|
Konstantin posted:why a character who was written as a pacifist is killing a bunch of bandits. I wouldn't call him a pacifist, but yeah, wandering out to be the badass who kills a bunch of criminals and makes a joke about it seemed out of character to me. I also thought Lord Vetinari's relationship with Moist suffered in later books, as well. After Going Postal there's really no reason why Vetinari should be a jerk to Moist; he's got him right where he wants him. It seems almost as though he's maintaining a hostile tone purely in order to give the author a chance to exposit about exactly how their working relationship got formed.
|
#
?
Aug 23, 2015 18:53
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 01:32 |
|
|
I wonder why he wrote Raising Steam instead of Raising Taxes.
|
|
#
?
Aug 23, 2015 20:04
|
|
|
Probably a typo in the to-do list.
|
|
#
?
Aug 23, 2015 20:28
|
|
|
Alhazred posted:I wonder why he wrote Raising Steam instead of Raising Taxes. It feels very much like he was building towards railways and industrialisation for a long time. In Thud and Making Money he was pretty clearly setting up a subway system for Ankh-Morpork, powered by The Device they confiscated from the Dwarves - the Undertaking mentioned in Making Money, the mine symbol of the Dwarves being the symbol for the London Underground, the potential of the Device itself, etc... presumably he'd planned to do a book about a cable-car subway, and then later he'd write a Raising Steam more about having the invention of the steam engine link up the entire Discworld. But then his condition forced his hand and he just leaped to the steam train to get it out before he died.
|
|
#
?
Aug 23, 2015 21:37
|
|
|
Rand Brittain posted:I wouldn't call him a pacifist, but yeah, wandering out to be the badass who kills a bunch of criminals and makes a joke about it seemed out of character to me. Remember the bit in Making Money when Vetinari points out that he's actually more frightened when he's holding a sword than when someone is holding a sword on him? Even in Going Postal it was a point of pride to Moist that while he'd scammed people terribly, he'd never in his life physically harmed anyone. The man's a pretty hardcore pacifist.
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2015 09:40
|
|
|
Stroth posted:Remember the bit in Making Money when Vetinari points out that he's actually more frightened when he's holding a sword than when someone is holding a sword on him? Even in Going Postal it was a point of pride to Moist that while he'd scammed people terribly, he'd never in his life physically harmed anyone. The man's a pretty hardcore pacifist. Moist wasn't the character I was thinking of. It was Vetinari who kills the bandits. And yeah, he's a killer, but slaughtering bandits and making a joke about it doesn't seem like something that was in modern Vetinari's wheelhouse.
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2015 13:18
|
|
|
Rand Brittain posted:Moist wasn't the character I was thinking of. It was Vetinari who kills the bandits. And yeah, he's a killer, but slaughtering bandits and making a joke about it doesn't seem like something that was in modern Vetinari's wheelhouse. Yes exactly I would expect intimidation or trickery to be rid of them, and I think for one thing he doesn't think he's the one that should be getting rid of bandits, he's always more inclined to make sure the right people do their job.
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2015 13:53
|
|
|
MikeJF posted:It feels very much like he was building towards railways and industrialisation for a long time. In Thud and Making Money he was pretty clearly setting up a subway system for Ankh-Morpork, powered by The Device they confiscated from the Dwarves - the Undertaking mentioned in Making Money, the mine symbol of the Dwarves being the symbol for the London Underground, the potential of the Device itself, etc... presumably he'd planned to do a book about a cable-car subway, and then later he'd write a Raising Steam more about having the invention of the steam engine link up the entire Discworld. But then his condition forced his hand and he just leaped to the steam train to get it out before he died. Then again I read in an interview that he could easily create a subway system in Discworld (by having troll pull the trolley). But if he was going to introduce new technology in the Discworld novels it was going to be because he could tell a story about it and that wasn't the case right now (and it was a pretty recent interview too).
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2015 17:53
|
|
|
Just finished re-reading "Making Money." It seems like the character of Cribbins was pretty superfluous. I understand he's a vehicle for the story to force Moist into confronting and admitting his criminal past, but it seems like that narrative goal could have been accomplished using other elements closer to the story. Cribbins also doesn't lend much humor to his scenes so he's pretty much just dead weight in an otherwise fairly tight story, imo.
|
|
#
?
Aug 25, 2015 19:46
|
|
|
Applewhite posted:Just finished re-reading "Making Money." Honestly, I forgot he existed until I reread it recently.
|
|
#
?
