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John Charity Spring posted:It's clear reading it that Pratchett knew/knows his poo poo when it comes to games, As well he should. His daughter Rhianna freelanced for PC Zone for a number of years, and she also wrote the story for Mirror's Edge. Is anyone else looking forward to The Long Earth, Pterry's hard SF project with Stephen Baxter? It's out in June.
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Jan 10, 2012 23:49
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Nilbop posted:I keep thinking the orc was called Mr Pin for some reason. He's Mr Nutt. You're confusing him with Mr Tulip and Mr Pin, the "New Firm" enforcers in The Truth.
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Jan 22, 2012 01:09
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Mister Roboto posted:A big part of Pratchett's writings has ALWAYS been that things come at a price. Vimes beat an ancient curse, but where's the price? Vimes benefits from the Summoning Dark because of his job. As a nightwatchman his power is symbolically tied to the night, so when he uses it during the day he is technically making the day part of the night - which in a way is summoning the dark. The price he pays is that because he can do this, he can never actually stop being a copper, and he pays that price every day.
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Jan 26, 2012 00:06
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ConfusedUs posted: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" How did you manage to read FoC three times without spotting "To Serve The Public Trust, To Protect The Innocent, And To Seriously Prod Buttock"?
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Jan 26, 2012 19:02
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Juaguocio posted:I just finished I Shall Wear Midnight today, and it was superb. The depth of Pratchett's thought is really astounding at times, especially when it comes in a form meant ostensibly "for younger readers." Pterry once said that you can tell when you're reading one of his children's books because the story is darker.
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Jan 27, 2012 09:23
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Kaskadan posted:I only wish there was a solid timeline for how things happen in years...not just book sequence. Thief of Time explains why there isn't. Basically, the History Monks have been shifting small pieces of time around in order to keep the whole of causality stable. As a result, the sequence of events in the books has changed since they were written and continues to change.
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Feb 13, 2012 09:28
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AlphaDog posted:Also, in that same book (spoilers for Thief Of Time, Night Watch, and Wyrd Sisters) the Glass Clock utterly shatters history and it gets glued back together in a sort of "yeah, that's as good as we're going to get it" way. That's also the reason behind the events in Night Watch - the Glass Clock loving up history threw Vimes back in time (because he was falling through the Library at the time?) and the History Monks couldn't fix it on their own, since Carcer was there loving poo poo up too. This may mean that many main plotlines before/since then only happend because history got broken and people ended up in the wrong place. I don't imagine Granny shifting all of Lancre 16 or so years forward helped much, either. Yeah, there's a few other things like that too - Djelibeybi springs to mind. Ultimately, the only thing we can be sure of is that great sex doesn't last long enough.* * Except for the Zabingo tribe of the Great Nef, of course.
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Feb 14, 2012 19:56
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Vengeance of Pandas posted:The closest to focusing on either is in Pyramids, which starts with Pteppic as a student at the Assassin's Guild before going on to Djelibeybi. I'm honestly embarrassed at how long it took me to get the Djelibeybi joke, but to be honest I never listened to the audio books or tried saying the word out loud. I thought it was made fairly obvious by it being translated as "child of the Djel". Night Watch also has a bit about the Assassins Guild. The closest we ever get to seeing the Thieves Guild is in Thief of Time, I think. To make up for the lack of Assassins in the books, here is a picture of my wallet. 
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Feb 15, 2012 19:52
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Pope Guilty posted:If you're American, there's a good chance it doesn't mean anything anyway, since jelly babies aren't really a thing here. One of Djelibeybi's near neighbours is Hersheba. It's an equal opportunities joke.
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Feb 16, 2012 23:22
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YggiDee posted:I think it's Hersheba = Hershey bar? Got it in one, Yggi.
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Feb 17, 2012 01:39
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Oxxidation posted:I know that Pratchett's condition is probably forcing him to take a few shortcuts in terms of plotting and characterization to get his stories out, but really, that just makes it even more depressing. Shortcuts, right. I heard the opening of Snuff 15 months before it was published. The only thing I'll say about whether Pterry's condition affected the writing of Snuff is that it's the first "main series" Discworld novel not to feature at least a cameo from Death.
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Feb 17, 2012 19:33
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DontMockMySmock posted:I meant mentally, not physically. I had a chance to speak with Pterry 18 months ago, and at the time he was still sharp and quick as ever. That was three years after the initial diagnosis, five years after the first presentation of symptoms. It's having more profound physical effects, thankfully.
