Reading Discworld!

[Wraith]

While on the subject of best/favourite books, I'm curious as to what everyone has as their favourite stories by "plot line", just to see if mine match up. They are...

Watchmen: Night Watch
Rincewind/Wizards: Interesting Times
Death/Susan: Hogfather
The Witches: Maskerade
Moist: Going Postal
One-offs: A tough choice, but probably.... The Truth

Anyone else, or am I just 'wrong'?

[Eldan]

Hm..

Witches: Lords and Ladies
Watch: Night Watch
Moist: Going Postal
Death: Hogfather
Rincewind: Does Last Hero count? Otherwise, Sourcery
One-off: Hrng. Too hard. The Truth, Monstrous Regiment...

[Calemyr]

Watchmen: Night Watch (I mean, seriously...)
Witches: Carpe Jugulum (Mainly for Granny and Oates. The story is better in Lords and Ladies, but I love Granny and Oates in Carpe Jugulum.)
Moist: Going Postal (Making Money follows too many of the same beats.)
Death & Susan: Thief of Time (Worth it for the Riding of the Five alone.)
Rincewind & the Wizards: Interesting Times (A wonderful return to Color of Magic.)
One-Offs: Small Gods (Interesting take on religion, with a lot of awesome scenes and lines. "Is 'one' more or less than 'fifty'?" "They are the same!")

Hogfather definitely deserves a mention though. It reminded me of a story Pratchett told at one point. He got a letter from a terminally ill fan who stated that they only hoped the real Grim Reaper was as good a guy as Pratchett's version. He then added that letters like that tend to leave him staring blankly at a wall for some time.

[Bohandas]

Does Thief of Time count as Death/Susan or one-off?

[Calemyr]

Does Thief of Time count as Death/Susan or one-off?

I'd say it has to be a Death/Susan book. It has both of them as focal characters, the Auditors, and a mythic focus, the hallmarks of a Death/Susan book.

No Albert, but we get Lu-Tze, and that's a fair trade. Pairing Susan and Lu-Tze together is just... so wonderful. The playful but wizened old sage clashing with the no-nonsense teacher that sees right through him*. Lu-Tze gets more focus here than any other book he shows up in, but he's still not carrying the story. He's one third of the narrative, and even then he's playing opaque support to someone else.

* I don't think Lu-Tze is ever shown to be intimidated by anything until he met Susan. End of the world? Not even on his top ten list of apocalypses. Forgotten Ancient Embodiments of Fear? Meh. If they can talk, they can be persuaded. Susan? Holy crap, just talking to her makes me feel like I got caught misbehaving! I never get caught.

[Cozzer]

My favorite Witches Abroad moment is

Spoiler

Show

"See, when Granny uses words like 'nobody' or 'everybody', she always means 'except me, of course'. That's what being a witch is". That just explains so well everything Granny is.

About favorite books...
Watchmen: Men at Arms (Carrot is my favorite Discworld character, honorable mention to The Fifth Elephant)
Witches: Lords and Ladies
Rincewind & the Wizards: Interesting Times (Rincewind actually has a character arc and development, while still being Rincewind)
Tiffany series: The wee free men
One-Offs: Small Gods, with The amazing Maurice and his educated rodents as a close second.

[Mightymosy]

I'm spoiled for choice as to which moment that is:

Spoiler: Great Moments in Witches Abroad

Show

* I want an alligator sandwich and make it snappy.
* Nanny and her new friend comparing familiars.
* Saturday going all out.
* Fun tricks with Voodoo and Headology.
* Finding the real you. (Right here. Duh.)
* Nanny and the Errant Farmhouse.
* Puss in Boots, the Mature Edition.
* Magrat and the Snakes.
* Nanny's letters home.
* Cripple Mister Onion.
* A Cameo by Gollum.
* The raw and repeated jabs at popular fairy tales.
* Genua represented as a two layer cross between Disney World and New Orleans.

Man, that was a great book. Still rank it under Lords and Ladies and Carpe Jugulum, but it's a rapid fire blast of great moments.

