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

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DontMockMySmock: Aug 9, 2008; I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

LooseChanj posted:

No, before now there's always been more discworld to look forward to!

I just finished Making Money about a week ago. . . :cry:

indeed!

But I can happily report that if you haven't read Nation, it is very very good; so there is one last bit of Pratchett for you to enjoy, even if it isn't Discworld.

# ¿ Nov 29, 2008 04:46

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# ¿ Apr 19, 2024 21:29

DontMockMySmock: Aug 9, 2008; I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

Mokinokaro posted:

Well, taking my first dive into Discworld. Picked up Mort and Small Gods.

Finished Mort and liked it, but so far Small Gods is a lot funnier.

Mort is one of my least favorites (not to say it isn't a good book; it is); Small Gods on the other hand may very well be my favorite. Most of Discworld is better than Mort (in my humble opinion), so if you liked Mort you should definitely read them all.

# ¿ Jan 13, 2009 23:20

DontMockMySmock: Aug 9, 2008; I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

My opinion is, skip FaustEric, and skip Equal Rites, and read every other book Terry Pratchett has ever written ever.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2009 17:28

DontMockMySmock: Aug 9, 2008; I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

People, seriously. . . stop judging the witches based on Equal Rites. That book sucks. Read the rest of them. Wyrd Sisters, Witches Abroad, Lords and Ladies, Maskerade, and Carpe Jugulum are all very well written, very funny, very parody-y.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2009 04:16

DontMockMySmock: Aug 9, 2008; I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

Flaggy posted:

I wish he would write more books about Rincewind and Death. For some reason those were the easiest books to follow in the series I thought personally. I am honestly surprised that we haven't seen a movie from Hollywood based on Discworld yet.

You can't have watched many Hollywood movies if you think that. Discworld is way too highbrow, intelligent, quality, etc. for Hollywood.

# ¿ Feb 13, 2009 04:55

DontMockMySmock: Aug 9, 2008; I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

On a related note, I thought the Hogfather movie was pretty awesome. When I saw it I had just read Hogfather a couple days before, and it was clear to me that basically every line in the movie was ripped directly from the book, and I thought that was kinda awesome. I wish more movie adaptations worked that way.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2009 19:12

DontMockMySmock: Aug 9, 2008; I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

ONE YEAR LATER posted:

The whole reason they picked Australia to make fun of was because they felt Australians were laid back enough to find the extremely over the top jokes too absurd to be offensive. But I guess saying Australians drink a lot of beer is a racist joke

Hey, racism is funny: all humor arises from cruelty and tragedy, and racism is particularly cruel and tragic. Comedy gold! There's a reason why Carlos Mencia is popular enough to have his own show. Personally I think he's a terrible comedian, but whatever.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2009 22:34

DontMockMySmock: Aug 9, 2008; I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

ConfusedUs posted:

Pratchett writes very memorable books, with fun plots, but I find that very few individual scenes stand out above the rest. They're all good, but few are great, in the sense that I have a difficult time picking out a single favorite part of any Discworld book.

Psycho Battle Magrat is great.

Baron Samedi's entrance at the end of Witches Abroad is great.

Bill Door vs New Death is great.

But that's about all I can think of, off the top of my head.

Vimes capturing Carcer at the end of Night Watch is probably my favorite scene in all of Discworld.

# ¿ Mar 15, 2009 19:56

DontMockMySmock: Aug 9, 2008; I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

Entropic posted:

Yes! Granny Weatherwax shows up a bit, but you don't really need to know anything about her past adventures.

Although there is stuff about Discworld witches in general that helps. I'd advise reading the witches books anyway (except Equal Rites), they're good books, and IF you were going to read both the witch series and the Tiffany Aching series, you might as well read them in order. And you SHOULD read them all, because they're all good (again, except for Equal Rites).

# ¿ Mar 17, 2009 23:02

DontMockMySmock: Aug 9, 2008; I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

Kimberlina posted:

Just wanted to chime in that I am another enormous Pratchett fan out here in goon-world. My favorite is probably Small Gods, although Reaper Man is a close second. In unrelated observational news, whenever I watch the tv show Lost, Ben always reminds me of the Patrician -- that man ALWAYS has a plan.

