[HN Gopher] Discworld on Page and Screen, Part 1: Serious Comedy
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Discworld on Page and Screen, Part 1: Serious Comedy
Author : doppp
Score : 120 points
Date : 2022-07-22 14:33 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.filfre.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.filfre.net)
| swayvil wrote:
| I find Pratchett's incessant moralizing and judging and lame
| caricatures to be unappealing. And when you remove that meat
| what's left is an extremely conventional and mediocre skeleton.
| It's like Stephen King with the horror switched out for glitter.
| Walmart grade stuff.
|
| And all the old ladies are randy witches who ride Harleys. Ugh.
| bityard wrote:
| > And all the old ladies are randy witches
|
| No, just the one
| [deleted]
| 0x1062 wrote:
| read the room buddy
| robocat wrote:
| Note that Terry Pratchett is referred to as "Sir Pterry" in some
| circles.
|
| I watched "The Colour of Magic" the other day - unfortunately the
| book is not well represented by the movie.
| cycomanic wrote:
| I have not seen anyone mention the long earth series, a
| collaboration between Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter. It is
| based on a very interesting concept. Very different in its style
| to the discworld books, but shows off how good a writer Pratchett
| was even when straying from his usual fare.
| armenarmen wrote:
| Long Earth was a great series with the fun premise of "how's
| the world going to work in super abundance backed by a potato
| ina box"
| ben_w wrote:
| To me, Lobsang and Sister Agnes (even as they appeared in _The
| Long Cosmos_ ) felt much more _Discworld_ -y than did almost
| any part of _Raising Steam_.
|
| I have fond memories of the ascendant of the _Discworld_
| series, _Strata_ , which is IMO better than the book it's
| riffing on ( _Ringworld_ ). Likewise I enjoyed _The Dark Side
| of the Sun_ , which riffs off a different theme from _Known
| Space_ (though I don't recall any of that theme ending as a
| theme in _Discworld_ ).
|
| _Good Omens_ was also another fantastic collaboration, between
| Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.
| simonw wrote:
| If you haven't read a Discworld book I'm going to throw my vote
| behind Guards! Guards! as a great starting point.
|
| I re-read it recently and it was even better than I remember it
| being when I first read it as a teenager - I think because my
| extra life experience meant that I understood the themes of the
| novel more. Incredibly insightful social commentary.
| munk-a wrote:
| I will seconds Guards! Guards! it's what I always suggest to
| friends as a starting point and it leads more naturally into a
| coherent series as you follow Vimes and the city watch - as an
| alternative the witches are quite hilarious especially if
| you're familiar with Shakespeare (a particularly good one here
| might be Lords and Ladies). The Lipwig books are also quite
| excellent featuring a lot of most folks favorite characters but
| I think they work better if you're familiar with the setting.
|
| Lastly, I think a really good shout out is Monstrous Regiment
| which is absolutely hilarious, especially if you _don 't_ know
| the characters and just incredibly wholesome.
| its_bbq wrote:
| Monstrous Regiment was my first one! It's nice as a
| standalone book and I think really shows off the
| compassionate satire that the essay is talking about
| ErrantX wrote:
| Vimes is my favourite character arc; I don't always rate
| Guards Guards but it is essential entry to Night Watch (IMO
| one of the best books).
|
| Also a shout out for underrated options; Soul Music (great
| tag line, lovely observational comedy) and Carpe Jugulum
| (some fan favourite characters, but also one of my fav bit-
| part characters - Lacrimosa)
| simonw wrote:
| In terms of underrated options: I have a very strong
| affection for Pyramids. It's almost completely unconnected
| from the other books - it starts in Ankh Morpork but
| quickly heads out to Djelibeybi (Child of the Djel) - the
| Discworld's ancient Egypt. And it's loosely about quantum
| physics.
| nop_slide wrote:
| Pyramids is also my favorite (so far, still working
| through the series chronologically)!
|
| Without too much of a spoiler, but at the point whenever,
| uh, the physics and time gets weird, I was dying laughing
| about the interactions between the pyramid building
| brothers.
|
| I also read it during the week my son was born this year
| and generally have some really positive associations with
| it :)
| munk-a wrote:
| Another sort of weird one is Small Gods which is
| _intensely good_ and definitely very message driven.
| Small Gods, Pyramids, Soul Music and Night Watch are
| probably peak pratchett when it comes to actually being
| fantastical - a lot of his writing is very grounded but
| in those books he really leaves the beaten path to
| explore something very... odd.