#5. Easily one of the best kickass character driven victories with a nice dose of "in your face" for the behavior that is parodied (in the opponent)

[RossN]

• Watchmen: Guards! Guards! (Runner up: Night Watch)
• Rincewind/Wizards: Interesting Times (Runner up: The Light Fantastic or possibly Moving Pictures if it 'counts' as a Wizard book rather than a stand alone.)
• Death/Susan: Reaper Man (Runner up: Mort. I'm not a big fan of Susan unfortunately; I find her personality a bit grating. Still of the Susan books probably Thief of Time.)
• The Witches: Lords and Ladies (Runner up: Carpe Jugulum)
• Moist: Going Postal (Runner up: Making Money by default. Moist is another character I'm just not a fan of and like Susan he came along during the industrial revolution stage of the Disc which as I've said before I was never happy with.)
• One-offs: Small Gods by a mile; not that the other one of books aren't good but Small Gods is maybe the best book in the whole run. (Runner up: The Last Hero or Moving Pictures - though again that might count as a 'Wizard' book.)

[Kato]

It's nice to watch someone discover the series and share their impressions. I'll be sure to keep an eye on this.

It's been a while since I read EQ and I will admit to not remembering terribly much of it but I also don't remember anything that makes me think it's one of the weaker ones. IIRC I've heard it was one of his first big successes (in part because apparently women's rights activists praised it assuming Terry was a lady's name)

Also, while I'm terrible at picking favorites but I feel like this is as good a time as any..

Watchmen: Night Watch (I mean, seriously...)

"Seriously" what? Yes, everybody and their mother loves NW and puts it on the top of Discworld canon and I don't get it. I feel it's severely overrated. Which is in no way saying it's a bad book, but I fail to grasp why it seems to stand out to so many. Yes, it has a lot of good parts in it, but even just among the Guard books I'd rate books like Jingo, MaA or even Thud above it. And in the whole series it would be placed even lower.
Again, that's not a "NW sucks" statement, I just don't know where the general consensus comes from.

[farothel]

Watchmen: Jingo
Rincewind/Wizards: Interesting Times
Death/Susan: Soulmusic and Thief of Time
The Witches: Witches Abroad (but that's probably because they did a musical of that during the last UK Discworld con which was epic). Back-up Maskerade.
Moist: Going Postal
One-offs: Moving pictures (I count that one as a one-off despite the wizards being in it, they are not the focus of the book)

[Calemyr]

"Seriously" what? Yes, everybody and their mother loves NW and puts it on the top of Discworld canon and I don't get it. I feel it's severely overrated. Which is in no way saying it's a bad book, but I fail to grasp why it seems to stand out to so many. Yes, it has a lot of good parts in it, but even just among the Guard books I'd rate books like Jingo, MaA or even Thud above it. And in the whole series it would be placed even lower.
Again, that's not a "NW sucks" statement, I just don't know where the general consensus comes from.

I'm trying to be at least a little sensitive to new readers, seeing as that is the foundation of the thread. So I don't want to go into details. That said, I found NW to be the most personal character study of the franchise, taking Sam Vimes, an already well developed character, and breaking him down piece by piece and challenging everything he is.

Death may very well be the best character in the series, but Nightwatch displayed Sam Vimes in such detail that he immediately became my second favorite. He gets a little derailed in Snuff, I'll admit, but he remains my second favorite.

[Lemmy]

I'm torn. I like reading everyone's thoughts and comments on Discworld, but I also want to avoid bias (and spoilers).

I want to form my opinion on each book on my own, without external influence... So that I can later see and compare how much (or how little) it matches everyone else's. I think that will make my Discworld experience more genuine and, with some luck, also more interesting for readers of this thread.

OTOH, I love seeing how diverse are everyone's "List of Favorites" and how each person has greater love for a different phase of the Discworld series. It makes me think that no matter what any fan likes, Sir Terry Pratchett managed to give each of them an unique, but relatable experience. That makes me even more avid to keep reading! It also encourages me to pay even more attention to each detail... I don't wanna miss anything!