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Feb 18, 2012 11:01
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Lugubrious posted:I'm pretty sure I've seen it a few times, but not that often. One specific instance (since I'm rereading this right now) is in the Fifth Elephant when Lady Margolotta finds out Vimes is the ambassador, and says "the midden has hit the windmill," to which her Igor replies something like "nobody likes a thort thower of thit." There's also the bit in The Light Fantastic where Cohen is telling Rincewind and Bethan the temple maiden how sick he is of having to eat soup because he has no teeth. "They shay, "poo poo down by the fire, grandad, and have shome shoop" - why ish [Bethan] coughing?"
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Feb 20, 2012 09:45
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Evfedu posted:Pterry did a "my life with Alzheimer's" documentary on the BBC about a year after he was diagnosed (2009). At the time the program was being filmed he tried to do a reading of a bit of Nation (his swansong) at a convention and was literally unable to see/process the words. "It was like a shadow on the page". The whole audience was so heart-broken and it remains one of the most profoundly upsetting things I've ever seen. I was in the audience when that reading was filmed in 2008. Pterry read for an hour and only paused a few times; when he said "Sorry, there's a shadow on the page" was the longest. The audience did know something was wrong, but you've got to bear in mind that this was at the official Discworld Convention rather than a random con, so everyone there was a dedicated Pratchett fan and most of us had known about the diagnosis for several months. Obviously the documentary focused on that particular pause because it stood out, but it did imply that he wasn't capable of reading any more when in fact if you hadn't known he had Alzheimer's, you wouldn't have thought anything was wrong. It was only really in the next two years that the damage set in.
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Mar 5, 2012 00:24
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Evfedu posted:Holy poo poo, really? I'm surprised he let that go on air without comment. Why? The whole point of the documentary was to make an impact on the viewer and get some momentum up for Alzheimer's research. "Well, there's a few inconveniences but nothing I can't handle because I'm rich" is not the message you want to send if you aim to do that. Besides, it's not like the filmmakers were making it up. Pterry is lucky enough to have a relatively slow progression, but he was getting worse even as they filmed; all they did was make it look as bad at the start as it was at the end. A lot of sufferers do get that bad that quickly, so it's not unfair to project that as an image of what life is like with Alzheimer's.
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Mar 5, 2012 19:05
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ConfusedUs posted:Just to clarify, that's an Elvis joke right? Not quite so much in that particular instance, but later on it is. Imp is working in a chip shop and one of Susan's schoolmates says she'd swear he was elvish. It's a riff on the old Kirsty McColl song, "There's A Guy Works Down The Chip Shop Swears He's Elvis". Flipswitch: I know people who took longer than you took getting that joke to realise that the miniature lifetimer given to Death when the Auditors retired him is an hourglass equivalent of a gold fob watch. Don't feel bad about it.
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Mar 17, 2012 10:10
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wheatpuppy posted:I had to look it up, but apparently a billhook is a type of scythe. I think it's a bit of a stretch, but it's possible Pterry had it in mind when Death picked his pseudonym. I wouldn't ever rule out the possibility of a pune in Pratchett, but I'd say this was more of a happy coincidence because the name is suggested to him by Renata Flitworth. She basically says "You've got to be a Bill or a Tom or a Jack or something", and he says YES, I'M ONE OF THOSE. THE FIRST ONE.
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Mar 17, 2012 13:39
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Pope Guilty posted:Well, yeah, because he is a Bill. He's an instrument of reaping. That's not the way it's played, though. I dug out the book, here's the scene: Reaper Man, by Terry Pratchett posted:'What is your name?' Death is basically completely unsure all the way through the naming, even when asked if he's a Bill. And yet he's in no way unsure that he is still a reaper; at the end of the scene when Miss Flitworth asks him if he can use a scythe, he replies I THINK THE ANSWER TO THAT IS A DEFINITE 'YES'.
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Mar 17, 2012 15:47
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FactsAreUseless posted:The Agnes/Perdita split is an interesting idea, but it seemed to overtake writing Agnes as a person. What was her personality aside from "passive observer" and "split personalities?" Despite being the protagonist (roughly), she's stuck in the role of sidekick. So is Bruce Banner, in a lot of Hulk stories. Both Banner and Agnes are literally their own sidekicks. Agnes' personality is built round two things: her disgruntlement with being dismissed as capable, sensible and good wife material when she wants to be interesting, flamboyant and romantic, and her annoyance with herself when she actually does try to be those things. She's also a bit like Rorschach in Watchment, in that she starts out as Agnes pretending to be Perdita but later - after Agnes realises how silly the pretense is - Perdita becomes a very real and distinct personality. I've sometimes wondered if Agnes has somehow managed to Borrow herself.