| gmadsen wrote:
| good choice. My first was going postal, and is a great self
| contained book
| aspaviento wrote:
| And a great movie too. The actor who plays the role of Moist
| does a great job.
| schoenobates wrote:
| I love Guards but would also throw in Thief of Time which is a
| fabulous read
| dejv wrote:
| Guards! Guards! is great. I would also add Interesting times
| for more prototypical Discworld and also Truth is pure gold.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| Guards! Guards! is great, but the thing about Pratchett is that
| his writing got significantly better every few books until the
| very end of his life. Later entries in the series -- Night
| Watch and Thud! -- are much better.
|
| As such, I'd recommend Going Postal as the entry point for the
| uninitiated.
| contravariant wrote:
| I kind of feel that you need to read the Colour of Magic to
| get a proper introduction to the Discworld itself though
| (just ignore the story though, it's rather flimsy), but it
| might not be necessary to read it first.
| Ntrails wrote:
| I remember colour of magic being pretty hard work and not
| super fun. I was glad I made it to the later stuff that was
| far better crafted
| swyx wrote:
| i knew you had good taste :)
|
| i love Small Gods as a starter novel because it is pretty self
| contained.
| mrwh wrote:
| Small Gods is the one I managed to get signed. A bookshop in
| Dorchester, and Pratchett gave an excellent talk before. I
| say "managed to get signed", though the joke at one point was
| Pratchett signed so many books, unsigned copies were the rare
| ones.
| dspillett wrote:
| My first was Reaper Man, which isn't a bad place to start.
| Better from a context point of view to start with Mort perhaps,
| but not necessary.
|
| His take on Death often fills the role of the outsider, trying
| to understand us and by doing so exposing our oddities, much
| like Data in Trek and other such characters. Possibly that is
| why the books that feature him heavily are some of my
| favourites.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Just _DO NOT WATCH THE WATCH!_!
|
| It will leave scars...
| munk-a wrote:
| As a long time Pratchett enjoyer I thought it was pretty well
| done, it certainly wasn't a screen version of Guards! Guards!
| but it was pretty clearly inspired by it and, honestly, it
| managed to bring humor of its own right to the party.
|
| I certainly wouldn't recommend it as an introduction to
| Pratchett but it is quite Pratchett adjacent.
| aspaviento wrote:
| No, thanks. There was a reason why Pratchett described his
| characters the way he did and this show didn't respect that
| at all. This show didn't get inspired by Discworld, it just
| used some character names to get some track that it
| wouldn't get otherwise.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Fair 'nuff.
|
| _Good Omens_ was awesome, though. I was spoiled by that.
| True labor of love.
| munk-a wrote:
| If you give it another try sometime please push Jeremy
| Irons out of your head as Vetinari - Anna Chancellor is
| an absolutely amazing casting.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Yeah. That was ... _awkward_. I liked Charles Dance, and
| I love Anna Chancellor.
|
| I probably will give it another go, sometime. I like most
| of the cast.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| It's too bad Neil can't be persuaded to showrun a
| Discworld anthology series or something. The only video
| to really nail Discworld was Hogfather. (Going Postal had
| excellent casting but the script diverged way too far
| from the book.)
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Yeah. I have heard that there will be a "Season Two" of
| _Good Omens_. Apparently, Gaiman and Pratchett were
| working on a sequel, when PTerry goot too sick to
| complete it.
| anotherman554 wrote:
| That's not what happened. Gaiman and Pratchett outlined a
| sequel to the _Good Omens_ novel when they were at a
| comic book convention together in 1989, were sharing a
| room, and couldn 't sleep. Aside from that outline they
| were never working on it together as they were busy with
| their own projects. Gaiman dug up this outline and is
| turning it into a second season of the show.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Ah...that makes sense (and me, a bit sad, as I don't know
| if Gaiman will be able to do as good a job).
| mrwh wrote:
| Guards! Guards! is excellent. I'd vote for Wyrd Sisters too.
|
| Incidentally, I think the Wyrd Sisters cartoon is the most
| successful Discworld adaptation
| (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyrd_Sisters_(TV_series)). I
| must admit, I've not tried the recent series based (very
| loosely it seems) on Guards! Guards! I don't what to be That
| Fan who says they got everything wrong but...
| [deleted]
| npsomaratna wrote:
| Tried watching the recent series ("The watch"). Not
| Pratchett.