Yeah, but the Patrician isn't a douche and Discworld has a coherent plot.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2009 05:53

DontMockMySmock: Aug 9, 2008; I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

precision posted:

I have to admit I don't know why the vast majority of Pratchett fans like the Watch books the best. I really liked Vimes when he was like Columbo, but lately, now that he's all serious and fighting to "control the beast inside", it's just... meh.

The parallel with the Witches is obvious, because of Esme knowing she could be evil but knowing she has to do the Right Thing, but for some reason I find her a lot more of an interesting character. Maybe because she has better one-liners.

Also, Michael Emerson would in fact be the perfect choice to play Vetinari. Please God, someone in Hollywood realize how amazing a Discworld film could be. I mean, Stardust was a hit movie and Pratchett has quite a few more fans than Neil Gaiman, especially in the UK.

I find it a blessing that Hollywood has not gotten their hands on Discworld. They would defile it.

# ¿ Mar 20, 2009 21:51

DontMockMySmock: Aug 9, 2008; I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

precision posted:

The film versions of Stardust and Coraline are both incredibly faithful to the novels and very good movies.

Automatically hating all things Hollywood is kind of a tired old trope, don't you think?

It didn't become a tired old trope by being false. Besides, I don't hate "all things Hollywood," just adaptations of novels/comic books/videogames/etc. that overwhelmingly tend to be terrible. Especially when they try to do something more mentally stimulating.

I haven't seen those two movies you mentioned, but what I do know is that for each faithful, quality adaptation of a book, there are dozens of terrible ones.

DontMockMySmock fucked around with this message at 23:18 on Mar 20, 2009

# ¿ Mar 20, 2009 23:16

DontMockMySmock: Aug 9, 2008; I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

precision posted:

OK, but do you not realize that the majority of EVERYTHING is terrible? Most music, most art, most novels, most films, Hell, even most people! Surely you're aware of the notion of the Bell Curve?

Doesn't change my point. My point is we do not want to take something known to be good (Discworld) and turn it into something bad, which is likely to happen if Hollywood gets their hands on it.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2009 00:42

DontMockMySmock: Aug 9, 2008; I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

precision posted:

Let's be fair, The Last Continent is the only bad Rincewind book, and arguably the only bad Disc book period.

Well, except for Monstrous Regiment, which isn't a bad book, but as a Disc novel it's fairly atrocious inasmuch as it doesn't feel like it's even connected to the rest of the Discworld.

~~Faust~~Eric is FAR worse than Last Continent, in my opinion :colbert:

. Also Equal Rites is a bad Disc book. And personally, I liked Monstrous Regiment. I like how it starts out with "oh this tired old motif of chick pretending to be a dude to join the army" and then you slowly realize that just about everyone in the army is female.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2009 18:49

DontMockMySmock: Aug 9, 2008; I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

ONE YEAR LATER posted:

All of the Wen the Eternally Surprised bits are awesome. . .

One of my favorite quotes from all of discworld is one of these, paraphrased:

In the fifth scroll of Wen the Eternally Surprised, there is a story of when the apprentice Clodpool, in a rebellious mood, went up to Wen and spake thusly:
"Wen, what is the difference between a humanistic, monastic system of belief in which enlightenment is achieved through a series of nonsensical questions and answers, and a bunch of mystic gibberish made up on the spur of the moment?"
Wen thought for some time, and then said: "A fish!"
And Clodpool went away, satisfied.

# ¿ Mar 22, 2009 18:22

DontMockMySmock: Aug 9, 2008; I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

Pope Guilty posted:

So basically a Carrot-Moist task force would be unstoppable.

Haven't you been listening? A task force consisting of EVERYONE ON THE DISC still could be stopped by Esme Weatherwax.

