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Lucindawst posted:I have never read Pratchett, though I just picked up Good Omens which was co-authored by him with Neil Gaiman who I adore. Has anyone else read this, is it a good read? I am hoping to be able to spare some free time during my daunting fall semester to get the book read, but I haven't had the chance to start yet. It's great. Both authors manage to mix their styles pretty well.
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Aug 21, 2007 17:20
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 07:57 |
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I picked up half a dozen Discworld books for fifty cents each. I just read Guards! Guards! for the first time and it was amazing. Really amazing. I'm reading Sourcery now and I still hate Rincewind but Conina and the Luggage almost make up for him.
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Sep 9, 2007 15:23
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LooseChanj posted:Am I the only person who actually likes Rincewind? He's hilarious. I liked him in The Colour of Magic. Since then he's been obnoxious.
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Sep 10, 2007 02:21
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daggerdragon posted:WTF HOW WHERE?!?! YMCA thrift store. The one in Blacksburg, VA is a veritable gold mine of excellent reading material.
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Sep 11, 2007 21:33
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I'm most of the way done with Lords and Ladies and I'm liking it far more than any of the previous Witches novels. Pratchett's elves are loving scary and awesome. Also it's about time Magrat kicked rear end instead of being Granny's verbal punching bag.
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Sep 18, 2007 04:37
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Chaglby posted:
I didn't like Light Fantastic or Equal Rites all that much, but I loved the Color of Magic.
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Dec 21, 2007 01:59
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To really get Death right, he'd have to move his mouth, without it syncing to the words. He tries so hard to humanize himself, but can never get it right.
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Jan 30, 2008 04:39
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thrakkorzog posted:Pretty much. Basically it works off of the whole, 'If you drink a vampire's blood, you become a vampire' rule. Granny willed it to work in the other direction, so that by drinking her blood, all the Vampires got stuck with Granniness. So they want to be evil, but they can't. And they're also stuck following all the goofy vampire rules, with the Vampire kids seeing religious symbols all over the place. It's the fact that Granny wants to be evil, but can't, because she's the good witch that makes her so awesome. The speech in Witches Abroad where she goes off on her sister, the bad witch, shows just how much that hurts her. She's pissed. She's powerful. And she can't go on a rampage like Black Aliss, no matter how much she wants to, because she's the good witch of the pair. It's even better in Masquerade. There's several scenes where she says "let's do some good," in a really creepy and evil way before doing something pretty awful to someone that turns out to help them the most. So, even though she's forced to do good deeds, she often does them in a manner that others don't like or appreciate, and thus has her reputation as bad news secured. It's the closest she can get to the evil she really wants to do.
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Feb 13, 2008 19:13
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M_E_G. ADI. K posted:The Incarnations of Immortality series is pretty good but I'd recommend stopping at around the 7th book (the one about God). The setting is a sci-fi/fantasy mix and most of it doesn't suffer from the author's obsession with 15 year old girls. I didn't even realize there WAS an eighth book. Personally I'd stop after the fifth. The sixth and seventh weren't all that good.
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Aug 25, 2008 00:50
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Piell posted:Every book in that series is worse than the previous one. The easiest thing to do is to read until you start disliking it, then stop, since the ones after that will just be worse. This is entirely true.
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Aug 25, 2008 04:41
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Zubumafoo posted:I've recently been reading a lot of Neil Gaiman (actually, I think I've read all of it, he hasn't written all that many books) and I just recently read Good Omens. I loved it, there were a few points where I had to put the book down I was laughing so hard. There aren't too many books that can get a good belly laugh out of me. In general, the humor was mostly Pratchett and the weirdness was mostly Gaiman, though there is some overlap.
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Oct 30, 2008 00:17
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Kasonic posted:Out of all the books I think Mort would've been the best to make into a movie. It's very self-contained, and for some reason Mort's transformation into Death really sticks with one of the rare(if not unique) things in the Discworld series that would work even better on film. Witches Abroad could be done like a (not sucky) live-action fairy tale, like Enchanted. The book has a concise beginning, middle, and end and most of the humor is just a twist on standard fairy-tale stuff anyway, which cuts down on the required exposition. It'd probably be even easier to make than Mort.
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Feb 15, 2009 16:15
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Pope Guilty posted:Psycho Battle Magrat was great. Pratchett writes very memorable books, with fun plots, but I find that very few individual scenes stand out above the rest. They're all good, but few are great, in the sense that I have a difficult time picking out a single favorite part of any Discworld book. Psycho Battle Magrat is great. Baron Samedi's entrance at the end of Witches Abroad is great. Bill Door vs New Death is great. But that's about all I can think of, off the top of my head.