Aug 26, 2015 10:00
|
|
|
Having deeply unimpressive villains is the major flaw in Making Money, yeah—especially after Going Postal had a top-tier Pratchett villain in Gilt. Well, okay, I guess it's also flawed in that it's basically an argument in favor of fiat currency and nobody is really arguing against that except Ron Paul.
|
|
#
?
Aug 26, 2015 21:42
|
|
|
Rand Brittain posted:Well, okay, I guess it's also flawed in that it's basically an argument in favor of fiat currency and nobody is really arguing against that except Ron Paul.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2015 03:35
|
|
|
I'm about to start The Shepherd's Crown 
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2015 11:32
|
|
|
Exclamation Marx posted:I'm about to start The Shepherd's Crown indeed. No spoilers, but please let me know if I need to read all the other Tiffany Aching books to appreciate it. I'm not sure if I have - Wee Free Men, Wintersmith and Hat full of Sky? Any I've missed?
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2015 12:36
|
|
|
Doubtful Guest posted:
You're missing I Shall Wear Midnight
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2015 12:44
|
|
|
Old Kentucky Shark posted:I think Sir Terry was still salty over winning the Promethus Award for year's best Libertarian Science Fiction for Night Watch. Nah, the Prometheus Award is famous for going to people somewhere between social democrat and out-and-out commie. So! Radcliffe in The Long Utopia. What the gently caress was up with him? Tedious long-winded villain monologue? Did Terry actually dictate that? Doesn't seem to be a historical person ...
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2015 15:05
|
|
|
divabot posted:Nah, the Prometheus Award is famous for going to people somewhere between social democrat and out-and-out commie. It felt a bit like he was a left over character from Dodger and he decided to put him in here.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2015 19:31
|
|
|
Doubtful Guest posted:
I'd say yes, there are a couple of central things that call back to the earlier books in the series. You should read I Shall Wear Midnight anyway, I remember it being a good one. Shepherd's Crown is sad, story-wise  . You can tell it wasn't 100% resolved, and the prose has the same issues as other recent books, but I stopped noticing it fairly early on. Things that should have been internal thoughts are made dialogue instead, eg. a few instances of witches saying "We witches... ". All in all it's satisfactory ending to the Discworld, I think.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2015 21:22
|
|
divabot posted:Nah, the Prometheus Award is famous for going to people somewhere between social democrat and out-and-out commie. LOL, I hadn't realized how many times it went to Ken MacLeod, or that Iain Banks and Norman Spinrad got nominated.
|
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2015 23:15
|
|
|
Rand Brittain posted:I also thought Lord Vetinari's relationship with Moist suffered in later books, as well. After Going Postal there's really no reason why Vetinari should be a jerk to Moist; he's got him right where he wants him. It seems almost as though he's maintaining a hostile tone purely in order to give the author a chance to exposit about exactly how their working relationship got formed.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2015 01:15
|
|
|
EvilTaytoMan posted:Honestly, I forgot he existed until I reread it recently.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2015 05:20
|
|
|
I just finished Going Postal. My god, what a marvellous book  Should I watch the TV series? I like Charles Dance but he's just not Vetinari for me. Also, is that Jeff from Coupling as Moist? Anyway, that's 21 books read, just 20 to go now. The next two books in my ridiculously jagged reading order are Lords and Ladies, then Thud.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2015 13:42
|
|
|
Hedrigall posted:I just finished Going Postal. My god, what a marvellous book It makes some poor choices, especially in the first half. Part 2 is stronger.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2015 14:00
|
|
|
And Charles Dance makes an excellent Vetinari.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2015 14:28
|
|
|
gently caress.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2015 15:22
|
|
|
Hedrigall posted:I just finished Going Postal. My god, what a marvellous book I hated the adaptation, felt like they made a right balls of every good scene from the book, and turned Reacher Gilt into a generic saturday morning cartoon villain instead of an evil counterpoint to Moist.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2015 15:57
|
|
|
Watch that hatchet job that was The Colour Of Magic to really learn to hate a bad TV Adaption. It was okay.