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Apr 23, 2012 22:33
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Apraxin posted:A few days late to the 'subtle language puns' party, but: in Making Money, there's a scene where Drumknott comments on how great Vetinari is at Discworld's version of SuDoku, which is called 'Jikan no Muda'. Which is Japanese for 'a waste of time'. Which is almost an unnecessary joke, as "sudoku" is itself an abbreviation of a Japanese phrase meaning "mathematical puzzles for children".
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Apr 24, 2012 08:33
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precision posted:I have never been able to figure out what PTerry intends Vimes to look like. At first, he sounds like he should be a big guy, like Fred Colon only in better shape. But then there's the one where he acts like Columbo the whole novel so I started thinking of him as a rumpled old guy. But then any scene involving his marriage makes him sound like a typical giant Lord Of The Manor type. Vimes looks like Dirty Harry, only in a breastplate and helmet instead of a suit.
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Apr 28, 2012 23:28
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One our foreign friends may not get. The Low Kings of the Dwarves are crowned on the Scone of Stone. The High Kings of the Scots were crowned on the Stone of Scone (pronounced "Scoone").
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Apr 30, 2012 08:20
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Pope Guilty posted:
Unsigned, it would have been worth $2!
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May 18, 2012 17:35
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Urdnot Fire posted:While I have no doubts it is an excellent documentary, that is an incredibly depressing title Well, it's a depressing subject. They couldn't exactly call it Adventures At The Happy Sunshine Euthanasia Clinic, could they?
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May 28, 2012 21:46
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inklesspen posted:If Night Watch isn't legitimate literature, I don't want to know what is. But it can't be legitimate literature because it has dragons and wizards and stuff in it!  Seriously, Axe Cop, go read Nation then reappraise your stance.
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Jun 13, 2012 18:29
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Just finished reading the first chapter of Dodger, a non-Discworld YA book due out in September. Looks interesting - an international conspiracy involving the attempted murder and possible rape of a teenage girl from the German aristocracy, with Charles Dickens paying a guttersnipe called Dodger to investigate. It's kind of dark, but Pterry once said you can tell his books for children apart from the ones for adults because the ones for kids are darker and more violent.
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Jun 14, 2012 22:24
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Tartarus Sauce posted:(I've been hunting around for interesting, intelligent graphic novels for a middle schooler. Seeing Quatermain's wrinkly rear end banging vampire lady quickly consigned this one to the "nope" pile.) Going on a minor derail here, but I would recommend The Unwritten, Button Man: The Killing Game, Girl Genius and Judge Dredd: America. If your middle schooler is old enough for a bit of (furry) nudity and adult themes, then add any number of volumes of Blacksad to the list.
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Jun 15, 2012 19:48
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Non Serviam posted:Is anybody going to the Discworld convention in Birmingham? I was on the guest list and was notified that I have until tomorrow to use my tickets. I'm going, and I've been going to DWCons since 1998 so I know a lot of the regulars too. Turn up, find me - my pass will have my SA user name on it, or should have - and I'll introduce you around. And yes, Pterry will be there (barring ill health). There will almost certainly be a signing, and there's also the Kaffee Klatches so you could be randomly drawn to have an hour long social chat with the man himself.
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Jun 15, 2012 22:27
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Non Serviam posted:Do you have a place to stay? wanna share a room? I have a room in the hotel, but there's no room to share - sorry. I can ask around and see if someone has a spare bed, it does happen sometimes. Give me 24 hours. There isn't a DWCon next year, they come in alternate years.
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Jun 16, 2012 00:24
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Non Serviam, I've asked around and found a few links where people have been looking for room shares as recently as last week. It would be better if you asked yourself; after all, I don't even know what gender you are. http://www.discworldstamps.co.uk/forum/index.php http://www.facebook.com/groups/131034043609242/ https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/dwcon_org_2012
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Jun 16, 2012 10:28
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The_Doctor posted:Ah, DWCon. I haven't been in a long time, (my last one was when it was still at HInckley). They're usually pretty fun, and my best friend has been on the committee for the last 2 times. Oh, who's your friend? First name or handle will do; I probably know them. And what's keeping you away now?