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Mar 15, 2009 19:48
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DontMockMySmock posted:Vimes capturing Carcer at the end of Night Watch is probably my favorite scene in all of Discworld. I'm trying to read the Watch novels in order so I haven't got to that one yet. I'm sure I will eventually, especially with all the praise it gets around these parts! Discworld is my go-to series for when I want a new book to read but there's not a specific new book that I'm after. So, while I buy a new book about once every couple of weeks, I only pick up a Discworld book about once every couple of months. I'm slowly getting them all. I own all the Death novels, most of Rincewind's, most of the Witches, and I'm at Jingo in the Watch series.
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Mar 15, 2009 23:37
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precision posted:As far as great, dramatic scenes, he writes plenty. The earliest one I can think of is the intro to Sourcery; that is really gold stuff right there. Also see: the climax of Mort. Oh, definitely. It's just that, unlike most books, his awesome parts don't really stand out in my mind because the rest of each book is just as good.
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Mar 16, 2009 04:41
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Whenever I want a new book and don't have anything specific in mind, I pick up a Discworld novel. I try to stay in order, but that is difficult. And sometimes I stumble upon a deal too good to be true. A year ago I found several Discworld books with weird-rear end UK covers. I got Guards Guards, Men at Arms, Witches Abroad, Lords and Ladies, and several others at a consignment shop for $0.50 each. Last week, I stumbled upon several hardcover Discworld novels for less than $2.00 each at a used book store. This is how I got Making Money, and it is now my favorite Discworld novel. It's fun. Moist is an excellent character. I hadn't picked up any of his books yet, as I was trying to fill in the gaps in my Rincewind, Witches, and Watch colletions, but I will most certainly pick up the other novels with Moist now. The only sad part is that I'm quite close to completing my Discworld collection. I'm to the point where I am more likely than not to already own the novels I find on the cheap and the shelves at Borders sometimes don't have the one specific book I want.
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Oct 13, 2009 21:04
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I finally got around to reading Night Watch and it is a truly amazing book. drat.
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Dec 29, 2009 01:59
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Vengeance of Pandas posted:bandits with very poor decision making skills. That reminds me. One of my favorite Watch scenes is the one where the unlicensed thieves attempt to rob that bar the Watch all hang out in. Slowly, the thieves realize that they've screwed up badly, and take a hostage. It's Angua. They haul her outside but the POV stays inside as Carrot and Vimes discuss what they're going to do with those thieves. The discussion is somewhat interrupted by screams and fingers scrabbling on the glass. Eventually, Carrot and Vimes agree thieves' injuries were self-inflicted. I love that whole scene so much.
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May 17, 2010 06:34
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seaborgium posted:The whole Watch philosophy has changed so much since the beginning. Vimes just using Bluejohn the troll as a riot shield, or in Night Watch when he discusses how he would have gotten a barricade taken down (Very loudly tell Detritus to point his crossbow at it and just wait for the barricade to remove itself). As much as he might not like other species, Vimes is very good at using their strengths to help the Watch work better. It's pretty bad when "mauled by a werewolf" is better than the alternative.
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May 17, 2010 22:30
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John Dough posted:
Hasn't Granny already beaten Death at a game for a life? God knows she could do it again. That old harpy is the scariest thing on the Disc.
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May 25, 2010 23:09
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ONE YEAR LATER posted:I still got some books I'm looking to unload. If ya'll are interested lemme know. I do not own The Fifth Elephant. I'm tempted to ask for Small Gods just so I have an extra copy to loan out. What're you asking for these?
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Jul 11, 2010 18:25
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ONE YEAR LATER posted:Nothing, just treat them nice. That's awesome. I'm going to withdraw my interest, though. I just saw that I actually DO own a copy of the Fifth Elephant.
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Jul 11, 2010 22:32
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I watched the Color of Magic on Netflix instant the other day and really wasn't impressed. They got a lot right, but what works in the books just felt silly or fell flat on the screen. If anyone wants to watch it, be aware that it expires in just a few days so do it now!
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Jan 10, 2011 22:04
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That hourglass is the most intriguing thing on the cover. It's pure speculation, but knowing Sam, he's out to save someone from an unjust Death. And it's been said that Sam would arrest anyone.
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Apr 14, 2011 01:08
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The problem with reading the arcs in order before starting another is that Pterry improves so much over time. His early work is very much his early work and feels quite different from his later works. So by the time you finish, say, Thud!, going back to something like Mort or Wyrd Sisters is going to be quite jarring.
