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Hedrigall posted:I thought it was a pretty deep book about the horrors of war. Same; as a one-off book, it did a great job tying all these usual Discworld tropes and themes together to illustrate that war is a hell of a thing that always has a profound effect on society before, during, and after the fact. Polly getting asked about what Borogravians are proud of is a great moment that speaks volumes.
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Apr 29, 2015 05:07
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Monsterous Regiment is about systems that have broken down and failed the people that they are supposed to serve. Military, governmental, religious, all have completely failed. Also it's about internalized sexism and deeply ingrained patriarchal thinking. It's a great book.
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Apr 29, 2015 09:36
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Hedrigall posted:I thought it was a pretty deep book about the horrors of war. War in all it's potential horror had been covered in Jingo, and much better to boot. Beyond that it all it had was a twist that a glance at the cover made obvious.
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Apr 29, 2015 12:39
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Alhazred posted:The Last Continent pretty bad. It's basically just a bunch of dad jokes about Australia. You say that like it's a bad thing. You obviously didn't grow up in New Zealand.
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Apr 29, 2015 12:58
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Arbite posted:War in all it's potential horror had been covered in Jingo, and much better to boot. Beyond that it all it had was a twist that a glance at the cover made obvious. The twist in Monstrous Regiment isn't Sweet Polly Oliver, it's how far the twist is taken: to a hilariously stupid and yet subtly horrifying degree considering that even the all-female high command would let the Ins-and-Outs take the heat despite being in the position to change things. Gravitas Shortfall summed up why I like the book really well: war had eroded Borogravian society to the point that it didn't even need to be happening at present to destroy lives.
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Apr 29, 2015 12:58
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Arbite posted:War in all it's potential horror had been covered in Jingo I completely disagree. Jingo covered the horrors of war from the top down. Monstrous Regiment covers the horrors of war from the bottom up. They complement each other.
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Apr 29, 2015 20:44
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Monstrous Regiment is so intensely meta as a piece of writing. So the events come to an abrupt end with a deus ex machina, in the form of a deus ex machina - the duchess has been elevated to the state of divine, and is carried around inside a woman (a crude slang term for which is "box") The plot is resolved in a god in a box fashion by a god in a box. Add on to this that reducing a woman to her genitals as you are with calling her a box is one of the more potent forms of sexism, in a book that is about overcoming sexism The guy worked on a  level of his craft, structuring the entire novel around a pun based inversion of the theme that serves as an intrinsic criticism of the pun.
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May 1, 2015 19:35
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That was Pterry for you. He worked on SO many levels, especially at his height.
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May 2, 2015 00:29
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I've been meaning to re-read and write about the series for ages, and since Pratchett died it seemed like a good time to do it. Kicked off with The Colour of Magic, which held up much better than my first memories of it when I was 12 or 13: https://grubstreethack.wordpress.com/2015/05/03/rereading-discworld-the-colour-of-magic/ Going to be doing the whole series and indexing the reviews here if anyone's interested in following along: https://grubstreethack.wordpress.com/2015/05/03/rereading-discworld/
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May 3, 2015 20:37
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Membership booking for the 2016 Discworld Convention opened about ten minutes ago. If you plan to go I recommend booking now - almost 200 memberships have gone already. E: Make that 250. at this rate it will be booked out in around two hours.
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May 4, 2015 12:33
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Re-reading Carpe Jugulum it's pretty funny to watch Granny Weatherwax constantly question if the events in Small Gods really took place. I also noticed that in both Nightwatch and Carpe Jugulum that Borogravia is referenced as a powder keg and if it explodes it will affect both Lancre and Ankh-Morpork.
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May 4, 2015 18:24
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Pratchett never answered the Muntab question.
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May 4, 2015 23:42
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FactsAreUseless posted:Pratchett never answered the Muntab question. Yes, he did. "What is the Muntab question?" 570 DWCon memberships sold so far, that's over two thirds capacity.
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May 4, 2015 23:45
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Jedit posted:Yes, he did. Pretty sure it was "Where's Muntab?"
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May 5, 2015 07:37
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GodFish posted:Pretty sure it was "Where's Muntab?"
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May 5, 2015 08:01
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You are both correct, and that other guy is wrong.
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May 5, 2015 11:14
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Just received my copy of "A Slip of the Keyboard". My joy at opening the box was dimmed by an accolade by gurm on the back cover. Ironic absolute fucker. Recently started a re-readthrough of discworld (Color of Magic so far) and will prabably wait until I get through them all before cracking open A Slip. Edit: just read the forward by Gaiman, and it crushed me. 
Fog Tripper fucked around with this message at 03:42 on May 15, 2015 |
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May 15, 2015 03:18
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I think we talk about this every couple of pages, but any Non-Discworld novels I should read? I've already read Good Omens (and didn't quite like it), have Nation on my book pile and currently going through A Blink of the Screen. Is The long Earth good? The short story in ABotS makes it seem interesting. Also, how are the Folklore/Science of Discworld books?
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May 15, 2015 23:16
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Nation is fantastic. Dodger is OK. The Long Earth series is pretty meh, it's an interesting world with a pretty dull story. I gave up after the second one. Good Omens is amazing.
