The last few weeks, my reading has been monopolized by the mind of Terry Pratchett. I have been sucked into the Discworld, and I am just fine with that. I sought out experts on which order to read the books, since there is no one straight linear way to read the books.
I read the entire sequence centered on Death (and his extended family) first, since my introduction to the world of the Disc was the movie version of _Hogfather_.
I bought the first one, _Mort_, just to see if I would like it. I liked it well enough; I bought the next two books in the series on the Death story-arc. A quarter of the way through the second book, I bought the final two books of the arc.
I neared the end of one of those books and I bought the first three books from the "Guards" story-arc. At this point, I have only read one of those books, the first _Guards, Guards_. I was pleased, since I have to admit that I was a bit worried about the continuity of quality between story-arcs. Was I just interested in the character of Death, or did I like the world as a whole?
It turns out that I like the world as a whole, and this is a huge strength of Pratchett. I want to learn about all the inhabitants and read all the stories, no matter how tangential. I don't usually keep many books in my wish list, but it is now filled up with Discworld books. He builds a world like Vonnegut did. There are many familiar elements of the world we inhabit but there is the magic element that rips from genre fiction: what Vonnegut did with science-fiction, Pratchett does with fantasy elements.
There are a couple of things about the series generally that I really enjoyed. The first is what you try to develop as a writer, a unique voice. I've been struggling on finding the right word to really describe what I would characterize as Pratchett's voice. It is arch and tongue-in-cheek and just fun if you've read enough. He's a post-modern Tolkien, but that's a little off.
Secondly, he is funny, and he's not afraid to go for the easy joke. There are puns-galore, if you like that sort of thing. I happen to. There is one very memorable one that he just sort of sneaks in during _Soul Music_. He takes the reader 90% of the way to the pay-off but allows the slow dawning to set on the reader, so that a bad pun feels like it was done masterfully. Which it is, it really is.
If I had to make a critique of the books in the series that I have read so far is that I have read them too fast. My wife often tells me to slow down and enjoy the books you like, but I seldom listen to her. I should have here. There have been a couple of times that I enjoying the ride so much, I didn't even bother to remember what I had just read. I had to go and reread the last 50 pages of _Guards, Guards_ because of this. I enjoyed it too much.
Otherwise, this is an unqualified recommendation for the Discworld books. Spend some time there, you won't regret it.
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Bikkit!
This was certainly an interesting one. The Auditors are once again trying to rid the universe of life.As such, Susan is featured heavily in this one and, as with The Hogfather, I very much enjoyed her "at the end of the day, someone's got to tip the wee out of the shoes" attitude to life. Not sure if I'd have wanted her as my teacher though.Having loved Small Gods, I was overjoyed to find the history monks are involved, particularly Lu Tze. He was quite the character and had me snickering like a hyena for ages while reading. And I'll certainly remember Rule One as I'm no doubt sure many of Discworld's characters wished they had. Especially the Auditors. And Lobsang. Poor Lobsang, always forgetting Rule One. ^_^The one blemish in this otherwise excellent read? I wasn't a fan of Jeremy, he was a little too ... odd for my liking and some of the beginning scenes with him are equally out of whack. But then again, Jeremy wasn't a fan of Jeremy either.
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Douglas Evans.
More fun in a strange world.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 15, 2023Hema s.
Good
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Even though there are some minor damage it's not a big deal to me. Text is big enough to read
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