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Apr 22, 2011 15:17
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Desiree Cousteau posted:Only the ones where the handling of waste is not controlled as a government monopoly, or has been so tied up in miles of regulation, red tape and kickbacks that an honest (mostly) merchant has to either give up or knuckle under. He passes his power onto the one man who thinks as straight as a corkscrew: Moist. And he sets Vimes to watch him.
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Jan 15, 2012 06:38
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Canemacar posted:I've always thought of him as Teddy Roosevelt the Wizard. I've never thought of it in those exact terms, but now that I hear it, "Teddy Roosevelt the Wizard" is really drat close to how I pictured him too.
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Jan 23, 2012 06:47
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I just re-read Feet of Clay for the third or fourth time, and I just caught the Robocop references, such as "Undead Or Alive You Are Coming With Me"
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Jan 26, 2012 14:02
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AXE COP posted:From Facebook: I immediately thought "What duck?" and got a huge smile on my face.
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Mar 3, 2012 03:37
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Mister Roboto posted:If not for the face, I'd have wagered that was Moist and his rich little dog. I could see him wear the same suit but remove the fancy gold and make it "regular" again. That was my first thought as well.
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Mar 13, 2012 21:48
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Wolfechu posted:No doubt. Took me years to pick up on 'he looks a bit elvish'. Just to clarify, that's an Elvis joke right? Sometimes subtle humor passes me by and I'm left wondering if what I'm laughing at is what I'm supposed to be laughing at.
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Mar 17, 2012 05:42
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Flipswitch posted:Just started reading and I Shall Wear Midnight last night and I'm already 2/3 of the way through, I'm surprised how much I love the Tiffany Aching Books. I just started them for the first time! I finished Wee Free Men yesterday and read the first couple of chapters of A Hat Full of Sky.
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Oct 6, 2012 15:18
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Pesky Splinter posted:I've read them all, but I've never really been able to get into the Tiffany Aching books. But the strange thing is, I've never really been able to figure out why. I mean, Tiffany's an okay character, but...yeah. I'm not sure. Sourcery isn't bad, but it's definitely got that "early discworld" feel. It's not nearly as polished as his later books, and a good chunk of the humor exists for its own sake, rather than the cutting satire we get later.
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Oct 7, 2012 05:09
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Tardigrade posted:There's a lot of things done that are sensibly ignored in the following books. And reading it after reading later UU-centric stories is quite jarring. True. In much the same way that Equal Rights is largely ignored.
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Oct 7, 2012 17:37
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I like Pyramids except when Ptraci is around. The first third (assassins) and the last third (mummies) are awesome, but the middle part has waaaaaay to much Ptraci. You Bastard is loving awesome, though.
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Oct 8, 2013 04:39
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I'd love a poster of all four Death covers. Soul Music and Hogfather, especially.
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Oct 11, 2013 16:56
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Damo posted:Started Wyrd Sisters in my ongoing publication order read through of the series, and holy poo poo the scene of Granny and the witches watching the play at the beginning has to be the funniest passage of discworld so far. Granny's actions as a result of not understanding theatre but hating to admit ignorance is funny as hell in itself, but I just about died when Magrat dreaded explaining to Granny about men playing women on stage because she knows that granny has "Views". I love how "Views" is capitalized, that somehow makes an already hilarious line even funnier. Also this scene is the first appearance of Granny's death stare in this book and it is incredible as usual. Granny really is the best. She's got some great scenes in the Tiffany Aching books, and it's great to see how all the other grumpy old ladies feel about Granny. It ranges from horrified admiration to hushed, terrified dismissal, as if she might be watching. (She is.)
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Nov 4, 2014 13:31
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kmzh posted:Oh man... I don't really care for the Windle Poons stuff but the Bill Door sections are some of my favorite in all of Discworld. Pretty much. Reaper Man is half of an amazing book, and Windle loving Poons is the half that drags it down. "What hope hath the harvest, if not for the care of the reaper man?" So good.
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Dec 4, 2014 20:35
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I think that contrast is why Nanny and Granny work so well together. Nanny will help you because she likes you. Her bedside manner is amazing. You want Nanny to stop by, unless you're married to her sons. Granny will help you whether you want the help or not, in the most efficient way possible, and leave you wondering if you might have been better off if she never stopped by in the first place.
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Feb 12, 2015 17:38
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 07:57 |
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I just read Nation for the first time, and I regret that I hadn't read it before. It may be his best book.
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Mar 17, 2015 14:56
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