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JerryLee posted:It's just with ISWM that it hit me all of a sudden. People are letting preconceived notions of what Alzheimer's does to people color their perceptions of Pratchett's new novels. If this were an actual trend caused by his condition, I would expect to have seen people complaining of a decline before he announced to the world he had the disease. It's not like he became (or will become) a gibbering idiot overnight.
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Jun 7, 2011 22:07
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JerryLee posted:I really liked Unseen Academicals, horrible US cover notwithstanding, but I just finished ISWM and while it was a better book than most books, I really thought I perceived a drop in quality, not so much in the selection of characters and plot points, but in the prose. There's stuff like a massive lack of contractions where normal people would use them, and people repeatedly using Tiffany's full name throughout conversations for no apparent reason, that make my eye keep tripping on the page. Paragraphs seem oddly structured, dialogue seems more monolithic and soliloquizing than is normal for a Discworld novel (TA novels included--I've been reading them straight through in order for the first time). It's not like this is the first time he has written a book that isn't great. The Last Continent for example was written long before anyone could suspect that there was something wrong with him and allthough UA isn't great either I still think it's better than the Last Continent.
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Jun 7, 2011 22:31
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LooseChanj posted:People are letting preconceived notions of what Alzheimer's does to people color their perceptions of Pratchett's new novels. If this were an actual trend caused by his condition, I would expect to have seen people complaining of a decline before he announced to the world he had the disease. It's not like he became (or will become) a gibbering idiot overnight. I hardly said it was the work of a gibbering idiot. What I said was that there seemed to be a decrease in quality on a technical level. If there's a gradual decline in his writing abilities, there's no reason why it has to become noticeable before he reveals his diagnosis, or indeed with the next book after--didn't I just say that I personally thought UA was fine? Alhazred posted:It's not like this is the first time he has written a book that isn't great. The Last Continent for example was written long before anyone could suspect that there was something wrong with him and allthough UA isn't great either I still think it's better than the Last Continent. I actually somewhat liked the Last Continent, but even if we take for the sake of argument a book that I don't like--let's say Sourcery--and hold it up next to ISWM (again for the sake of argument), they're still two different beasts. Sourcery is "bad" to me because it's a Rincewind novel with a completely non-compelling plot and supporting cast. ISWM felt like a letdown to me because despite some good Pratchett ideas and characters, it felt like the prose was starting to fall down on a technical level. Obviously I don't demand that everyone has the exact same subjective response that I do, so if you think everything is hunky dory, I'm happy for you. I just want to make sure I'm not misunderstood.
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Jun 8, 2011 04:44
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Isn't I Shall Wear Midnight one of his Younger People Discworld books? The writing in them tends to be a bit basic.
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Jun 8, 2011 10:07
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I thought ISWM wasn't up to his usual standards as far as the actual writing went. The ideas, characters, and story were definitely good (it's probably my favorite Tiffany book), but the actual writing felt a bit 'off'. I didn't have that problem with any of the previous Tiffany books or with Nation, so I doubt it's just the "young adult" thing (the Nomes and Johnny books were definitely a bit basic, but I think they were aimed at a younger audience than Tiff and Nation).
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Jun 8, 2011 16:05
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jfjnpxmy posted:Isn't I Shall Wear Midnight one of his Younger People Discworld books? The writing in them tends to be a bit basic. It's not that it's basic, it's that something about the writing in ISWM is... off. Other people have explained it better than I can, but it's odd even compared to the other Tiffany Aching books. Which, by the way, I wouldn't describe as "basic".
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Jun 9, 2011 10:03
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:It's not that it's basic, it's that something about the writing in ISWM is... off. Other people have explained it better than I can, but it's odd even compared to the other Tiffany Aching books. Which, by the way, I wouldn't describe as "basic". Funnily enough, I just got it and steamrolled through it yesterday, and I now agree that it is as "off" as Hell. The writing is weird and clunky, and it seems kind of like how he normally writes dialogue and how he writes the narrative have swapped round, if that makes any sense. Characters speaking in broad exposition, and the footnotes and whatnot being delivered in colloquial English with a lot of speech-like affectations. Also, as a story, it's pretty dreadful. The Cunning Man is never shown to be particularly cunning, considering his entire way of doing things is "Appear. Shout at Tiffany. Go away." and at no point is he even portrayed as being a thing worth worrying about, since Tiffany just goes "Oh well I've already beat a Hiver, the Queen of the Fairies and Winter himself, so I will gently caress that dude up", the rest of the witches stand around cracking jokes about how hard Tiffany is going to ruin him and his final, desperate plan is to possess a criminal and run thousands of miles and die in a fire. And a last thing - there's a ton of characters who serve absolutely no purpose whatsoever. Eskarina Smith, Mrs. Proust, Mrs. Proust's son, Wee Mad Arthur, Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, that extremely forgettable girl who has the gift of languages, hell, even Roland and Letitia don't seem to do much. All in all, definitely not very good, and worrying for ol' Pterry.