Also. Carrot is pathologically honest, and is so simple that he's brilliant. Moist is a pathological liar, and is so cunning that he is stupid. I kind of imagine that if Carrot and Moist shook hands with one another, there would be a catastrophic explosion, converting them both into various jets of relativistic particles.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2009 23:27

DontMockMySmock: Aug 9, 2008; I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

Irisi posted:

Is that Lord Vetinari as the referee? Good god.

I must say, I'd have preferred another Von Lipwig book, as I've never been the biggest fan of Rincewind, but the Librarian (as the goalie!), Bursar and Ridcully are always an absolute joy to read about.

Who said Rincewind was in it?

# ¿ May 27, 2009 23:33

DontMockMySmock: Aug 9, 2008; I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

Eunabomber posted:

The luggage is there. Usually Rincewind is near the luggage.

I totally missed that. That makes total sense.

# ¿ May 28, 2009 06:19

DontMockMySmock: Aug 9, 2008; I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

precision posted:

Weren't the Yac Mac Feegle in Lords and Ladies as well?

Nac Mac Feegle, and yes, I believe so. Damned if I can remember why, plot-wise.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2009 19:12

DontMockMySmock: Aug 9, 2008; I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

precision posted:

Actually, especially in more recent novels, I've always thought of Ankh-Morpork is an analogue for New York/America. I'm sure there are even quotes which reference how it's a "melting pot" and it certainly seems to have a much more welcoming policy with regards to immigrants than England does.

As an American who has never been to London, it is very easy to see parallels between Ankh-Morpork and big American cities - the Ankh, for example, is very reminiscent of the L.A. "river" (actually an aqueduct), which is very smelly and filled with feces and dead hookers and gangsters. On the other hand, from an intellectual standpoint, I can recognize it a parallel of the Thames in London. Other things are so obvious that even an ignorant American can see, such as Old Tom = Big Ben. So basically, it's partly London, but mostly it's just so stereotypically "big city" that you could imagine it's major metropolis.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2009 18:24

DontMockMySmock: Aug 9, 2008; I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

Mogadishu posted:

I wish they'd stop making movies and turn the Watch books into a TV serial or something, they're the highlight of the series for me.

Nah, a series of movies would be better - movies can have bigger budgets. Dear Hollywood: Sign on Alan Rickman as Vetinari for a 7-movie deal ASAP.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2009 19:14

DontMockMySmock: Aug 9, 2008; I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

LGBT War Machine posted:

Otherwise you'd think that Terry was just censoring the naughty words and it wouldn't be so funny.

If this was the first Pratchett novel you've ever read, you might think that for maybe the first few dozen pages.

I could be wrong, but doesn't someone say "gently caress" sometime in The Truth? That would be a pretty big clue that it's not censorship. Also, who censors a book by putting hyphens in place of words?

# ¿ Aug 24, 2009 03:20

DontMockMySmock: Aug 9, 2008; I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

precision posted:

I want to say there are few "poo poo"s in the Disc series, but nothing racier.

Pretty sure Good Omens had "gently caress" somewhere in there, but one could always blame that on Neil Gaiman, I suppose.

There's also plenty of "bugger"s but I don't know how racy that is in England.

vv Ah yes, I forgot "bloody." vv

DontMockMySmock fucked around with this message at 03:52 on Aug 24, 2009

# ¿ Aug 24, 2009 03:36

DontMockMySmock: Aug 9, 2008; I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

From Wikipedia:

Wikipedia posted:

Bloody is the adjectival form of blood but may also be used as an expletive attributive (intensifier) in Australia, Britain, Ireland, Canada, South East Asia, New Zealand, and Sri Lanka. Nowadays it is considered (by most of the population of these countries) to be a very mild expletive, and unlikely to cause offence in most circles.

So, obviously, Aussie Crawl is right on this one.

Wikipedia posted:

Etymologically, a "Bugger" was a "Bulgre" (French Bougre). Originally, it was derived from the French word "Bougge�rie" ("of Bulgaria"), meaning the medieval Bulgarian clerical sect of the Bogomils, which facing severe persecution in Bulgaria spread into Western Europe and was branded by the established church as particularly devoted to the practice of sodomy.