I specially enjoy hearing about Sir Terry Pratchett and his writing process. It's fascinating. I often saw interviews and quotes from him, but having not read the books, I couldn't pinpoint many of the specifics and often missed the context.

So I just ask everyone to avoid spoilers (or at least to "spolierize" them). Although general comments about individual books and/or the Discworld series as a whole are perfectly fine (and quite interesting, in fact).

In any case, I once again thank you all for your interest and participation in this thread. It's good to see so many fans of this series that I'm slowly but steadily growing to love. I regret not having read the Discworld books earlier, but I also humbly hope that my experience creates something entertaining for others.

I started reading "Wyrd Sisters" today, so it's still too early to form a full opinion, but I already love having Granny Weatherwax (and her coven) on the main stage... Heh.

[farothel]

As I said, I go to Discworld cons (in the UK anyway) and there are about 700 people with 800 opinions on what's the best book and why. So that's very normal.

I've tried not to give spoilers, although I might have given some things away and I apologize for that. I'll wait until you have read a book before I give away any special things I might know about it (and I do know a couple of trivia facts about certain books that might be interesting).

[pendell]

I'm torn. I like reading everyone's thoughts and comments on Discworld, but I also want to avoid bias (and spoilers).

... Snip ...

I'd like to put out another set of books by Sir Terry in addition to those put forward so far.

The standalone Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents is pretty darn good. Maybe not the best, but a great standalone read even if Maurice is sort of an earlier version of Moist Von Lipwig. Special mention to both Dangerous Beans and Darktan as well.

I'm also surprised there's no love for Tiffany Aching: Wee Free Men, Hat Full of Sky, and Wintersmith. Granny Weatherwax and her colleagues show up in these books also, but as supporting cast rather than as the main characters; these are Tiffany's stories, not theirs. And they are coming of age stories, good ones. Hat Full of Sky especially I would recommend for someone considering a ministry vocation, because the stuff Tiffany has to do is a lot of what that job is about ... even if that is somewhat ironic, given the subject matter

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[2D8HP]

...I started reading "Wyrd Sisters" today, so it's still too early to form a full opinion, but I already love having Granny Weatherwax (and her coven) on the main stage... Heh.

Good book, but the series gets even better!

If you skip ahead to Lords & Ladies (which really does flat out ROCK!), that's forgivable, but reading them in order does make them better.

...I'm also surprised there's no love for Tiffany Aching: Wee Free Men, Hat Full of Sky, and Wintersmith....

"No love"?

Since when?

I cited most of the Tiffany Aching series as among my "standouts" way up-thread:

Really?

I liked Equal Rites more than anything with much of Rincewind.

Off the top of my head Lords & Ladies is my favorite, but reading Wyrd Sisters, and Witches Abroad sets it up (as does Equal Rites to lesser extent), otherwise I thought that

Mort

Guards! Guards!

Men at Arms

Hogfather

The Last Hero

Night Watch

The Wee Free Men

A Hat Full of Sky

Wintersmith,

and

I Shall Wear Midnight

were all standouts in the series.

[Florian]

A weird side note:

I´ve read all Discworld novels in both, their UK english and german translated versions when they became available.

I´ll chime in with the crowd that the Sam Vimes stories are the ones with the greatest depth and are the more enjoyable one, especially compared to the early novels.

I must also say that Discworld is one of the rare cases when the transition is actually better than the original by adding more depth and gravitas to it. It´s the small things: Sam Vimes is translated as Samuel Mumm. Mumm has a very specific meaning, it being the stubborn heroic of the small folks.
Also, the Patrician comes over as way more reasonable, but also way more cold-blooded, which fits the character.

[farothel]

I can agree that the translations are very good and often add their own little things.
Like in the French one you have a footnote with Death because it's a clearly male character, but in French it's la Mort (female). It says 'la Mort est masculain parce que c'est un mal nécessaire' (death is male because it's a necessary evil). The word mal is pronounced the same as the word 'mâle' (male in English), so it can also read as 'necessary male'.