|
| I hesitate to use the word "unwatchable", but this series
| comes close. It is both an awful adaptation of the Discworld
| universe--and awful even otherwise.
| memling wrote:
| > [M]y vote behind Guards! Guards! as a great starting point.
|
| That was my introduction, when it came out, but I recommend
| _Hogfather_ to most as it captures the wide breadth of his
| writing. There 's a lot of great comedy in it, but also some
| serious and scary moments.
| SamBam wrote:
| If you have young daughters, though, the Tiffany Aching books
| are a great place to start.
| bgribble wrote:
| I've read the Tiffany Aching books aloud to both my daughter
| and my son and they both loved them.
|
| Partly (mostly?) for the spectacle of me trying to read a Nac
| Mac Feegle accent :)
|
| FWIW I only recently learned that "crivens" is maybe a real
| expression, a much-shortened form of "Christ defend us". In
| the same way as "God blind me" reduces to "blimey"...
| SamBam wrote:
| The kids similarly love my Nac Mac Feegle accent. They can
| blame me for their terrible imitation of a Scottish accent
| when they're adults.
| Avicebron wrote:
| I would recommend any Discworld book wholeheartedly, anything
| with Rincewind is hilarious (The last continent is a favorite
| of mine), also I think Moving Pictures is pretty interesting
| commentary on modern entertainment. I read them all over a
| decade ago and some of the lines I remember still make me
| chuckle. EDIT: Also the movie(s) Going Postal are great..."The
| Smoking Gnu" :)
| NineStarPoint wrote:
| The main problem with Rincewind is that the entry point for
| his story is The Color of Magic+The Light Fantastic, which as
| the first two Discworld novels are much weaker than later
| books in the series. Guards Guards is just a much better
| first book to read, that or Equal Rites is more
| representative of the quality Discworld would come to have.
|
| Then again my first Discworld novel was Making Money and I
| loved it even without context (and the "Industrial
| Revolution" sub-series starting with moving pictures remains
| my favorite to this day), so you could probably just start at
| Sourcery and go from there anyway.
| giobox wrote:
| Completely agree on this point. The first two Discworld
| novels, while still hilarious, take being a high fantasy
| story much more seriously than the later stories do. I'd go
| as far as to argue Pratchett still hadn't found the
| "discworld voice" in those first two books.
| rjbwork wrote:
| Moving Pictures is probably my favorite Discworld novel. Even
| without considering any of the subtext and commentary it's
| just so funny.
| [deleted]
| jerrysievert wrote:
| before his untimely death, he collaborated with Stephen Baxter
| for an amazing series of 5 books exploring parallel earths.
| definitely worth a read if you want something just a little bit
| different from an amazing writer.
| schoenobates wrote:
| The Long Earth series is fantastic. I'm not a huge fan of
| Baxter's work but these books are among my fave scifi reads.
| travisgriggs wrote:
| Interesting. I did not care for the Long Earth series. But...
| I could always tell when Pratchett took over the dialog, and
| loved those points.
| h2odragon wrote:
| A friend loaned me their complete set of Discworld books at about
| the time "Mort" came out; they didn't re-print the USA Roc
| editions of the earlier titles until "Guards, Guards" got popular
| and there was a while there where they were quite valuable and
| hard to find.
|
| Pterry's Usenet presence was a large factor in the popularity
| explosion; I recall returning the favor of loaned book with
| printouts of the alt.fan.pratchett FAQ.
| ErrantX wrote:
| If you are a discworld fan it's worth reading Strata, one of his
| earliest works.
|
| This is set in a disc shaped world as well and you can see the
| early shape of the discworld concept (the world but also the
| style of the books). It's like seeing him work out his voice.
|
| I love discworld a lot. But Good Omens is, for me, the essence of
| the craft of dark humourist fantasy. So many observations on
| humanity.
| v-erne wrote:
| Strata was first Sir Terry book for me - I read it when I was
| teenager and was reading science fiction only. Imagine my
| suprise reading Colour of magic next, having strata in back of
| my head, waiting for the damn space ships to appear.
|
| And they never did, not in a single discworld book I have read
| later in my life (dark side of moon aside coz its not part of
| the series).
