The Terry Pratchett Thread: For the sake of prisoners and the flight of birds

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > The Terry Pratchett Thread: For the sake of prisoners and the flight of birds

tribbledirigible: Jul 27, 2004; I finally beat the internet. The end boss was hard.

Kismet posted:

You guys, you guys, I had a prophetic dream last night where I was reading the first chapter of Snuff. Only it was called "Contraptions" in the UK and was in graphic novel form.

Apparently the first chapter opens with three enterprising young postgrad wizards who have stolen a bunch of equipment from the university and are hiding out in the shades, using complex alchemy and some not-so-complex explosives to propel themselves around in the air and sling missiles. The ringleader of the three is an intense Calvinist-style fundamentalist from somewhere in Uberwald, and is obviously going to wind up being the main hero/antagonist. The other pair are egotistical potion-poppers who run the wizard equivalent of a meth lab, concocting dubious brews for money.

In the first chapter we learn that Uberwald guy has hatched a bizarre scheme, where once they have perfected their alchemical system of what he calls 'supreme personal empowerment' they will conceal their identities in costumes stolen from the opera house and swoop down from the rooftops of Ankh-Morpork to intercept a large transit of bullion from the bank, which will be guarded by the Watch. Unfortunately they're pretty far from perfecting the system, as in order to be able to cast spells while in the air, they have to carry an inordinate number of active ingredients with them and make split-second judgements of relative quantities from memory. This time around they've smoothed over some of the bigger explosions, but an error in calculation (they use the same powdered mineral in taking pot-shots at pigeons as they use for defying gravity) leaves them thousands of feet in the air without the means for a safe descent.

As they plummet, the ringleader yells to his panicking henchmen to enact the backup plan. This involves all three of them taking some herb mixture that causes them to lose consciousness and temporarily wink out of reality. They land softly in what appears to be a very strange and savage mythical paradise inhabited by lurid sharp toothed pixie-like creatures. Cliffhanger ending, and then the second chapter looked like it was going to reunite us with Vimes and whatever his subplot would be, but my dream-self closed the book and I had to stop.

Does it still count as fan fiction if I wrote it in my sleep?

Been skipping the frog pills lately?

# ¿ Apr 22, 2011 14:45

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 11:18

tribbledirigible: Jul 27, 2004; I finally beat the internet. The end boss was hard.

Tom Swift Jr. posted:

Thursday, October 13, 2011
06:00 PM
BARNES & NOBLE/Tribeca
97 Warren ST New York, NY 10007

Any NYC goons going to this?

# ¿ Oct 13, 2011 18:09

tribbledirigible: Jul 27, 2004; I finally beat the internet. The end boss was hard.

CJTheran posted:

Thanks to me randomly poking my nose into this thread I am. I wasn't planning on picking this up until I had plowed through my massive backlog, but after seeing this I'm instead sitting in the store with a fresh copy on my knee.

Adopted the same strategy. This is my third fresh copy thanks to UPS being horribly early and reliable.

# ¿ Oct 14, 2011 00:31

tribbledirigible: Jul 27, 2004; I finally beat the internet. The end boss was hard.

My friend and I first got into Pratchett when we found Soul Music. I guess I lucked out as all the other books after that were an improvement.

# ¿ Sep 26, 2013 23:39

tribbledirigible: Jul 27, 2004; I finally beat the internet. The end boss was hard.

Didn't Soul Music come out in '94?

# ¿ Oct 24, 2013 15:30

tribbledirigible: Jul 27, 2004; I finally beat the internet. The end boss was hard.

15, my friend and I were in our town library when the cover for Soul Music caught his eye. He borrowed it first and kept raving about it until he finished, then I borrowed it right when he returned it.

I finished it in about a day, ran back to the library and ponied up enough quarters for the inter-library loans for the rest of the books not in already there. I don't think I've powered through a series so fast before or since.

# ¿ Dec 14, 2014 17:54

tribbledirigible: Jul 27, 2004; I finally beat the internet. The end boss was hard.

YggiDee posted:

I have only just now gotten the pun in Casanova vs Casanunda (over vs under)

This is why despite knowing of the annotation site, I'm not going to review it any time soon. Pratchett's going to keep surprising me for years to come.

# ¿ Dec 23, 2014 23:09

tribbledirigible: Jul 27, 2004; I finally beat the internet. The end boss was hard.

