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Down With People posted:In addition, I recall reading that they won't just kill anyone - a Guild assassin won't accept a contract on Bob the butcher, because he's just too poor and below-notice to be worth the trouble. The target must be able to defend themselves*. *Anybody making more than $n Ankh-Morpork dollars/year is automatically considered able to pay somebody to defend them.
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Sep 22, 2013 05:09
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Everybody loves the Death books; I think they're an awful loving entry point and not nearly as good as their reputation. The real star of the Discworld is Ankh-Morpork, and it's totally loving neglected by the Death books(aside from, perhaps, Hogfather). I'd try one of the City Watch books before writing the Discworld off. Guards, Guards! or Men at Arms are good starters, there. I think Men at Arms is the better book by quite a bit and probably the better starting point. It's newer and it's much more representative of most of the Discworld than is Guards, Guards!. The characters from it are first introduced in Guards, but Pratchett's not a particularly difficult read and it's not that hard to get your bearings straight. Subtle, his characters are not. If you don't like Men at Arms, give up on Pratchett, but if you don't like Mort, well. Mort's fairly lovely and not indicative of the series as a whole.
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Feb 16, 2014 23:40
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Tiny Chalupa posted:So I have always been interested in Terry Pratchett books but have never had any idea where the hell to start. I suggest starting with the Night Watch books; they're a good introduction to the city of Ankh-Morpork, and the city is, in my opinion, the central character of the books. I'd start out like this: Guards, Guards! > Men at Arms > Feet of Clay. After that, you can go pretty much anywhere that interests you. I'd recommend starting the Witch books at Lords and Ladies, and I'd recommend reading Reaper Man from the Death books and only reading the others if you are interested. Reading the other books will show you enough of Death to make Reaper Man good as a standalone, which is fortunate, because Mort is fairly lovely as far as Discworld books go.
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May 27, 2014 09:25
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The best Pratchett book is Night Watch. That aside, I've decided I'm just not going to read Raising Steam. I'd rather end on a high note.
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Jun 2, 2014 23:07
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VagueRant posted:I like Vimes being a total badass, but I can't help but wonder when he got so good at fighting. Somewhere in the next couple of books you'll meet the guy who trained Vimes and find out.
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Jun 10, 2014 07:28
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It's not said outright, but it is heavily implied. The King tells Cheery something about "Do let me know the name of your dressmaker, I might have some custom for them".
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Jun 17, 2014 21:05
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Blind Melon posted:it becomes apparent just how much he has picked up from Vimes. Vimes puts words in his head.
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Jan 25, 2015 20:30
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Alvarez IV posted:If I've only ever read Good Omens (and enjoyed it thoroughly) and want to read a Discworld entry without having to know all the lore from the rest, what's a good single one to check out? I heard Small Gods and The Last Hero were good for that sort of stuff, is it true and if not what is? Small Gods, Guards Guards, Men at Arms, or maybe Witches Abroad. My personal recommendation is probably Men at Arms, because I like the Guard the best.
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Feb 3, 2015 19:43
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Upon reflection, I think that Carpe Jugulem is probably the strongest of the witch books. Their characters are firmly established, but they don't feel like caricatures of themselves. Mightily Oats has an excellent character arc and his realization of the holiness of everything is nicely mirrored by the vampires having the same realization with a different outcome. I liked the way that the vampires' attempts to humanize themselves only made the monsters more monstrous. Oddly, I didn't realize how much I liked it until I went back and thought about it; prior to this thread of conversation here it wouldn't have made my top 10, but reflecting on it has definitely moved it up to #1 Witch book.
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Apr 23, 2015 23:21
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I thought Monstrous Regiment ended on a pretty weak note. I did not like the "OH EVERYBODY IN THE COMMAND IS A WOMAN" twist. Jackrum as a woman was good, I could buy one of the high command, but all of them? Meh.
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Aug 8, 2015 21:55
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Ccs posted:Has anyone read "The Long Earth" series by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter? The premise is basically humans suddenly discover they can step into alternate parallel worlds without any humans in them, so they start colonizing these places and exploring and building new societies. But I just can't adjust to the premise that instead of corporations mining these worlds for resources and making humans very comfortable, a huge amount of the population decides to settle these new worlds like old-school pioneers; farming and making stuff like candles and tools from scratch. For a lot of people, life in the modern world goes something like this: Wake up, go to work, do meaningless poo poo for 8+ hours, go home, have a few hours for yourself and family, go to bed. Repeat every weekday of every week of every year until you're 65+. It wouldn't surprise me at all if a significant percentage of the population looked down the barrel of a 30-40 year stretch of shuffling papers and decided that they'd rather go play pioneer.