|
| Anyways ... I also recommend strata - the ideas on this book
| are so vivid and clever that they stay with You for the rest of
| your life (mechanical deamon with small wings using super fast
| teleportation as a way to implement flight always comes to my
| mind whenever I hack a solution with unexpected tools)
| egypturnash wrote:
| It is hilarious how much Strata owes to Niven's "Ringworld", if
| you have read that as well. It goes to its own places in the
| end but it sure does spend a lot of time as a direct parody of
| that book.
| ErrantX wrote:
| Absolutely; Pratchett always described it as a direct
| "pisstake" of Ringworld (and Niven was a fan)
| shaftoe444 wrote:
| I was lucky enough to visit a Pratchett exhibition at the
| Salisbury museum, near where he lived for most of his adult life.
| It had a bunch of his books, papers, things from his life, even
| his desk with six monitor set-up, one of which was playing Doom
| on loop!
|
| His deep love of the people of the landscape and people of
| Wiltshire and the surroundings, most obvious in the later Tiffany
| Aching books, was huge for me as a teenager growing up in this
| area. Articulated how I feel about my home better than I ever
| could.
|
| edit: This was the exhibition
| https://salisburymuseum.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/terry-pr...
| totalperspectiv wrote:
| Does anyone know where to find the 1978 column Pratchett wrote
| about Star Wars? It's referenced in the article but I don't see a
| source and would love to read it.
| probably_wrong wrote:
| The only other information I found was that it was published in
| the Bath Chronicle.
|
| If you have access to their archive, that will narrow it down
| to "only" 365 issues.
| pmyteh wrote:
| I've had a look to see what's in the Bodleian and the British
| Library from there, but it doesn't look like 1978 is online.
| Post-1998 is on LexisNexis, and the BL's (paid) online
| service has up to 1950, but there's a gap in the middle. You
| could almost certainly go and read it in the BL reading room
| in London, though: their print/microfilm coverage of British
| newspapers is very good.
| weeblewobble wrote:
| I found a little more info about it but unfortunately no copy:
|
| "'SO, BANG GOES THE PERSONAL TOUCH', Bath & West Evening
| Chronicle, 22 April 1978, p. 10. This is TP's 'Star Wars' piece
| that he tended to mention when talking of his years at the
| Chronicle, but I could not track it down when I searched the
| issues in the British Newspaper Library in Colindale, North
| London (now closed and moved to the town of Boston Spa).
| Perhaps it was in an issue missing from their collection, or I
| was looking in the wrong issues. Star Wars was released in
| London in December 1977, but only reached Bath the following
| April. Discovered by David Moger, to whom my thanks. CS"
| chrisma0 wrote:
| > "At least you can say that in Pratchett's books, the bloody
| elves never sang!"
|
| Terry Pratchett I think is one of my favourite writers to read.
| The absurdity of his fantasy settings is just the right level of
| entertaining for me. Everything flows so smoothly that I
| sometimes get the subtle jokes only on my second read-through.
| bombcar wrote:
| There are many _many_ jokes that are so obscure as to be almost
| impossible for non-British readers to discover. A trip through
| the l-space wiki will point out many (and there's some I've
| noticed that aren't listed there).
|
| Anytime something is named, it's probably a joke or reference
| of some sort.
|
| It's also quite fun how many of the "inpossible" setups or
| situations are just literally copies of real-life stories.
| Swizec wrote:
| For a modern and non-British take on this genre I would
| strongly recommend The Tales of Pell by Kevin Hearne and
| Delilah S. Dawson, if anyone's looking. It's got that same
| vibe of absurdist humor with real life references in a
| fantasy setting. The politics are less about class and more
| about identity.
| chrisma0 wrote:
| Hey, thanks for the recommendations! These sound great.
| dstick wrote:
| Ok let me geek out a little. Terry Pratchett was a god among man.
| A truly special human being whose works are on par with the likes
| of Shakespeare and Wagner in describing and exploring human
| nature.
|
| He's well known for his fantasy novels, but he was also a
| humanist and an advocate for the right to die. Here's a great
| documentary by him, on that subject:
|
| https://vimeo.com/229120539
|
| GNU Terry!
|
| On a more Hackernews note, there's a special HTTP response header
| that is secretly used worldwide to honor Terry. X-Clacks-
| Overhead. A reference to the books in which it is said that a
| person never dies as long as his name is sent over Clacks (the
| Discworld internet / telegram).
|
| There are lots of big sites doing it, because some developer
| snuck it in: https://webtechsurvey.com/response-header/x-clacks-
| overhead
|
| Mozilla, Debian, XML, Python, VLC - it's heartwarming.
