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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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I think it's been rather obvious from day one that Carrot came to town that the Patrician and he had a completely unspoken understanding. If Carrot ever wishes to seek the throne, the Patrician will certainly step down - but Carrot will never seek the throne, because that is not in Ankh-Morpork's interest. I do not foresee that anyone or anything will ever topple the Patrician, however. And if he should die, he will have become immortal through the bureaucracy he has built. The Patrician, like many such things, is a metaphor for functioning government. If his character is ever killed, I expect nothing whatsoever will happen, because he'll have succeeded in building a system that works. That being said, he is hands-down my favorite character and I hope he never dies. I can just imagine the scene. quote:In the privacy of the Oblong Office, the Patrician sat quietly at his desk, carefully reading a report from the City Watch, which had been written by someone who clearly understood the importance of punctuation, but had failed to grasp the subtleties of how to use it. I would want that to be followed by about two hundred pages of conversation.
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Aug 16, 2007 02:51
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Oxxidation posted:There's an idea to consider - Vetinari versus Granny Weatherwax in the field of headology. If there was ever a Discworld Clash of the Titans... Given that Vetinari has a proclivity for creating uncomfortable silences which people try to fill by talking, Vetinari vs. Granny Weatherwax would probably quickly devolve into a staring contest which Vetinari would graciously allow Granny Weatherwax to win. Which would, of course, satisfy her. Vetinari spends the vast majority of his time arranging things so that events proceed in the way he wants them to go. You cannot defeat him, for he will forfeit. And in so doing, win. If Death ever does come for Vetinari, I suspect he'll be hired to run things in Dunmanifestin.
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Aug 16, 2007 04:50
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ConfusedUs posted:It's great. Both authors manage to mix their styles pretty well. I've always wondered how authors do that. Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle... Do they just sit in front of the same computer and elbow each other continually for months? Also, Good Omens is fantastic. I absolutely loved the part where they're getting ready to fight The Father. Keshik fucked around with this message at 18:31 on Aug 21, 2007 |
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Aug 21, 2007 18:28
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MolluskGoneBad posted:I'm surprised by all the love for Small Gods. It's one of my least favorites; it seemed really trite and a bit hamfisted. Oh come on, it's full of some of the absolutely best lines Pratchett has ever written. "There are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal kindly family man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do." Although, of course, the best joke Pratchett has ever written, was, and remains to this day, the footnote on page thirty-nine of Men at Arms.
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Aug 29, 2007 05:54
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Mukaikubo posted:Wait... is that Fingers-Mazda? And I thought I was bad. Mr. SM Holocaust posted:I think Small Gods, Witches Abroad and Men At Arms were really defining books for the main characters in the series that they dramatically changed it for the better. I also think that he has yet to really to take the wizards of Unseen University and make them more dimensional than the Keystone Cops with magic. While on the subject of older characters, does anyone remember if Djelibeybi has been mentioned even in passing in any of his books since Pyramids? Keshik fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Aug 29, 2007 |
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Aug 29, 2007 20:58
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Nomenklatura posted:It's a pity that we haven't seen Moist "from the outside" from the perspective of someone like Vimes, by the way. That's one of my favorite parts of Discworld, and after Making Money, I'm anxious to see what others actually think of the man. I think it's pretty clear at least from Going Postal (I haven't read Making Money yet, motherfucking Amazon.com gently caress) that Vimes hates everything Moist stands for and would love nothing more than to drag him back in front of the Patrician for something, going "HA! You can't change a con-man's spots!" Angua seems to like Moist, which makes sense, because Moist is good with the ladies and is good with canines. Carrot is, of course, Carrot.
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Sep 26, 2007 22:51
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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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Detetsu posted:Wasn't that at the start of Night Watch? Ah, drat. Thud! and Night Watch were basically the same book anyway. Not much comedy, very dark. Night Watch is possibly one of the best books Pratchett's written and my least favorite of the Vimes series because it doesn't have Carrot. Call me a royalist, but Carrot is one of the best characters of the entire series. In fact, I'd go so far as to list my favorites in the following order: Havelock Vetinari, Carrot Ironfoundersson, Lu-Tze. Vetinari and Carrot are, I suspect, the only people on the Disc who would actually notice the presence of Lu-Tze.
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Oct 2, 2007 19:25
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Detetsu posted:I always enjoy the footnotes in Pratchett's books They're always the best jokes, in my opinion. There's the always amusing Fingers Mazda, of course, but another favorite is the one from Feet of Clay. quote:'Right you are, Captain Carrot!' said the dwarf baker. 'C'mon, lads! Let's hang 'em up by the bura'zak-ka'!*
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Oct 4, 2007 05:59
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Calenth posted:What did you like about Monstrous Regiment? I just found it extremely predictable -- I wasn't a quarter of the way through the book before I guessed what the big "surprise" at the end was going to be. I mean, honestly. The title of the book gives the so-called surprise ending away.
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Oct 16, 2007 10:50
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Jekub posted:About three years ago a friend of mine paid quite a large sum of money at the charity auction at DW-Con to be a character in an upcoming book. I laughed way to loud on the train this morning when he turned up in Making Money. I had read two pages with him in before it twigged, and it's not as though his name has been changed. Cosmo, Alf, Robert Spittle, Robert Parker, Charlie, or Wallace?
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Oct 18, 2007 23:00
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Man of Straw posted:I don't mind because it's actually one of the best books in the series and I love how Pratchett developed dwarf culture in it. The "WHERE'S MY COW?" sequence really felt shoehorned in though. I got teary eyed when Anghammarad died. 
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Nov 27, 2007 22:46
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Damnit, I've been thinking more about this whole thing. I'm lucky in that most of my other favorite authors were dead before I was born or at least before I learned to read. It'd be a lot easier to cope with Pratchett's imminent retirement if he just decided one day to stop writing and go off to Sri Lanka to be immortal, like Arthur C Clarke.
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Jan 4, 2008 17:36
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Eunabomber posted:Jeremy Irons performance as Vetinari That was a loving travesty, and I thought he could not have done a worse job. Five seconds prior to seeing that performance, I'd have said he was perfect for the role in every respect. Five seconds after it started, I wanted to know why the gently caress he was slurring with a lisp so bad that I couldn't understand a single word he said.
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Apr 6, 2008 09:48
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I was thinking about things, and I came up with a really good Vetinari. Andy Garcia. Also, Patrick Stewart as Leonard of Quirm. Now, you guys can discuss Vimes all you want, and there are many actors who I am sure would do a fine job. A real question is who could play Captain Carrot? I mean, where are you going to find a guy who's six and a half feet tall, built of pure solid muscle, and exudes the kind of on-screen charisma that will make people believe that, against all possibility, this guy is friends with everyone he meets.
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Apr 12, 2008 15:18
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