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Jun 9, 2011 12:43
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I think the word people are looking for with ISWM is "unedited." As in, after a few proofreads, the unnecessary parts would've been trimmed and the NECESSARY parts would've gotten the proper emphasis. Same with UU. Too many characters, too many unnecessary plots. The story would've worked fine WITHOUT the Wizards or even without the soccer plot and just been a look at life of the lower classes in Ankh-Morpork. I still say the problem lies with the editing. The Pratchett genius is there, and the solid bits are there, but there's just things that feel, as someone else put it, rough and unpolished. ISWM would've worked fine WITHOUT the cunning man, and just been Tiffany facing the adult problems that don't require demons and ghosts: domestic abuse, bigotry, mob mentality, etc. In fact, I'd even say the story would've been better WITHOUT the Cunning Man and all the evils that the people did...were done by people. I was a bit bothered, in fact, that Pratchett did that, because part of his genius is knowing the nature of humans and what "good" people do in the name of "good". Having them be pushed by a demon sort of cheapens that message.
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Jun 9, 2011 12:54
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This is quite interesting, this fellow does a text based Lets Play of Discworld Noir with annotations worth reading. Worth checking out either for the nostalgia value or you've never played the game.
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Jun 9, 2011 17:56
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Mister Roboto posted:Having them be pushed by a demon sort of cheapens that message. He did drive home that "poison goes where poison's welcome." And the Cunning Man was created a relatively short time ago, out of previous witchhunts, in fact. So I think human nature was actually indicted pretty well. As for the overall quality of the ISWM plot, I'm not sure; the (lack of) quality of the writing kind of drowned everything else out. It seemed to me like if Pratchett had been technically on top of his game, he could have written a great novel with more or less this exact premise and storyboarding; let's put it that way. But then, I also respectfully disagree with you (Mister Roboto), for instance, in that I thought the football and wizards parts of UA were just great and complemented the love story nicely. edit: To elaborate a bit more on the question of supernatural vs. human origins: using the specifically fantasy elements of the setting to help make a point, even when you could write the same moral less fantastically, isn't anything new or bad to me in the Discworld. For example, take Lords and Ladies (coincidentally a book I'm rereading now). I'm sure you could write a story about how humans are gullible morons who are too willing to valorize beauty and perceived nobility and too quick to forget the lessons of the past without involving elves from a parallel universe, but the way it's written makes it the book we have, and it's a good book. Granted, I'm sure Terry also wanted to send up the archetype of Tolkien elves in fantasy. JerryLee fucked around with this message at 19:07 on Jun 9, 2011 |
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Jun 9, 2011 19:00
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Mister Roboto posted:or even without the soccer plot and just been a look at life of the lower classes in Ankh-Morpork. Did I get confused as to the message of the book or are you saying that you'd remove the central theme of the novel?
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Jun 10, 2011 01:34
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ibroxmassive posted:Did I get confused as to the message of the book or are you saying that you'd remove the central theme of the novel? I thought the central theme was overcoming your cultural self-biases. Glenda goes abovestairs, Nutt shows that Orcs aren't all evil, Trev denies his football team is all-important (which it is to everyone else around him). The University needing to play football was just setting.
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Jun 10, 2011 05:54
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AlphaDog posted:I thought the central theme was overcoming your cultural self-biases. Glenda goes abovestairs, Nutt shows that Orcs aren't all evil, Trev denies his football team is all-important (which it is to everyone else around him). The University needing to play football was just setting. I'd rather have had Trev and Glenda and whatever the girl's name was rather than Nutt. Orcs do not fit in at all and frankly it's a bit late in the series for a Discworld version of My Fair Lady.