In 'The colour of magic' you have Twoflower explaining economics to Rincewind (revertebrating sounds of underground spirits or echo-gnomics). In the Dutch translation that becomes 'boomknaagdieren die aardgeesten nadoen' of 'eekhoorn-gnomie' (squirrel-gnomics in a literal translation) which resonates with the Dutch word for economics which is economie.

It's those little things that make the translations good. Also I think they tried to get one translator for each country and stick with this person for the whole series, which makes the quality better. At least in the Dutch translations they did this.

[dehro]

A weird side note:

I´ve read all Discworld novels in both, their UK english and german translated versions when they became available.

I´ll chime in with the crowd that the Sam Vimes stories are the ones with the greatest depth and are the more enjoyable one, especially compared to the early novels.

I must also say that Discworld is one of the rare cases when the transition is actually better than the original by adding more depth and gravitas to it. It´s the small things: Sam Vimes is translated as Samuel Mumm. Mumm has a very specific meaning, it being the stubborn heroic of the small folks.
Also, the Patrician comes over as way more reasonable, but also way more cold-blooded, which fits the character.

this reminds me of the first couple of discworld books that I read, which happened in Italian. Back then, I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the translations. Fantasy doesn't always get a great treatment by Italian publishers, yet this author was handled by someone who was able to preserve quite a lot of the comedy, which in Pratchett's case is so intimately connected to the use of language that it was no small feat.
That said, I did drop the Italian versions for the original ones as soon as I had the opportunity to hit a british bookstore.

[Manga Shoggoth]

I started reading "Wyrd Sisters" today, so it's still too early to form a full opinion, but I already love having Granny Weatherwax (and her coven) on the main stage... Heh.

Wyrd Sisters is pretty much the point where Pratchett stopped writing parody or straight humourous fantasy, and started to write seriously good books. There is a huge uptick in the quality of his writing, starting here and the series gets better from there.

[Fyraltari]

I just want to say that when I heard that Sir Terry had passed away, I cried a river. I never met him but it felt like a friend was gone.

And reading that scene in Shepherd's Crown (you know the scene) mad me tear up again.

GNU Terry Pratchett.

[Spacewolf]

I just want to say that when I heard that Sir Terry had passed away, I cried a river. I never met him but it felt like a friend was gone.

And reading that scene in Shepherd's Crown (you know the scene) mad me tear up again.

GNU Terry Pratchett.

The BBC did a thing on him after he had died that included an interview with Neil Gaiman which was pretty emotional. If you havn't see it I'd recommend it.

[Fyraltari]

I'll look it up, thank you.

[Mightymosy]

If there's justice in the multiverse, he now sits in one of the nicest places in all of the diskworld.

[Lemmy]

As I said, I go to Discworld cons (in the UK anyway) and there are about 700 people with 800 opinions on what's the best book and why. So that's very normal.

I've tried not to give spoilers, although I might have given some things away and I apologize for that. I'll wait until you have read a book before I give away any special things I might know about it (and I do know a couple of trivia facts about certain books that might be interesting).

No need to apologize, I haven't seen anything so far that I'd consider a spoiler. A single joke without context, related to my own post, is not a spoiler... I was more worried about plot and character-related stuff, but everyone has been really considerate so far.

I'd like to put out another set of books by Sir Terry in addition to those put forward so far.

The standalone Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents is pretty darn good. Maybe not the best, but a great standalone read even if Maurice is sort of an earlier version of Moist Von Lipwig. Special mention to both Dangerous Beans and Darktan as well.

I'm also surprised there's no love for Tiffany Aching: Wee Free Men, Hat Full of Sky, and Wintersmith. Granny Weatherwax and her colleagues show up in these books also, but as supporting cast rather than as the main characters; these are Tiffany's stories, not theirs. And they are coming of age stories, good ones. Hat Full of Sky especially I would recommend for someone considering a ministry vocation, because the stuff Tiffany has to do is a lot of what that job is about ... even if that is somewhat ironic, given the subject matter

Respectfully,

Brian P.

I do plan to read more of Pratchett's works in the future. Either after I finish the Discworld series, or if I ever decide to take a break from them.

[Cozzer]

Also, Nation is pretty great! It's one of PTerry's most serious books, though his humor is as usual always present in the way he writes.