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Aug 16, 2015 08:35
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fluppet posted:I can't quite bring myself to make a start on the shepherd's crown. I don't want there not to be another discworld book to read I can't make myself read Shepherd's Crown because I accepted the Discworld as a finished thing when I decided that I wasn't going to read Raising Steam.
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Sep 1, 2015 03:33
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Stephen Fry would be the Dean, I think.
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Sep 6, 2015 21:45
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ConfusedUs posted:I am re-reading the Watch books, in order. I'm like 80% through Jingo. Jingo would be a stronger book if you removed half of the Nobby/Fred/Vetinari stuff, imo.
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Sep 28, 2015 06:22
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Reene posted:Why would Vetinari even know who she is? Because Vetinari knows who everybody is. That's kind of this thing.
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May 2, 2016 04:55
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Oxxidation posted:Yes? It's the scene with that "good man/evil man" bit that everyone can't stop quoting. Cruces' knowledge of the succession was a factor, but the fact that he'd shot Vetinari, killed another copper and had Vimes under the barrel as well probably didn't help his chances either. Yeah, but Carrot is a pretty big advocate of due process and all that poo poo, generally. Tries to read the golem king his rights in Feet of Clay. Tries to bring Carcer in alive in Night Watch. All that kind of stuff. Even squares up to fight Wolfgang by Marquis of Queensbury rules. Lots of people do horrible poo poo, and they all come in alive. The guy making the poisoned candles who accidentally kills the old lady and the baby, he comes in alive. Cruces, on the other hand, gets pinned to the wall like a butterfly. No attempt to capture him, nothing. It's the only time in the series that I can recall where Carrot just straight up kills a motherfucker, and the person he killed was somebody he could have taken in alive pretty easily. Cruces died because he knew, basically.
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Sep 19, 2016 01:19
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VagueRant posted:I really liked Carrot as a bumbling character in Guards! Guards! who got into actual peril from being so good-natured and naive in a place that is so not. His transition to adored guy who kind of always succeeds at everything and is specifically not stupid got a bit stale for me. I guess some of that strong and capable but simple aspect got carried over to Detritus, but with less of the good-natured and trusting side that made him SO endearing I wish he'd done more with Carrot and Vimes. My favorite Carrot moment is in The Fifth Elephant where Vimes was thinking about the way that Carrot's destiny warps the world around him, and wondering how he'd stand up to it if he had to. I wish that he had had to.
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Sep 21, 2016 20:26
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SeanBeansShako posted:People saying it is bad must be part of that gross anti feminism crowd or something. I feel like the ending was too contrived and farcical to really fit the book and that the weak ending makes it one of his weaker entries. If I rated all the Discworld books it would probably end up in the bottom third. I don't think it's a bad book, I just don't think it's a particularly good one. If this makes me a gross anti-feminist then 
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Oct 10, 2016 00:39
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The courtroom reveal, mostly. I haven't read it in years, though, so I am iffy on the specific details but I remember really disliking the "Oh ho, the entire high command are women faking it! And so is Jackrum! And so is everybody but that hapless LT!" Just fell flat for me.
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Oct 10, 2016 07:18
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Dirty Frank posted:You can tell when the Alzheimers started to set in. I read Snuff, then threw the book away and decided that I was very glad that Pratchett stopped writing at I Shall Wear Midnight.
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Nov 2, 2017 12:05
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Phenotype posted:I think the Watch characters are mostly straightforward enough that you don't need their inner monologue for them to be sympathetic. Carrot has always worked with no one really knowing what's going on inside his head, but on the face of it he's an honest, good-natured cop who wants to do the right thing. HIJK posted:Carrot killing the murderer so fast is supposed to be the proof that he’s a Good Man...or as good as you can get in AM.
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Sep 20, 2019 10:47
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HIJK posted:Indeed, and Carrot doesn’t want to hear it. He had a lot of reasons to kill the dude. Wish I could remember the name but oh well It's Cruces, the Assassin Guildmaster before Downey.
