An Improper Discworld Thread

Can't have a proper thread about Terry Pratchett's Discworld, now, can we?

I have to do this, it's my proper job, can't you see?

So Mom's dying from dementia, I'm cleaning out the library she bought, giving away, throwing away, whatever I can do to clean out the house. Still got three thousand or so. Hmmmm.

Ok, that's the back story. Thing is, I couldn't part with them all and TP's discworld is one of them. I only had to buy three to finish out the proper series and three for the Tiffany Aching books, which I'm going through right now. Book two, A Hat Full Of Sky.

This is going to be a long winded thread, I'm going through the whole series once I finish the Aching books. Then packing them up but this series for me has to be revisited. It's too good, it makes so much fun of our world and it's nonsense. Maybe, after some twenty years or so since I started reading the Discworld, I'll learn even new things from it. I've found I understand British humor and language a lot more since then so who knows how I'll perceive it a second time around.

I get where he was going with Snuff and Raising Steam but they were sad to read, knowing he was dying while he wrote them. I get his POV, inclusion and all that, but damn, they were tough reads.

Text

And how can I stop thinking? And thinking about thinking? And even thinking about thinking of thinking?

Cloggetts are a trembling of the greebs in hoggets which can lead to inflammation of the lower pasks. If untreated, it may lead to the more serious condition of Sloke. Recommended treatment is the daily dosing of turpentine until there is no longer either trembling, or turpentine, or sheep

You just don't get that serious a laydown as that in most books. One must know your sheep if you are to survive.

a reply to: TheSpanishArcher

Terry Pratchett had a fantastic sense of humour in his book's, he used to work at Sellafield nuclear power station (Sellafield was once known as Windscale and it was the British Chernobyl were we had a meltdown - though they claimed it was just a fire - back in the fifties) as an engineer and the magic in the book is kind of a joke on that just as his disc world was on a Pizza, his characters being a parody's of people such as the guy with the luggage being an Asian from the counter balance continent (well if England was a continent and Japan was a continent with the OLD world in between them?).

Only read some and a long time ago but loved it.

If an adult reads them and know the time in which they were written they will see all manner of hidden comedy that relates to the real world as well as his love of fantasy.


Sadly Mr Pratchett passed away at the young age of just 66, he had early Alzheimer's and had been considering assisted suicide in Switzerland but in the event died of what are claimed to be natural causes in his own home.

Personally I hope he is alive on the OTHER side of life and feeling rather foolish about that now, shame to lose a great author like that who brought a good laugh and some real escapism to many readers around the world.

Even non readers got into his book's, they were short yet deep and full of character and humour.

a reply to: TheSpanishArcher
The Discworld series is brilliant. I cannot pick a favourite. I've read each one multiple times.

a reply to: TheSpanishArcher

You cannot go bad by hanging on to Terry Pratchett. Who knows about the cost, but the wisdom will always be invaluable.
I know I do not have the full library, but between my wife and I, we do have the majority of titles. Some of his older works (Strata, The Carpet people) have bad bindings and have become loose leaf. I will look to replace them when my kids respect books.

Not read them all, not even close but enjoyed those I have. A brilliant writer and I will revisit bioks and read thoeae I haven't over time.

I love these books. Masquerade was great !

I love the Discworld series, and I'm finally getting back on track of finishing it. I've only made it to Equal Rites, but he had me hooked when he described Ankh-Morpork and "reflected sound as of underground spirits" It took me a while, begrudgingly, to figure out how echo correlated with gnomes lmao.

I love how he plays with words and he is WAY more classy than Piers Anthony. I would not blame you one bit for throwing out any Xanth books.

Speaking of which, if you find any books in the Spellsinger series by Alan Dean Foster hold on them. I remember they were quite entertaining, but I've only read Season of the Spellsong which is a trilogy collection of the first three books.

If you like puns and surreal, trippy induced adventures of a pothead musician/law student who gets too high and finds himself in a world of talking animals and being able to cast magic by playing tunes from Jimi Hendrix and AC/DC then you may find yourself getting a kick out of those books.

SQUEEEEK ! “People who didn't need people needed people around to know that they were the kind of people who didn't need people.”

a reply to: AutomateThis1

Wow! I didn't mention Piers Anthony but you did. Cool. I did keep the Blue Adept series and I stole from her many years ago Bio Of A Space Tyrant. Thought of keeping the Immortality series but I've got enough. There's too many Xanth novelsand Mom didn't have half of them. That was too many books to buy to fill out the series and I've found Anthony got rather sappy over the years anyway.

