blind spot, and it's even gotten worse as the series has gone on. Magrat and Angua had their own characters, but Susan/Tiffany/Daphne/Polly/Glenda/Agnes are pretty much punched from the same relentlessly commonsensical cloth.
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Jan 26, 2010 18:43
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Staggy posted:I actually saw the Truckers film before I read any of the books. That poo poo was terrifying - good, but terrifying. It's actually interesting to see how much of Pratchett has stayed the same since 1989. Truckers has crotchety-but-powerful old ladies, bemused male leads who see the world as it is, spunky female leads, mild puns, teases religion, and etc. Truckers is actually darn good, but Diggers is frankly boring. Wings wraps things up okay.
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Mar 2, 2010 01:29
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:Vimes is getting older, and he's human. As far as his will and sense of justice takes him, he can still die to a stab through the heart. Or even just a heart attack. Man, it better not be Vimes. It should be Vetinari! It's so thematically appropriate! Vetinari was in Discworld since chapter one. He's the puppet master that built the city from a fantasy cliche to a vibrant, breathing reality. He makes the characters and the plots move. He IS Terry Pratchett. It just makes too much sense. The problem is that Vimes is also Terry Pratchett. This nuclear spokesman writing okay fantasy stories in his spare time becomes OBE and the toast of his land. Who does that sound like to you?
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Aug 12, 2010 02:40
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