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Jun 10, 2011 06:15
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JerryLee posted:He did drive home that "poison goes where poison's welcome." And the Cunning Man was created a relatively short time ago, out of previous witchhunts, in fact. So I think human nature was actually indicted pretty well. Your opinion is reasonable. With the Lords and Ladies plots, however, they all revolved around the Bad Guys, the elves. So, in a way, it was a more simplistic style of fantasy story. This gives a certain focus that drives the story. With UU, there were multiple plots going on. Nutt, Glenda's beneath-her-potential, Romeo and Jewels, the Wizards and their soccer, the woefully underused plot of the Dean vs Ridcully, etc. It just felt overcrowded. The plot could've been TWO different books quite easily, I think. The Dean vs Ridcully alone could've carried the soccer story alongside one of the other plots; Nutt could've been a perfect character to express passive observations with his outside-humanity status. I'm not saying UU was bad, just...cluttered. Some parts felt neglected, like the fashion world's underbelly that Jewels was a part of. That part really didn't go anywhere. In fact, in a way, Jewels could've been removed from the plot and it still would've flowed the same way. I knew what Pratchett was getting at, with the rival gangs and the forbidden Romeo and Juliet love, but I was genuinely surprised that it seemed to be a homage instead of a Pratchettian parody. I mean, really, Romeo and Juliet is ridiculous teenage angst, falling in love at a party and then killing yourself due to poor timing. I guess I was surprised Pratchett DIDN'T point out how ridiculous R and J is as a real love story. Playing it straight felt...odd. Mister Roboto fucked around with this message at 10:12 on Jun 10, 2011 |
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Jun 10, 2011 10:08
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I think the biggest issue with UA was that there wasn't much plot at all. The wizards have to play a game of football, but they don't have to win it. Add to the fact that most of the players on the opposite team aren't that bad and it's hard to care about the outcome. Nutt was interesting but again all he does is learn about his past. It's also kind of weird that we've never heard about the Dark Lord given that people iike Mad Lord Snapcase was mentioned long before they actually appeared in a story.
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Jun 10, 2011 15:04
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Mister Roboto posted:Romeo and Jewels I read it as more of a David and Victoria Beckham parody than Romeo and Juliet.
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Jun 10, 2011 17:18
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Alhazred posted:I think the biggest issue with UA was that there wasn't much plot at all. The wizards have to play a game of football, but they don't have to win it. Add to the fact that most of the players on the opposite team aren't that bad and it's hard to care about the outcome. Nutt was interesting but again all he does is learn about his past. It's also kind of weird that we've never heard about the Dark Lord given that people iike Mad Lord Snapcase was mentioned long before they actually appeared in a story. It wasn't a matter of the wizards winning or losing, but of the new football falling to the same thugs (Andy Shank and his type) as the Old Football. And while most of the players on the opposing team might not be so bad, it's Andy who comes to the fore and has to be beaten in order to finally kill off the Old Football. Uberwald's imperial past has always been vague and mysterious. While he hasn't been mentioned before, the Dark Lord isn't inconsistent with the little that we know about the Uberwald Empire.
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Jun 10, 2011 20:14
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SaintFu posted:It wasn't a matter of the wizards winning or losing, but of the new football falling to the same thugs (Andy Shank and his type) as the Old Football. And while most of the players on the opposing team might not be so bad, it's Andy who comes to the fore and has to be beaten in order to finally kill off the Old Football. quote:Uberwald's imperial past has always been vague and mysterious. While he hasn't been mentioned before, the Dark Lord isn't inconsistent with the little that we know about the Uberwald Empire. My impression was that he wasn't restricted to Uberwald but a kind of Genghis Kahn kinda deal. People in Europe didn't necessarily know much about Asia but they did know who he was.
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Jun 10, 2011 23:28
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Mister Roboto posted:ISWM would've worked fine WITHOUT the cunning man, and just been Tiffany facing the adult problems that don't require demons and ghosts: domestic abuse, bigotry, mob mentality, etc. In fact, I'd even say the story would've been better WITHOUT the Cunning Man and all the evils that the people did...were done by people. I was a bit bothered, in fact, that Pratchett did that, because part of his genius is knowing the nature of humans and what "good" people do in the name of "good". Having them be pushed by a demon sort of cheapens that message. I agree basically with all of this. I'd also add that the story that developed with her / Roland / Letitia / Preston was extremely interesting and a nice way to write about young love for a young adult book. Since he sometimes has a problem with writing romance, I thought that was refreshing. The ending few paragraphs of ISWM I actually found very moving. Like you said, I would have preferred to have more talking about growing up and changing and complex adolescent emotions than have her be hunted by a boogeyman.
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Jun 10, 2011 23:40
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Terry nooooo  http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jun/12/pratchett-starts-process-to-end-his-life Well okay this doesn't mean he's actually going to go through with the whole assisted suicide thing but somehow this still manages to depress me greatly.
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Jun 13, 2011 08:04
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Hungry Bit posted:Terry nooooo Maybe one of the internet billionaires like Zuckerberg or the google guys will read about Pratchett and decide to donate 1/10 of their wealth and cure Alzheimer's. This will not happen. Mister Roboto fucked around with this message at 10:20 on Jun 13, 2011 |
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Jun 13, 2011 08:15
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Hungry Bit posted:Well okay this doesn't mean he's actually going to go through with the whole assisted suicide thing but somehow this still manages to depress me greatly. It's depressing that he's going to die, but I'm 100% behind his decision to choose the time and manor of his death, and to die with dignity.
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Jun 13, 2011 10:17
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Hungry Bit posted:Well okay this doesn't mean he's actually going to go through with the whole assisted suicide thing but somehow this still manages to depress me greatly. This isn't really news, he's said he was going to go this route before. Great, now I'm imagining him listening to light classical music and watching video clips of Earth long ago when animal and plant life were thriving and there was no pollution.
