Books!

The pet-play BDSM books have something to do with kittens. I ain't going there.

I am clearly writing the wrong sort of stuff when I should be making money off stories about women having sex with hamsters or something.

halfwise wrote:The pet-play BDSM books have something to do with kittens.  I ain't going there.

Pet-play BDSM is a roleplay thing, not a bestiality thing.

"I THINK PERHAPS YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND. PEOPLE’S WHOLE LIVES DO PASS IN FRONT OF THEIR EYES BEFORE THEY DIE. THE PROCESS IS CALLED ‘LIVING.’"

— Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent

That's pretty profound. #Death #life #whoknows

I do need to read some Terry Pratchett sometime.

I would recommend them- even the first couple which are a bit rough and not as realised as later books.
There are also sets of books within the overall set- so you have the Guards books and the Witches book, all of which follow on from each other, and you have Death books too, and then you have complete stand alone stories. But they all together make a very complete picture of the Discworld.

One of my own favourite quotes comes from the very first book, but its not profound it just makes me smile every time I read it. its the inept wizard Rincewind describing the Discworld's first tourist-

“If complete and utter chaos was lightning, then he'd be the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armour and shouting 'All gods are bastards!”

also rather like - “On the Disc, the Gods aren't so much worshipped, as they are blamed.”

or-

“It was all very well going on about pure logic and how the universe was ruled by logic and the harmony of numbers, but the plain fact of the matter was that the Disc was manifestly traversing space on the back of a giant turtle and the gods had a habit of going round to atheists' houses and smashing their windows.”

or-

“He thought about how it might be to be, say, a fox confronted with an angry sheep. A sheep moreover, that could afford to employ wolves.”

Thats the thing with Pratchett- nearly all of it so damn quotable! Even outside his books  he is a walking quotable source-

"In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this."

"I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it."

"I got quite annoyed after the Haiti earthquake. A baby was taken from the wreckage and people said it was a miracle. It would have been a miracle had God stopped the earthquake. More wonderful was that a load of evolved monkeys got together to save the life of a child that wasn't theirs."

"There is a rumour going around that I have found God. I think this is unlikely because I have enough difficulty finding my keys, and there is empirical evidence that they exist."

oddly I have never read Pratchett. his book covers really put me off. I cant get past them.

There are different covers.



I assume its the left had ones you dont like as they are by Kirby and he did all the early ones- but you can get whole the set with alternative covers if you like-

yep its the early ones. they are hideous.

Well go to the library and get the other covered ones then- I think you'd really enjoy them. They hard not to enjoy in fact.
I suspect the witches books would appeal, they are in order-

Equal Rights
Wyrd Sisters (the first proper full on Witches book)
Witches Abroad
Lords and Ladies
Maskerade
Carpe Jugulum

I also really like the Guards series too-

Guards! Guards!
Men at Arms
Feet of Clay
Jingo
The Fifth Elephant
Night Watch
Thud! Snuff


There is a TV series in production based on the idea of the Ankh-Norpork city watch, called The Watch, described as CI meets Discworld with a case every week to solve for Sam Vimes and his squad.

There are also several discworld games- but in my view they all miss the mark by a mile with the exception of Discworld Noir, about the Disc's first Private Investigator- which is like the Discworld novel Pratchett forgot to write-



16.30 in and 32.58 are good examples of where it nails the style and humour perfectly whilst adding its own Noir twist.

I will read one if you read Neverwhere.

I have got a copy on order Figg at my local bookstore- had to wait till I could afford to buy a book!
But I have also listened to the first few chapters as an audio book.
Not ideal, I prefer reading the book before I listen to an audio version, but the alternative was a fight with my sporran

I 'found' Terry Pratchett when I had a spell in hospital, Ive loved his writing ever since Im fond of Captain Vimes & the rest of his 'watch', Captain carrot, Nobby Nobbs, et al. And of course Lord Vetinari The humour is great, sharp & witty & just when you think how can this end ? it does, & happily. Theres so many wonderful, colourful characters, like, Mrs Vimes & her dragons, or ( lady Sybil )

Pettytyrant101 wrote:I have got a copy on order Figg at my local bookstore- had to wait till I could afford to buy a book!
But I have also listened to the first few chapters as an audio book.
Not ideal, I prefer reading the book before I listen to an audio version, but the alternative was a fight with my sporran

nooooo! don't listen to the audio first

azriel wrote:I 'found' Terry Pratchett when I had a spell in hospital, Ive loved his writing ever since  Im fond of Captain Vimes & the rest of his 'watch', Captain carrot, Nobby Nobbs, et al. And of course Lord Vetinari  The humour is great, sharp & witty & just when you think how can this end ? it does, & happily. Theres so many wonderful, colourful characters, like, Mrs Vimes & her dragons, or ( lady Sybil  )

I reckom I would like it if I gave it a chance.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:There are different covers.



I assume its the left had ones you dont like as they are by Kirby and he did all the early ones- but you can get whole the set with alternative covers if you like-

That reminds me of the "adult" versions of Harry Potter they published in the UK so that grown-ups didn't have to feel embarrassed about reading a kid's book in public.  The visual design is reminiscent if perhaps not the purpose.

{{{The illustrations on the original UK editions of Harry Potter are ugly as sin though.  Mary GrandPre 4lyfe.}}}

I always rather liked those covers.

I think Petty has said most of what needs to be said, but I would add my commendations too. Pratchett kind of ties in with the whole surrealistic tradition in british comedy, with things like the Goon Show and Monty Python. Just expressed in the fantasy genre. I do love his concepts for things, like male and female dwarves being indistinguishable, and you never being able to tell their gender from looking at them. As such, any dwarf in Pratchetts Universe can be either male or female. On the other hand, I do think he messes around with his narrative sometimes. He'll do some wonderful setup and then kind of panick when he gets to the end and seemingly just throw it together in short order. On the whole though, great books. I'd recommend the Guards and Witch "series", and the Death ones, as well. That way you have some common characters to hold on to through your first couple of books. (There's forthy now, with another one coming.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld#Bibliography

Sadly the later ones, those written once his illness is having an effect, well I say written, his concepts and ideas but his daughter doing the writing, just dont have the feel or insight of the original 'pure' Pratchett books in my view. They arent as funny either.

That's a shame. I don't think I've read the later ones, except for the guards ones. My favourites would be from around the middle of the series, I think.

Bluebottle wrote:

I like that.

me too very succinct

It's definitely interesting to contemplate when considering literature from different era's.

One of my favourite moments in the Wheel of Time series is this little story Asmodean, an orginaly evil character who, through little will of his own, is forced to change sides to the light fom the shadow, tells, that just seem poignant wih regards to life and so on to me for some reason.

"I once saw a man hanging from a cliff. The brink was crumbling under his fingers, and the only thing near enough to grasp was a tuft of grass, a few long blades with roots barely clinging to the rock. The only chance he had of climbing back up on the cliff. So he grabbed it." His abrupt chuckle held no mirth. "He had to know it would pull free."

We never get any clearity of what happened next. Did he save him, he was certainly capapble to. Probably not, but were never told. Anyway, someone made a drawing based on a fanfic saying he did.


http://pettymotives.tumblr.com/post/113401506155/a-what-if-asmo-didnt-let-the-guy-he-saw-clinging

"You know my choices. I am clinging to that tuft of grass on the cliff’s lip, praying for it to hold one more heartbeat. If you fail, I am worse than dead. I must see you win and live."

Oh, you dear thing.