| hyperman1 wrote:
| It's the first time I see other names than Terry's in that
| header. But it makes sense, of course.
| travisgriggs wrote:
| Thank you for sharing this. Going Postal was my first Pratchett
| book. I did not know about this X-Clacks-Overhead. This has
| made my day, and nearly brought tears to my eyes.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| If you've never read any Pratchett and want to try it out, rather
| than read one of the many Discworld novels, or any of his sci-fi,
| or the Bromeliad or Johnny Maxwell trilogies, I'd instead
| recommend the stand-alone novel Nation. It is my opinion that it
| is the most concise demonstration of everything great about
| Pratchett's writing.
| cycomanic wrote:
| While I really liked Nation, I don't think it represents the
| random laugh/giggle on the train type humour that is so common
| in the discworld novels. For me the humour is a bit more subtle
| in Nation.
| bityard wrote:
| I'm about a little more than halfway through it right now and
| already it's one of the most beautiful works I've ever read.
| escapologybb wrote:
| I absolutely loved Terry Pratchett Discworld, make me laugh at
| some real bad times in my life.
|
| I'm currently listening to thief of time which is weirdly good,
| didn't like it at first but it really is good. That and the last
| continent.
|
| Obviously this is all secondary to the Night Watch, Sam Vimes is
| definitely on Hacker News somewhere, right? :-)
| ryandvm wrote:
| One thing that surprises me whenever Discworld comes up is that
| nobody ever mentions Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents. I
| get that it doesn't really tie into any of the other story arcs,
| but it is indeed a Discworld book (the 28th). It's also one of
| the few that was intentionally written for children.
|
| I read it with my 11 year old daughter and was expecting it to be
| fairly ho hum, but was absolutely blown away by the story and the
| satire.
|
| Not only do I highly, highly recommend it for reading with
| children, it's absolutely a great read for adults.
| thallian wrote:
| I quite love that story and at least my age says I am an adult.
| Very recently I wrote a short (~320 words) review of it in
| preparation for my English C2 exam and it even was fun to write
| about it :)
| dpeck wrote:
| I agree. I'm a big fan of the DEATH story arc, but outside of
| Mort and Reaper Man, Amazing Maurice might be my favorite book
| in the series. So very well written and felt like Pratchett was
| at his best.
| gonesilent wrote:
| good bbc show with Terry Pratchett on the right to pick when to
| exit this world.
| Decabytes wrote:
| Equal Rites was my first Terry Pratchett book after not reading
| any since middle school. It was great and I laughed a lot while
| reading it
| owlninja wrote:
| As a kid I somehow stumbled into Discworld first by playing the
| point-and-click PC game where Rincewind was voiced by Eric Idle
| (probably after much fumbling through soundcards settings). This
| is how I discovered the book series and have been a fan ever
| since. Such amazing books on so many levels!
| chamakits wrote:
| "Did anyone get the number of that donkey cart?"
|
| Same for me! Except I played it on PS1. I didn't find out about
| the book series until like 10 years after. For better or for
| worse I now have a picture in my brain for Rincewind,
| Twoflower, and The Luggage purely based on the game. But still
| love it.
| owlninja wrote:
| Same! For better or worse the image of the characters from
| those games are etched in my mind when reading through the
| relevant books.
| robswc wrote:
| I usually don't read a lot of fiction but absolutely make the
| exception for Terry Pratchett!
| bombcar wrote:
| In a way he's like Weird Al - technically Al is a parody artist
| but he had an excellent mastery of many, many styles of music.
|
| Similarly Pratchett is technically a fantasy author but some of
| his books are actually crime/detective novels, sci-fi, even
| romance.
|
| Many people who say "I only read fantasy" are quite surprised
| when you point out many of the Guard books are just straight
| detective stories; similar to how many people are shocked to
| realize that Blues Brothers, is at heart, a musical.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I recommend his _The Bromeliad Trilogy_.
|
| https://www.terrypratchettbooks.com/books/the-bromeliad/
|
| Cool alternate way of looking at the world.
| robswc wrote:
| Great point!
|
| That's exactly one of the reasons I love the books. They seem
| to be able to wrap up a ton of concepts/stories I like in a
| way that preserves the quality and to top it off, incredibly
| fun to read.
| winReInstall wrote:
| Some of the books also ventured pretty close to darkness,
| Night Watch had humorist tracesd, but mostly it was a
| timejump back into a bleak, darker past.