I just thought this was interesting, the article didn't say anything about how "severe" of a curse it is. But, one might imagine that it is on the same status as "gently caress," since they both mean "sodomy" or "sex."

Wikipedia posted:

The relative severity of the various profanities, as perceived by the British public, was studied on behalf of the Broadcasting Standards Commission, Independent Television Commission, BBC and Advertising Standards Authority. The results of this jointly commissioned research were published in December 2000 in a paper called "Delete Expletives?". This placed "bollocks" in eighth position in terms of its perceived severity, between "prick" (seventh place) and "arsehole" (ninth place). By comparison, the word "balls" (which has a similar literal meaning) was down in 22nd place. Of the people surveyed, only 11% thought that "bollocks" could acceptably be broadcast at times before the notional 9pm "watershed"[3] on television (radio does not have a watershed).

In the interest of :science:

, I went to the reference:
[quote="Advertising Standards Authority, British Broadcasting Corporation,
Broadcasting Standards Commission and the Independent Television Commission"]

code:

Word            Severity Order   (1997 data)

oval office            1                (1)
Motherfucker    2                (2)
gently caress            3                (3)
Wanker          4                (4)
friend of the family          5                (11)
Bastard         6                (5)
Prick           7                (7)
Bollocks        8                (6)
Arsehole        9                (9)
Paki            10               (17)
Shag            11               (8)
Whore           12               (13)
Twat            13               (10)
Piss off        14               (12)
Spastic         15               (14)
Slag            16               (18)
poo poo            17               (15)
Dickhead        18               (19)
Pissed off      19               (16)
Arse            20               (20)
Bugger          21               (21)
Balls           22               (22)
Jew             23               (24)
Sodding         24               (23)
Jesus Christ    25               (26)
Crap            26               (25)
Bloody          27               (27)
God             28               (28)

[/quote]

Bugger is lower than I expected, and I was VERY surprised at some of these. Does "spastic" have a meaning that I don't know? And since when is "Jew" a slur, rather than the actual name of a race? Is "slag" something other than the re-hardened remains of molten metal? And what exactly is a "paki?" I'm guessing it's a racial slur. And why is "wanker" worse than things like "whore" and "friend of the family?" I guess it's just an England thing. Why is "bugger" so low, if it means the same thing as "gently caress" or "shag?"

Speaking of which, way to go England for raising "friend of the family" from number 11 to number 5 :toot:

In any case, we have our answer, which is that "gently caress" is worse than anything else other than "oval office," which is pretty taboo even here in the dirty, infantile USA. One time a couple years ago, me and one of my roommates were having a bit of an insult-fight (all in good fun) and I threw the word "oval office" out there in some sort of reference to his mother, and hers being cavernous, and he got like really really offended. Not at the insult, just that I used the word "oval office," which I thought was weird considering he throws "gently caress" around constantly.

# ¿ Aug 24, 2009 05:47

DontMockMySmock: Aug 9, 2008; I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

Entropic posted:

Why aren't "screw" and "gently caress" equally offensive in north america? Just 'cuz, that's why. Also note that buggery refers to sodomy. Yet "tupping" isn't considered much of a swear...

You really want to look for logic or consistency in what arbitrary words a society considers "offensive"?

I don't know, every once in a while I get this weird delusion that other human beings are intelligent and logical. It's pretty stupid of me, I suppose.

# ¿ Aug 24, 2009 07:27

DontMockMySmock: Aug 9, 2008; I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

oxy posted:

I wouldnt mind reading the other wizards one. Which books and in what order do they go?

The reason I ask is cause http://www.lspace.org/books/reading-order-guides/the-discworld-reading-order-guide-1-5.jpg doesn't mention the wizards.

The wizards feature heavily in the "Death" series on that guide. This is what The_Doctor was referring to.

# ¿ Aug 25, 2009 04:29

DontMockMySmock: Aug 9, 2008; I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

precision posted:

Also, for the most part, you will probably enjoy each book slightly more than the last (or at least be able to notice how gradually his writing style goes from "slightly silly" to "well, goddamn").