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May 16, 2015 10:44
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I can now confirm that Nation is p. cool. Bought Dodger and The Dark Side of the Sun, mostly because I look forward to what PTerry might have managed with Sci Fi. Totally forgot about The Long Earth while at the bookstore. Really I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel now after downing the like first 30 Discworld novels in 1-2 years. I've gotten my fair share of entertainment already. Maybe next I'll just suck up and read the post Thud novels, I stopped there when I could feel the writing getting worse.
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May 20, 2015 04:22
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Have you read The Bromeliad Trilogy or any of Johnny Maxwell books? Both are pretty decent. I'd say somewhere around the middle of the Discworld quality scale. There's also The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents, which you may have missed, since it's only tangentially related to the Disc.
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May 20, 2015 09:54
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Markovnikov posted:
To be fair, the only post Thud novel that's really bad is Unseen Academicals. Alhazred fucked around with this message at 17:48 on May 20, 2015 |
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May 20, 2015 16:30
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Alhazred posted:To be fair, the only book post Thud novel that's really bad is Unseen Academicals. I thought it was better than Raising Steam. That almost comes off as downright fanficcy in parts.
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May 20, 2015 16:41
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Alhazred posted:To be fair, the only post Thud novel that's really bad is Unseen Academicals.
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May 20, 2015 18:12
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Reading through Men at Arms again, I noticed a detail that's always bothered me: Edward d'Eath mentions that a child was rescued from a bandit attack and "raised by Discworld dwarves." Why the distinction? It's like saying "he was raised by Earth humans".
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May 20, 2015 19:48
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I just finished the first two Discworld books, I found them readable and enjoyable but far from the hype I have heard about them. They seem very Young Adult Fiction and the jokes and tone got hard to keep dealing with after several hundred pages. I probably won't pick up the 3rd book in the series unless I can find a very compelling reason to do so. I did however find Rincewind a very funny character and might look for more of his books.
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May 20, 2015 20:35
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You should pick up the third book. The first two were kind of a warm-up for the author.
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May 20, 2015 20:49
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Cicadalek posted:Reading through Men at Arms again, I noticed a detail that's always bothered me: Edward d'Eath mentions that a child was rescued from a bandit attack and "raised by Discworld dwarves." Why the distinction? It's like saying "he was raised by Earth humans". Some of the early writing does have some slightly janky prose like that, TBH, and MaA is quite early on. Before he really found his style there were a lot more real-world references.
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May 20, 2015 21:00
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Skippy McPants posted:Have you read The Bromeliad Trilogy or any of Johnny Maxwell books? Both are pretty decent. I'd say somewhere around the middle of the Discworld quality scale. There's also some really old scifi he did. Strata is kinda proto-discish, and there's another one I can't remember the name of. Kind of fun if rather bland space opera ish. Still, not, you know, actively terrible.
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May 20, 2015 21:22
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withak posted:You should pick up the third book.
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May 20, 2015 21:35
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You should try Wyrd Sisters and/or Guards! Guards! Nobody hypes up the first books.
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May 20, 2015 21:35
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Cicadalek posted:Reading through Men at Arms again, I noticed a detail that's always bothered me: Edward d'Eath mentions that a child was rescued from a bandit attack and "raised by Discworld dwarves." Why the distinction? It's like saying "he was raised by Earth humans". If I recall directly, he does make a distinction between dwarves of various regions in later books, so that may just have been a poorly edited precursor to that.
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May 20, 2015 22:23
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It gets really good with Guards! Guards! His early stuff was when he was finding his feet and the thing was more of a tongue and cheek poke at eighties fantasy novels than well, being the thing it is now well known. gently caress I hate writing about Terry in the past tense  .
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May 20, 2015 22:37
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Hedrigall posted:The more I hear about Snuff and Raising Steam the more depressed I get. I might just have to leave them unread forever. Everything else is golden though, right? This is me too, though I got probated for saying that earlier in the thread, haha. Poor bugger just wasn't very good at writing in the latter stages of his illness
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May 21, 2015 12:06
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thespaceinvader posted:Some of the early writing does have some slightly janky prose like that, TBH, and MaA is quite early on. Before he really found his style there were a lot more real-world references. Yeah, I think Guards, Guards is the best place to start for that reason.
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May 21, 2015 12:26
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sebmojo posted:This is me too, though I got probated for saying that earlier in the thread, haha. Poor bugger just wasn't very good at writing in the latter stages of his illness For "very" substitute "as". I'd rather read later Pratchett than most other writers.
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May 21, 2015 14:20
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sebmojo posted:This is me too, though I got probated for saying that earlier in the thread, haha. Poor bugger just wasn't very good at writing in the latter stages of his illness Not very good as compared to Pratchetts normal standard, yes. In comparison to most other crap fantasy books out there, they were well written and to a large extent enjoyable. It all depends on your reference frame.
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May 21, 2015 14:23
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Honestly, if the person trusts me and I know they'll stick with it, I tend to recommend they start at book one and go through in publication order. There are just so many jokes that build on each other; I think you really get the best experience that way.
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May 22, 2015 01:40
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Cardiac posted:Not very good as compared to Pratchetts normal standard, yes. This is probably fair, I confess I only skimmed them; he had such marvellous precision at his height that I would have found the sloppiness awful and saddening, knowing the reason behind it.
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May 22, 2015 01:53
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Guards! Guards! is as far back as I've gone (wait, was Mort earlier?) and it seems a very different style than the later books to me...
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May 22, 2015 07:35
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