| aspaviento wrote:
| One thing I love about Discworld is how it evolved between
| novels. Each of them added a piece to its history and you could
| see how the events of one book affected the lifestyle of the
| citizens of Ank-Morpork in others.
| travisgriggs wrote:
| I love Terry Pratchett. I have read (and reread and reread)
| nearly everything he has written. His early works were more
| monty-pythonesque than his later ones (less plot, more random
| hillarity). I advise against a "let's start from the beginning
| and read to the end" strategy where Color of Magic or the Light
| Fantistic were your starters.
|
| Pratchett is a superb satirist (Vonnegut is the only equal I have
| discovered). His dialog is great. There are so many chuckle
| worthy moments. And then there are just really deep profound
| moments as well. You can read them in any order. There are
| reappearing characters, but each book stands on its own. They
| focus more on immediate content than overall plot arcs. The more
| you soak yourself in discworld in general, in any order, the
| funnier and more rewarding it all gets.
|
| The book that has the most cross over with the reasons we all
| post to HN is probably Going Postal, because it satirizes the
| world of information dispersal. Who owns the content? Who gets to
| be the gatekeepers, etc.
|
| If you like Monty Python style humor, you'll probably enjoy those
| that have Rincewind and/or the Unseen University the most.
|
| I love any of the books with Death in it (Hogfather, Reaper Man,
| Mort, Soul Music, Thief of Time).
|
| My son loved all of the Sam Vimes books. If you love
| police/detective stuff, this is for you.
|
| If you want a little more plot, the Tiffany Aching series has
| that. Read all of these aloud (multiple times) to all of 3 of my
| girls.
|
| I don't even know how best to introduce/characterize/promote The
| Witches (Weatherwax, Ogg, et al). If you value common sense and
| wish there were more of it in the world?
|
| If you couldn't be bothered to read, then watch the BBC mini
| series "Good Omens", it's on Prime. It's derived from a book of
| the same name written by Pratchett and Gaiman (though I think
| Terry did most of it, since it feels much more Pratchett than
| Gaiman to me). And they did a superb job of adapting and staying
| true to the book.
| cycomanic wrote:
| > If you couldn't be bothered to read, then watch the BBC mini
| series "Good Omens", it's on Prime. It's derived from a book of
| the same name written by Pratchett and Gaiman (though I think
| Terry did most of it, since it feels much more Pratchett than
| Gaiman to me). And they did a superb job of adapting and
| staying true to the book.
|
| I'm not sure I agree. I find the book definitely has a clear
| signature of both authors, which makes it so great. I love
| Pratchett and some of Gaiman works are absolutely genius
| (although I find that unlike Pratchett reading a book from him
| is not guaranteed to appeal to me, even for his popular books),
| so this combination is just a dream team, the only way it could
| be topped is if their story was published in an anthology
| edited by George RR Martin).
| martsa1 wrote:
| I absolutely adore the discworld books. I've reread many of them
| several times over the years, they are without doubt a
| significant contributor to both my world view, and my vocabulary.
| I can't wait to raise my children with them.
|
| I typically recommend either Small Gods, Wyrd Sisters, Pyramids
| or Mort as an entry into the discworld. There are so many good
| start points though.
|
| I can never decide whether to recommend reading a specific
| character arc, or to read them in publishing or chronological
| order. I've enjoyed re-reading character arcs a lot though.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| > When you combined the sales of all of his novels together, he
| became simply the most popular single British author of the 1990s
|
| I'm honestly surprised that Pratchett's ~20 novels beat the three
| Harry Potter books released in the 90's. That may be because I'm
| an American though, and while I knew one guy that had read some
| Pratchett in school seemingly everyone had read Harry Potter.
| ErrantX wrote:
| I mean clearly HP craze has smashed Discworld in the end. But
| the first three HP books were released in the late 90s, whereas
| Pratchett wrote 16 novels through the decade (and something
| like 5-6 in the 80s). So he had volume on his side.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| While he did, Harry Potter books are huge. Looking at the
| best selling books article on Wikipedia, all of the Discworld
| books sold 90 million total copies, the first Harry Potter
| sold 120 million. So I'm guessing that claim is only for
| books sold during the 90's, but Rowling sold far more copies
| of books published in the 90's
| ErrantX wrote:
| Yes I agree that is how it is being claimed.