Also, all of the recurring characters/running gags make slightly more sense this way, as they are introduced to you in the same order as Pratchett wrote them.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2009 07:32

DontMockMySmock: Aug 9, 2008; I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

Mokinokaro posted:

They seem to be able to, as long as they cover up. Otto's seen in the sun quite often but he must be protecting himself somehow.

I'm pretty sure vampires, like trolls, can withstand sunlight by merely applying sunscreen. I think this is mentioned in The Truth, but I could be wrong.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2009 09:37

DontMockMySmock: Aug 9, 2008; I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

Raskolnikov2089 posted:

So I read "Maskerade" as my first intro to Terry Pratchett, and while it was a quick read, it wasn't anything I'd read again.

Are there better out there? It had a few parts I laughed at, but it wasn't quite the "laughing until I cry" I imagined it would be. More just mild amusement.

The story itself was quickly forgettable, and kind of annoying. I literally didn't give a drat if the characters lived or died. Is his writing mostly about the jokes or is there some plot tension too?

Maskerade is one of my least favorites (which is to say I like it but just not as much as most Discworld); obviously the whole thing is a direct parody of Phantom of the Opera, and I imagine might be more enjoyable if you actually like the original material. If you want to read one with the same characters that is better (in my opinion), read Lords and Ladies, the one that comes directly before it in the series. If you just want to read the best of Pratchett, pick up a copy of Small Gods; it is one of the first chronologically, is standalone, and is probably the best book Pratchett has written.

# ¿ Aug 31, 2009 23:30

DontMockMySmock: Aug 9, 2008; I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

creamyhorror posted:

Maybe I just like my heroes with fancy and goofy powers

Vimes has fancy and goofy powers. For example, he can say "Come in, Fred" before Fred knocks on his office door. He wields the magic of dark sarcasm. For god's sake, he has the ability to tell his way around the city just by feeling the ground with his feet. If that's not a fancy and goofy power, then I don't know what is.

# ¿ Sep 10, 2009 22:04

DontMockMySmock: Aug 9, 2008; I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

Dead Alice posted:

And Detritus too!

Detritus gets smarter when it's colder, and wields a siege bow. Angua is a werewolf. Carrot's got krisma. Fancy and goofy powers all around!

# ¿ Sep 10, 2009 22:57

DontMockMySmock: Aug 9, 2008; I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

Another way to do it is just to read them in published order, since it seems to me that published order and chronological order are exactly the same. However, this means not reading each series in a row, but that's not necessarily a bad thing; it might be better to jump back and forth along the different storylines so that it's always fresh. The bad part about this is that someone new to Terry Pratchett ends up reading a few of the worse ones first (in my opinion), and might not get hooked like they should be. But then again, a bad Pratchett book is still so much better than pretty much every other book that it's probably OK.

# ¿ Sep 14, 2009 09:16

DontMockMySmock: Aug 9, 2008; I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

I was looking at Small Gods covers, and what the hell is with the Japanese cover of Small Gods? It's got EARTH on it for gently caress's sake.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2009 17:02

DontMockMySmock: Aug 9, 2008; I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

shadok posted:

Night Watch is also my favourite Discworld novel, and I didn't find it a particularly "dark" work.

"Dark" in the same way that, after being outside on a bright summer's day, you might find a windowless but nevertheless well-lit room to be dark in comparison.

# ¿ Oct 10, 2009 23:27

DontMockMySmock: Aug 9, 2008; I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

The_Doctor posted:

You weren't there.

Don't put your trust in revolutions. They always come around again. That's why they're called revolutions. People die, and nothing changes.

# ¿ Oct 15, 2009 17:25

DontMockMySmock: Aug 9, 2008; I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

Helena Handbasket posted:

The old busy, lumpy fantasy art covers were pretty bad for this, too. (Some googling tells me that I am talking about the Josh Kirby covers.) I have a copy somewhere of one of the Rincewind books where Twoflower is drawn with four eyes. As in, literally two eyeballs in each socket, instead of glasses, which I assume is what the "four-eyes" joke was intended to mean. So apparently the artist did read the book, but not too attentively. Same reason that Angua wears pink thigh-high boots on those covers.