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Jun 17, 2012 00:53
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The_Doctor posted:Ladylark. I grew very tired of AFP's 'we're SOOO crazy!' attitude. Yeah, AFP mutated some time in the middle of last decade and a lot of the regulars left. The ones who weren't SOOO crazy are mostly the ones on the IRC channel now. I think the fandom is winding down because Pterry has been so much of a participant in it. Where fans of Rowling or King or Meyer are fans of the books, Pratchett fans are fans of the person who wrote them. But books last forever; people don't. There'll still be Stephen King conventions twenty years after he's gone, but I think when Pterry dies the Discworld Conventions will stop. It just won't be the same. drat, I'm getting maudlin. Someone say how fantastic that bit in that book where someone does something is, please?
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Jun 17, 2012 23:35
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Narzack posted:I got a newsletter from Goodreads about Terry doing a novel with Stephen Baxter. Which, for me, is great, because it's my two favorite authors. Does anyone know anything else about this? It's called The Long Earth, and it's out on Thursday in the UK. The rough premise is that enough alternate Earths are found that everyone can have their own. Wolfechu, did you get the second reference at the end where one of Susan's schoolmates says there's a guy working down at the chip shop and she'd swear he was elvish? rejutka: In case you don't understand the pun, strange attractors are part of the mathematics of chaos theory.
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Jun 19, 2012 08:13
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Wolfechu posted:...Dammit, there's always going to be one more pun over the hill, isn't there? You should watch the animated series of Soul Music if you think you've found them all. They get to play with some of the visual jokes that didn't quite translate to the page.
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Jun 19, 2012 19:17
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Hempuli posted:I'm quite sad to see that a lot of people apparently disliked Making Money, I Shall Wear Midnight and Snuff. Sourcery is pretty poor. Got The Long Earth today (birthday), but unfortunately it will have to wait until I've finished Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson. I recommend Warbreaker, by the way; it reads a lot like The Malazan Book of the Fallen would if Pratchett had written it, and there's a magic sword that's even funnier than Kring.
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Jun 27, 2012 09:19
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I thoroughly enjoyed all of them (finished Snuff just a couple minutes ago); Snuff certainly had some of the problems mentioned (long monologues, quite a bit of swearing and sometimes strange characterizations) but I definitely found the story intriguing and rather coherent. It certainly puzzles me that some people find MM and ISWM awful enough to suggest other readers to outright skip them - I can't think of any Pratchett book apart from Eric that might be worth skipping.
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precision posted:I've always wanted a whole book about Ponder and HEX that's sort of a satire of cyberpunk. Hex plays an interestingly large part in the Science of Discworld trilogy, particularly in Darwin's Watch. They actually contain canon stories, so I recommend them if you've run out of novels to read and haven't read them yet.
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Jun 27, 2012 17:57
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rejutka posted:...I have been reading Terry Pratchett books for over twenty years, when the gently caress did that happen? I remember Equal Rites coming out and thinking "Wow, a new Discworld book!" Think how I feel. (Hint: old.)
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Jun 28, 2012 08:36
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AlphaDog posted:I really liked Pyramids. Especially towards the end. The middle does get a bit off course, but when the dead kings start coming back and complaining I still get chills. "Handcuffed to the bed, the aunt thirsted."
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Jun 29, 2012 19:21
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UnquietDream posted:I finished Long Earth yesterday and I'm still digesting it, there were a few moments of hyper-characterisation as in 'quick we have to convey that these people are British in a way every reader will get, shove everything remotely connotes British into them'. But other than that I enjoyed it, but it's something that's so open to a sequel that without one it seems almost a lesser work. By that I mean that they introduce a lot of interesting concepts which I feel weren't fully explored within the book and would benefit from more in-depth analysis which by necessity would require revisiting the world. I'm inclined to agree with that assessment. There's a lot of setup, but not a great deal of plot. It puts me in mind of Dante's Inferno, actually - it's not about what you see so much as about the journey.
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Jul 6, 2012 08:26
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Pope Guilty posted:An HBO show about the City Watch, done as one of those sprawling, ensemble-focused series that HBO is so good at (like True Blood, The Wire, The Sopranos, and Game of Thrones) would own all of the bones. There's already plans for a City Watch TV series.
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Jul 8, 2012 01:13
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