The first ten or so Xanth books were excellent and his use of pun in Eye Queue was one of the funniest things I've ever read.

ADF, there were some here, I'll have to see if my friend took them, he took about eight large plastic containers of books so I don't remember every one he took. I'll see if that series is there. I never read ADF much and there were only a handful of his here anyway.

To everyone else up there, nice to see ya, thanks for the posts. Below Automates post is one of the animated movies done for the Discworld. Haven't seen that one but I think it was Equal Rites I watched. Thought it was ok but didn't really pack the punch of the novel. Love the Death of Rats, he made an appearance in The Amazing Maurice And His Educated Rodents which was quite fun. Of course, it makes it better when Death is also there and a cat has nine lives, so there ya go.

Reading the Tiffany books with the Nac Mac Feegle every time one of them speaks, I hear Mike Meyers in my head. Be cool to hear him do some voices if these ever get to film.

a reply to: TheSpanishArcher

Oh, well the Xanth series isn't bad per se... but they are kind of cringey in my opinion. It's not hard to see why he's been accused of being a pedophile.

As long as you stay away from his two books Pornucopia! and the sequel The Magic Fart you'll be better off. I mean read them if you want, but you may probably will find yourself thinking "WTF?"

Also Alan Dean Foster wrote several Star Wars books and was a ghost writer for George Lucas. He also wrote several other works involving Alien, Terminator, and Star Trek.

a reply to: LABTECH767

Sadly Mr Pratchett passed away at the young age of just 66

Well, hopefully DEATH treated him well. DEATH has always been a kinda kind dude so lets hope for the best.

a reply to: randomtangentsrme

a reply to: bluemooone2

a reply to: AutomateThis1

Figured I'd bring a few of you'se guys along as I told this was going to be long and involved so I do need some help. I usually am too lazy to get back to most my my threads but this one is special. A sort of tribute to Mom who made me grow up in a library and her mush mind nowadays.

I did take a break for the first couple rounds of the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs but I'm back with, hopefully a vengeance. It's hard dealing with Mom and her confetti mind, but I'm trying to figure out where to live in a couple, more or less, trying to clear out this house so it can be sold.....

It's a bunch of spit but I'll be damned if life is gonna keep me from reading all these books again. You guys are gonna take the journey with me, FWIW.

I don't know if any of you have read the Tiffany Aching books, the next one and last, is also Pratchett's last one and it's damned sad to read that but I can go back and re-read all the old books, again, with a older and hopefully, wiser mind. I get that feeling again from the books as it's been years and I have forgotten a lot of what was written. Silver linings and all that spit.

I tell ya'all this, she's a better witch at almost sixteen than Granny Weatherwax. She learned from them, and others like Miss Tick(lol) and is clearly surpassing them with her pointy hat. Well, all witches have pointy hats, but some wear it better than others.

Oh, forgot the quote(s). The first setup is, the cat is not happy.

"Tiffany looked at the ceiling. The cat was holding onto it by all four paws. It gave her what was definitely a look. Even a witch can be out-looked by a cat that has had it up to here and is still up here".

Or, "Feegles were probably better than snakes, but that's only a guess". "Feegles tended to bounce when they hit the ground, although sometimes they damaged it a little".

"A message from the author. Not all cauldrons are metal. You can boil water in a leather cauldron, if you know what you are doing. You can even make tea in a paper bag if you are careful and know how to do it. But please don't, or if you do, don't tell anyone I told you". William Glottal Carpetlayer, who has no one in his family who ever laid carpet.

"You couldn't buy it, you couldn't sell it, but you could give it away and still keep it, and even if it had been made of lead, it would have been worth it's weight in gold". Words of wisdom.

Until next time.

Finally finished I Shall Wear Midnight and still loving the Tiffany Aching series. She's such a great character and I so dig her stories, of which she's a really good ender of stories, or so Granny Weatherwax tells her.

So, I've moved on to the last Discworld book, The Shepherd's Crown and am in deep mourning. He killed off one of his greatest characters, ......, and I can't but think his own mortality was coming then wrote that into his last stories. His meeting with DEATH was coming soon, he knew it and wrote what he knew.

I'm early on in the book but it seems to be a fitting farewell to a great author, from him to us; his last gift to us all. I know I get to revisit the whole Discworld series after this but damn, this is really emotional. I'm having a hard time picking up the book. This one is going to hurt badly, I can see.