I had only seen the Kirby covers in passing, being used to the lovely American covers, but I always thought that they looked really tacky. Now that you point out the huge inaccuracies in them, I went and looked at them more carefully. Holy crap, are they terrible. Not only do the characters look nothing like they are described in the books (or at least, not anything like what I imagine them to look like), but the art on most of them is way too busy, lacks any kind of focus, and contains wild inaccuracies on simple things (such as Twoflower's glasses being literally interpreted as four eyes or (what I can only assume is) Susan (because there are no other female characters in Hogfather) having yellow-blonde hair, and worst of all out of the few covers I've looked at, ~~Scarlett~~Ginger from Moving Pictures also having blonde hair :bang:

).

And possibly worst of all, he seems completely unable to draw characters that aren't contortionists.

Examples: Granny Weatherwax's right leg coming out of her shoulder in Witches Abroad; Susan(?) the giraffe and Albert the human sack of pudding from Hogfather.

I mean, I know they are supposed to be cartoony, but there is a line somewhere where it stops being funny and starts being weird and creepy-looking, and Kirby passed it a long long time ago.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2009 03:56

DontMockMySmock: Aug 9, 2008; I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

shadok posted:

I noticed something on a second reading of Unseen Academicals that I skimmed past the first time through: Unseen University's policy under Ridcully on gays in the wizardry: don't ask, don't care. "People make such a fuss. Anyway, in my opinion there's not enough love in the world."

This seems to directly contradict some of the earlier material (some of the Rincewind books, Equal Rites) that says that the reason there are only male wizards is because hanky-panky leads to loss of magical performance (basically the same reason women were excluded from the armed forces for such a long time, except replace "magical performance" with "military discipline"). The logical flip-side of this is that gay wizards shouldn't be allowed either (and also logically that means now that women are allowed in the armed forces, gay guys should be too), because gay wizards also lead to hanky-panky.

But then again, Ridcully is an easy-going guy, so he probably doesn't care one way or another (and would probably welcome female wizards if any applied).

# ¿ Oct 21, 2009 03:57

DontMockMySmock: Aug 9, 2008; I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

muscles like this? posted:

Not in the whole magic sense but in the fact that it just isn't working as a school. He spent a lot of time on the fact that Ponder Stibbons is the only one (other than the Librarian and sometimes Ridcully) who has any clue what's actually going on at the school. It just seems like he's getting ready to do some housecleaning and removing some of the older characters (who don't actually even have names half the time and are just referred to as "Chair of such and such") and replacing them with characters like the exchange professor who's name escapes me at the moment.

The Chair of Indefinite Studies, the Lecturer in Recent Runes, the Senior Wrangler, the Dean, the Bursar, and the Librarian are all awesome and I would hate to see them go.

# ¿ Nov 10, 2009 06:19

DontMockMySmock: Aug 9, 2008; I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

Dead Alice posted:

Would you say it would make you go totally Bursar-poo?

way to gently caress up the joke :ughh:

it might make me go totally bursar; absolutely completely librarian-poo

# ¿ Nov 10, 2009 07:41

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# ¿ Apr 19, 2024 21:29

DontMockMySmock: Aug 9, 2008; I got this title for the dumbest fucking possible take on sea shanties. Specifically, I derailed the meme thread because sailors in the 18th century weren't woke enough for me, and you shouldn't sing sea shanties. In fact, don't have any fun ever.

inklesspen posted:

Tiffany Aching is super-awesome. (Not gonna read the Maurice book, though; I can barely stand the plots involving Gaspode.)

Gaspode was my favorite character besides Vimes for quite a while :argh:

Regardless, you should read it. It's still miles better than 99.9% of the literature out there, and if I recall correctly, Gaspode is a very small part of the plot (obviously there are other talking animals; also, I could be wrong since I haven't read it in forever and a day).

Tiffany Aching IS super-awesome.

# ¿ Jan 3, 2010 21:02

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

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