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Jun 13, 2011 10:23
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LooseChanj posted:This isn't really news, he's said he was going to go this route before. Soylent Green is Pratchett.
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Jun 13, 2011 13:02
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Hungry Bit posted:Terry nooooo Tonight, 9PM GMT. Review here. The poo poo-stirring papers are going to go ballistic.
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Jun 13, 2011 13:07
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:It's depressing that he's going to die, but I'm 100% behind his decision to choose the time and manor of his death, and to die with dignity. I've watched a family member more or less have their brain torn asunder by Alzheimer's, and I'm in total agreement. Going out on your own terms is preferable to some day not being able to remember who you are.
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Jun 13, 2011 13:52
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Hungry Bit posted:Terry nooooo That makes me so sad. I've been reading Discworld since I was like 13 years old, so the majority of my life. Almost everything he has a hand in is great and his wit is something that is not duplicated by any other writer.
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Jun 13, 2011 14:03
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LooseChanj posted:This isn't really news, he's said he was going to go this route before. Oh please, he'll be listening to Queen and watching A Bit of Fry and Laurie.
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Jun 13, 2011 18:14
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Or playing Oblivion on his rad 6+ monitor setup.
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Jun 13, 2011 18:49
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I hope he does a wonderful tounge in cheek farewell note and nothing as depressing as Hunter S Thompsons final written words  .
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Jun 13, 2011 20:15
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Nilbop posted:Oh please, he'll be listening to Queen and watching A Bit of Fry and Laurie. Terry Pratchett posted:[...]In a chair on the lawn, with a brandy in my hand to wash down whatever modern version of the Brompton Cocktail some helpful medic could supply. And with Thomas Tallis on my iPod, I would shake hands with Death.
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Jun 14, 2011 12:26
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Terry was on BBC Breakfast this morning and he kept forgetting words while talking. It was heartbreaking to watch.
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Jun 14, 2011 20:02
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I'm about to order some of these books off Amazon. Should I read them by their publication date or should I follow this ?
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Jun 14, 2011 20:13
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TheJazzMess posted:I'm about to order some of these books off Amazon. Should I read them by their publication date or should I follow this ? Either way is fine. Personally I suggest people read by series, as it gives the Discworld in small chunks rather than "hey there's this series of 20+ books you should read!" Reading chronologically you meet lots of characters and there's a good amount of variety. You do gain some slight advantage this way too as there are some subtle character references to previous books that you might not pick up on reading by series. Nothing that takes away from the actual story though.
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Jun 14, 2011 20:32
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How does Small Gods connect to Wee Free Men? Does Wee Free Men mention the History Monks or Brutha and I just don't remember?
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Jun 14, 2011 20:41
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Sophia posted:How does Small Gods connect to Wee Free Men? Does Wee Free Men mention the History Monks or Brutha and I just don't remember? That has to be a mistake - I can't think of any connection between the two, even a tentative relationship.
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Jun 14, 2011 20:45
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That line might have been supposed to connect to Carpe Juggulum since that has an Omnian priest as one of the main characters. Makes more sense than Wee Free Men since as you say I don't think that has anything that's brought up in Small Gods.
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Jun 14, 2011 20:47
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thebardyspoon posted:That line might have been supposed to connect to Carpe Juggulum since that has an Omnian priest as one of the main characters. Makes more sense than Wee Free Men since as you say I don't think that has anything that's brought up in Small Gods. That sounds plausible. Easy enough to make a mistake when you have that many lines going everywhere. Also if you start with the witch series, I suggest starting with Wyrd Sisters rather than Equal Rites. It's more of an independent book.
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Jun 14, 2011 20:53
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TheJazzMess posted:I'm about to order some of these books off Amazon. Should I read them by their publication date or should I follow this ? That's probably a decent guide, but I would suggest starting with "Guards, Guards." It's the most "mature" and best-polished of all the "starting" novels (with the possible exception of Wee Free Men), and it's "central" in that the Watch novels end up tying into almost everything else that happens in Discworld, so they're a good way to get familiar with the overall world. Conversely, the other "starting" novels -- color of magic, equal rites, mort -- are all a little clunky and you can tell when you read them that Pratchett hadn't really developed his style fully yet.
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Jun 14, 2011 21:13
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thebardyspoon posted:That line might have been supposed to connect to Carpe Juggulum since that has an Omnian priest as one of the main characters. Makes more sense than Wee Free Men since as you say I don't think that has anything that's brought up in Small Gods. Ah, that makes a lot more sense. I should have thought of that. And for what it's worth, I read the books in completely random order because I didn't know any better and still enjoyed the hell out of them. So in the end I'm sure you'll like them either way.
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Jun 14, 2011 21:18
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