[veti]

It's been a while since I read EQ and I will admit to not remembering terribly much of it but I also don't remember anything that makes me think it's one of the weaker ones. IIRC I've heard it was one of his first big successes (in part because apparently women's rights activists praised it assuming Terry was a lady's name)

That seems unlikely. By the time ER was published, Terry was already a reasonably well known figure. I first met him around that time, when he came to give a talk to a bunch of students (of whom I was lucky enough to be one). He'd been doing those sorts of gigs for years even then. You'd have had to be pretty wilfully ignorant to assume he was female. To say nothing of the mini-biography that appeared in each book.

"Seriously" what? Yes, everybody and their mother loves NW and puts it on the top of Discworld canon and I don't get it. I feel it's severely overrated.

Oh thank goodness, I was beginning to think I was the only one...

Fave guards book: Guards! Guards! Runner up: The Fifth Elephant.

Rincewind: Eric, followed by Interesting Times.

Death: Hogfather, then Reaper Man.

Witches: Witches Abroad, Lords and Ladies.

Standalone: Pyramids, Moving Pictures.

When he died, I resolved to reread the entire canon in order (a project that was interrupted by losing my copy of Wyrd Sisters for over a year...). I used to reread them regularly at one time, but had got out of the habit lately. Revisiting after a break was interesting. I found myself warming to some books I hadn't much liked before (Maskerade), but others - frankly, Jingo was always a bit of a shark jump for me.

[pendell]

Good book, but the series gets even better!

If you skip ahead to Lords & Ladies (which really does flat out ROCK!), that's forgivable, but reading them in order does make them better.



"No love"?

Since when?

I cited most of the Tiffany Aching series as among my "standouts" way up-thread:

An error on my part. Sorry.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Wraith]

Again, that's not a "NW sucks" statement, I just don't know where the general consensus comes from.

May I please ask, which of the Guards novels is your favourite? Your choice might help us understand your deviancy opinion more clearly?

Seriously though, I would like to know which was your favourite. I feel that you can learn a little about a person, by knowing which books they like.

I started reading "Wyrd Sisters" today, so it's still too early to form a full opinion, but I already love having Granny Weatherwax (and her coven) on the main stage... Heh.

I don't think it's too big of a spoiler to say that, of all the characters that Terry wrote about, Granny Weatherwax was the most different between her early and later stories. Equal Rites' Granny is almost completely a different person to Witches Abroad Granny, as she goes from being a wise-woman who knows magic to becoming a Witch - a very specific term, in Discworld parlance.

In 'The colour of magic' you have Twoflower explaining economics to Rincewind (revertebrating sounds of underground spirits or echo-gnomics). In the Dutch translation that becomes 'boomknaagdieren die aardgeesten nadoen' of 'eekhoorn-gnomie' (squirrel-gnomics in a literal translation) which resonates with the Dutch word for economics which is economie.

Far be it for me to comment on another language which I don't speak, but I'm pretty convinced that 'eekhorn' should be pronounced the same as 'acorn'; the counting of which should be very important to squirrels and hence the link.

I make absolutely no claim that this is intended or truthful, but it amuses me greatly to think of it as a pun.

===

Marginally related, but I would like to offer this gathering of Discworlders this: Run Rincewind Run, as first debut'd at Nullus Anxietas (the Australian DW convention) in 2007. Not enough people have seen it, for my liking, so it may be amusing to some of you anew.

[farothel]

M
Far be it for me to comment on another language which I don't speak, but I'm pretty convinced that 'eekhorn' should be pronounced the same as 'acorn'; the counting of which should be very important to squirrels and hence the link.

eekhoorn means squirrel in Dutch and 'eekhoo' is pronounced similar to 'eco', which is where the translation comes from.

[dehro]

Far be it for me to comment on another language which I don't speak, but I'm pretty convinced that 'eekhorn' should be pronounced the same as 'acorn'

it's pronounced very similarly, yes.
Nice to see that may of the translations manage to reflect the humour and wordplay of Terry "mayherestinpeace" Pratchett