|
| Interestingly; the first HP book was published in 1997 but
| the print run was only 500. The book wasn't published in
| the US till late 1998 and by that point hadn't even sold
| half a million copies.
|
| I believe it kind of blew up in sales through 1999 but the
| UK -> US lag meant most of the sales were in the 2000s.
| bambataa wrote:
| Discworld was a real joy of mine in my early teens. I think some
| of my early computing forays including a Discworld mailing list I
| found on a webring via Yahoo or somewhere. I had the Discworld
| official map on my wall and used to love getting the editions
| printed as tiny hardbacks.
|
| Probably my favourite sub-series was the Witches and Nanny Ogg.
| As I caught up to the newer books I found myself enjoying them
| less because it felt like there was more and more philosophising.
| Probably what happened was that they got a bit more sophisticated
| and I was too immature to understand many of the themes and
| allusions.
|
| Time to start working through them all then! I recently reread
| Colour of Magic and it was enjoyable but also clearly had far too
| much going on.
|
| Either Pyramids or Moving Pictures was the only one that I really
| struggled to enjoy for some reason.
| dcminter wrote:
| > it felt like there was more and more philosophising
|
| If you're referring to the much-later books like Unseen
| Academicals, then sadly I think Terry's alzheimers affliction
| was probably to blame. As I understand it he reached a point
| where he was no longer able to type, but could still dictate.
| Certainly somewhere in that process they lost the tautness of
| the earlier works. Something to enjoy still (for me) but not
| quite the glittering jewels of his intellectual peak.
| bambataa wrote:
| Yes, from Making Money onwards I think. I haven't actually
| read the most recent few because of that. It's a shame to
| hear that but still, what a body of work to leave.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I believe that Sir Terry was probably one of the greatest humans
| to walk the Earth. Not only was his work wonderful, but he was a
| really decent chap, as well.
|
| Humble, well-educated, polite, honest, and, from everything I've
| heard, a joy to work with.
| v-erne wrote:
| I had been to two book signings of his and had a chanse to
| listen to him answering q&a session, reading his book and
| telling some stories (and even talk for a brief moment when my
| friends from local fun club tried to ask him for interview). I
| must say that he seemd to be everything You are saying he was
| and more (the way he declined my friends was so humble and
| honest that You could feel that he genuinly felt sorry that he
| did not have more time for them).
|
| I also saw his awesome ring with death on it. Im not much into
| mens jewelery but this things was honestly amezing (speaking as
| a discworld fun of course)
| micheljansen wrote:
| I recently started reading Discworld after many years of thinking
| I would not like it - I honestly don't know why!
|
| The humour is great and it has way more fun with itself than I
| expected. If like me you have been putting off after ignoring
| many recommendations: just give it a try!
| dcminter wrote:
| As there won't be any more coming (alas! alas!) I rather envy
| you the prospect of as-yet-unread Pratchett novels to come.
| Savour them; a first-read is always special. Happily for me
| they bear much repeated re-reading.
| micheljansen wrote:
| Thanks! It feels like how I imagine someone just discovering
| Breaking Bad must feel. It's sad that I never appreciated
| Terry Pratchett's work during his lifetime. At least we can
| be thankful he produced a lot of work!
| dstick wrote:
| Discworld MUD plug
|
| http://discworld.starturtle.net/lpc/
| veddox wrote:
| Loved playing this for several years, an absolutely mindblowing
| game with a great (if rather small) community! Eventually had
| to stop because I just didn't have the time to play regularly
| anymore, but I still miss this world...
| ycombinete wrote:
| Man I keep starting that, but get stuck trying to do basic
| stuff like open a cupboard. Can you suggest a good intro?
| dcminter wrote:
| If you're not aware of it, the Annotated Pratchett File1 is a joy
| for the dedicated Pratchett reader. It collates explanations and
| observations on the many, many well-layered jokes in his works. I
| read a lot and felt like I was getting some pretty obscure jokes,
| but the APF opened my eyes to historical and cultural allusions
| that had whooshed en masse over my head! I'm in awe at Terry's
| erudition. I wish he was still around writing for us :'(
|
| 1https://www.lspace.org/books/apf/
| rawoke083600 wrote:
| Man I love Terry Pratchett's books ! It next to Asimov and Conan
| Doyle are my absolute goto for pure joy in literature.
|
| Also it just hit me ! Captain Vimes and Ronald Swanson (Parks
| &Rect ) They from the same cloth :)
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