I haven't got to the earlier non-Discworld books yet, but Nation is pretty good. Dodger was also pretty decent, though it feels like an Ankh-Morpork story that was shifted to Roundworld.

Stay away from The Long Earth series. I feel like It's more Baxter than Pratchett, and I found myself having to force myself to finish the first 2 books. They've put me off of even trying the third.

# ¿ Dec 26, 2014 20:51

tribbledirigible: Jul 27, 2004; I finally beat the internet. The end boss was hard.

Gravitas Shortfall posted:

Holy poo poo

"LIVE FATS AND DIE YO GNU"?

# ¿ Feb 4, 2015 19:57

tribbledirigible: Jul 27, 2004; I finally beat the internet. The end boss was hard.

Jedit posted:

When Pterry realised he would not be able to attend the 2014 Discworld Convention due to his failing health, he compiled a small book as a gift for the attendees. The book contains a dedication, a poem, two small fragments, an essay about Pterry by his PA Rob Milkins, and the essay I typed here.

You will not find one of these books for sale anywhere, or you should not, because all Pterry asked for in return for the gift was that we not sell them. Each book is individually numbered and there is a master list of who each one belongs to, so if one of them turns up on eBay we will know whose it is. However, I feel that what Pterry wrote deserves to be shared with more than the few hundred of us who were there.

Would you mind sharing more?

# ¿ Mar 12, 2015 23:20

tribbledirigible: Jul 27, 2004; I finally beat the internet. The end boss was hard.

Arcsquad12 posted:

So I'm taking a children's literature class this semester and one of the books we're reading is The Wee Free Men. Now I know Pratchett's books are all easy to pick up and read without any foreknowledge, but I'd like to know if there are any other of his young adult Discworld books that also feature the same characters, or if it is one of his standalone standalones

They're known as the Tiffany Aching books- Wee Free Men being the first, followed by A Hat Full of Sky, Wintersmith, I Shall Wear Midnight and his last posthumous work, The Shepherd's Crown.

# ¿ Jan 11, 2017 19:04

tribbledirigible: Jul 27, 2004; I finally beat the internet. The end boss was hard.

Raising a glass today. Happy Birthday, Sir Terry. You are greatly missed.

# ¿ Apr 29, 2018 01:13

tribbledirigible: Jul 27, 2004; I finally beat the internet. The end boss was hard.

Isn't Glod the result of a dyslexic genie?

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 14:56

tribbledirigible: Jul 27, 2004; I finally beat the internet. The end boss was hard.

"The Ramkins were more highly bred than a hilltop bakery..." was the first time I realized what kind of book I was reading all those many years ago.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2022 03:56

tribbledirigible: Jul 27, 2004; I finally beat the internet. The end boss was hard.

I was rereading The Wee Free Men and I just realized Rob Anybody is a play on Rob Roy...

..nineteen frickin' years later.

# ¿ Apr 28, 2022 00:13

tribbledirigible: Jul 27, 2004; I finally beat the internet. The end boss was hard.

Quote-Unquote posted:

This took me like twenty years to get the joke

Same. Just a bit longer than me realizing he's Casan-unda instead of Casan-ova because he's a dwarf.

# ¿ Dec 31, 2022 20:10

tribbledirigible: Jul 27, 2004; I finally beat the internet. The end boss was hard.

Wingnut Ninja posted:

"Dwarfs are famously argumentative, although many would disagree."

There's gotta be some German word that describes the pleasure you get from that sort of prose.

# ¿ May 8, 2023 04:24

tribbledirigible: Jul 27, 2004; I finally beat the internet. The end boss was hard.

Google Jeb Bush posted:

I'm a pretty big fan of the Tasting History youtube channel and his little gag of, whenever he says "hardtack", cutting to the clip where he bangs two pieces together with a hilarious "clonk clonk" has yet to overstay its welcome.

Can't not link it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3VmehJ6Vn0

# ¿ Feb 20, 2024 06:40

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 11:18

tribbledirigible: Jul 27, 2004; I finally beat the internet. The end boss was hard.

Osmosisch posted:

Oh yeah, that's the one where the guy made a list or something

Oh, I thought he made lifts?

# ¿ May 4, 2024 03:43

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > The Terry Pratchett Thread: For the sake of prisoners and the flight of birds