|
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2015 16:01
|
|
|
A little of topic from the current discussion; what do you reckon is the best non-novel Pratchett? Hoping theres something I haven't seen as I'm not sure its much of a competition the bbc Good Omens radio play is basically perfect. Discworld Noir is pretty good as well, but I haven't played it since it came out and it probably suffers badly from old game UI issues.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2015 16:23
|
|
|
FactsAreUseless posted:It makes some poor choices, especially in the first half. Part 2 is stronger. I thought it lost a lot of steam in part 2 almost all of the conflicts is resolved in part one and not much happens in the second part.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2015 17:44
|
|
|
I hated the golems in the tv series.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2015 20:17
|
|
|
The adaptations are all terrible. Every single goddamn one. The early ones don't even try try, the later ones fail regardless. Going Postal in particular misses the whole point of Moist's character by a country mile. I think I had a whole big writeup on the subject in an earlier incarnation of this thread.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2015 20:31
|
|
|
Dirty Frank posted:A little of topic from the current discussion; what do you reckon is the best non-novel Pratchett? Hoping theres something I haven't seen as I'm not sure its much of a competition the bbc Good Omens radio play is basically perfect. Discworld Noir is pretty good as well, but I haven't played it since it came out and it probably suffers badly from old game UI issues.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2015 00:17
|
|
|
Or something he said/wrote about assisted suicide.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2015 00:17
|
|
|
Just finished The Shepherds Crown. I can see what people were getting at, but it was less objectionable than people make out. The book was serving as a transitional book between YA books and the main series, so it introduced a lot of concepts and characters that hadn't been greatly touched on in the earlier Tiffany books. As a way for the series to end, it's not bad. That said, the four "lost stories" in the afterword make me kind of sad that Rhianna won't be writing more books. Maybe she'll reconsider in a couple of years.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2015 21:59
|
|
|
Finished The Sheperd's Crown yesterday. It definitely felt like it needed another few revisions - lots of repetition, too many plot threads to develop in this wordcount. Some specific thoughts: - Villains practically non-existent, much like all the books post Going Postal. - The Feegles have always felt like a loose end to me, with nothing really to do after TWFM, so its nice to see them a bit more relevant in this book. They're still essentially one joke though. - Nightshade's plotline felt very sparse. I feel like Geoffrey's plot should have been cut down to give her more time to develop. She is very reminiscent of Miriam LeJean in Thief of Time. - Has there ever been any explanation as to why the other witches give Mrs Earwig the time of day, given that she doesn't seem to be a witch in any meaningful sense? Overall though it's not bad and a nice open ended send off to the Discworld as a whole, and to Tiffany's story in particular. It's be interesting to know how much of a YA readership there actually is for these, and how many people are reading them without reading the main line Discworld books. A lot of what dragged or seemed derivative to me would have been brand new to a Tiffany-only reader, so it's harder to criticise in that sense.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2015 22:48
|
|
|
Jedit posted:Maybe she'll reconsider in a couple of years. Don't even go there. Let the woman write her own stories rather than writing a piss poor copy of her father's work to pacify some nerds. Oh!! On the other hand she could get Kevin J Anderson to help. That always goes down well.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2015 23:42
|
|
|
Mr Darcy posted:Don't even go there. Let the woman write her own stories rather than writing a piss poor copy of her father's work to pacify some nerds. Rhianna's already said she'll work with the Discworld for screenplays and computer games as the opportunity arises, and Pterry said before he died that she was as good as him. I also don't think she'd publish anything if it were piss poor.
|
|
#
?
Aug 30, 2015 01:09
|
|
|
Mr Darcy posted:Don't even go there. Let the woman write her own stories rather than writing a piss poor copy of her father's work to pacify some nerds. Uhg, I inflicted some of his Star Wars books on myself years back, and I've just run out of Herbert-written Dune books. I'm not sure Rihanna has written anything in novel-form, I think as much as anything there would be issues with "voice" which would just change everything. If she works with games and performance media that could come out great, very much her wheelhouse. Guess it's a question of how much the Discworld will get to turn (although obviously it doesn't actually turn)
|
|
#
?
Aug 30, 2015 02:07
|
|
|
Eh, I can live without any more novels. All things end, that was one of PTerry's very first lessons for us, so it's fitting it's also one of his last. Don't fear the reaper.
|
|
#
?
Aug 30, 2015 02:21
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 01:32 |
|
|
BizarroAzrael posted:I'm not sure Rihanna has written anything in novel-form, I think as much as anything there would be issues with "voice" which would just change everything. If she works with games and performance media that could come out great, very much her wheelhouse. Guess it's a question of how much the Discworld will get to turn (although obviously it doesn't actually turn) Yes, it does. It rotates slowly to prevent the elephants becoming lopsided due to the uneven weight distribution.
|
|
#
?
Aug 30, 2015 09:31
|
|