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Sep 20, 2019 18:39
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My personal favorite Carrot bit is in Men at Arms, when he bluffs his way into the Clown guildhouse with the whole "If you refuse to answer my questions, I will be forced to carry out my orders. I do not like that and I will be ashamed of it, but I will do it." thing. He never tells a lie and he never says anything overtly threatening, but you can tell that he absolutely knows what he's doing. It's not just a case of Carrot being oblivious to the implication of his words in that context. He clearly means for his words to be interpreted as a threat.
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Dec 28, 2019 19:01
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I work in EMS, so I know all the cops who work for the county, and I definitely know a Fred and a Nobby.
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Jan 30, 2020 19:54
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Tree Bucket posted:What was the first Discworld everyone read? I started with "Interesting Times" and it absolutely blew my 12-year-old mind. I had no idea what was going on but "your wife is a big hippo" and "there he is! Get 'im! Got 'im? Now kick 'im inna fork!" were pure magic. Men at Arms, which is IMO a great starting point because it's the first 'modern' Watch book and the Watch is the best storyline, followed closely by Witches.
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Aug 6, 2020 18:31
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toasterwarrior posted:Speaking of which, my books aren't with me so I can't track it down but there's a quote about politics as a game, with the rough phrasing of "players will tolerate you rocking the boat but not smashing the board" or something like that. Does it sound familiar to any of you? In Night Watch there's a line about the Assassin's Guild: "The Assassins understood the political game in the city better than anyone, and if they took you off the register it was because they felt your departure would not only spoil the game but also smash the board..." That's all I can think of, though.
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Jan 7, 2021 05:28
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immoral_ posted:You could skip it and go to Mort, which is where it starts becoming more Discworld and less high-fantasy trope-a-thon. Mort is also a lovely starting place, imo. While I like Death, I think that he's always gotten sub-par books(with the possible exception of Reaper Man), and I don't think they're properly representative of the rest of the series. Thinking about it, I think that the best entry point is Men at Arms. It's the first Watch book with a 'modern' feel to it, in that all the characters are pegged down and consistent, and the introduction of all the new characters to the Watch also serves to introduce the setting to the reader.
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Jan 27, 2021 21:52
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IMO if you are a grown adult carrying around a staff, you don't get to get pissy if six year old kids mistake you for a wizard.
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Jun 22, 2021 04:15
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I think what's notable about Vetinari is that he could be pulled down rather easily if everybody wanted him gone. He stays in power because he's everybody's second choice. He doesn't have overwhelming force or the whole-hearted support of the military or anything like that, he has a grudging "If I can't be the one leading, I'd rather it be him than them" from everybody in a position of power.
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Aug 16, 2021 21:38
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Chloe Jessica posted:what's yalls favorite Pratchett pun ever “But the helmet had gold decoration, and the bespoke armorers had made a new gleaming breastplate with useless gold ornamentation on it. Sam Vimes felt like a class traitor every time he wore it. He hated being thought of as one of those people that wore stupid ornamental armor. It was gilt by association.”
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Jan 25, 2022 05:56
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I never read Shepard's Crown and have no intention of doing so. I think the Aching books ended well enough on I Shall Wear Midnight that I feel no real need to go further. Similarly, I've never read and will never read Raising Steam.
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Oct 6, 2022 02:31
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Xander77 posted:You just like the characters enough not to notice the flaws (random new love interest with no characterization, a villain that's menacing on paper whom the plot treats like an utter random nuisance). Thud (for example) is generally regarded as one of the best Discworld books. It also really helps that almost all of the central characters are relatively new ones. Vimes and Carrot and Vetinari and such have been around forever, and if something's a bit off with them you're probably going to notice it. All the characters in the Aching books are new to the series, aside from Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax and they're both in supporting roles where they don't get a ton of camera time.
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Dec 22, 2022 20:39
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Bilirubin posted:can someone slap that "order to read Discworld in" graphic up for me, just wondering when I've got enough backstory to give Night Watch (my last Watch book) its proper perspective. I've also read most of the Death books by now Whenever you've read the Watch books that come before it. It is a Vimes book before anything else, and the Watch books will give you all the background you need to know to appreciate it.
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Jun 10, 2023 08:16
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Guards! Guards! is the best place to start because the main character of the Discworld is the city of Ankh-Morpork and it's the best introduction to the city.
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Mar 26, 2024 21:36
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