Discworld

[pukunui]

while Lankhmar is the quintessential Urban Fantasy setting seen across all fantasy cities, Ankh-Morpork is pretty clearly a parody of Dickensian London, which just happens to also be a squalid, crime ridden, fantastical urban sprawl.

Yes, very much London as well ... but I don't think that was obvious right from the start. It became more like London as the series went on.

The last few books, after his diagnosis are still good, though they a more straight to the point, losing the broader complexity and amusing digressions, no boubt because Pratchett himself was losing time and wanted to get to the point. He was a on a fast track raising steam and the Shepherds Crown is very much his goodbye passing on a legacy

They're OK in an extended epilogue sort of way, I guess, but they lack any real tension. I know Pratchett was struggling and wanted to wrap things up nicely. I just didn't enjoy his novel-length epilogues in which the heroes are all on top of things and the villains are sad imitations of their former selves.

fair enough. I do love the Witches series and everything they do, but I still beleive they got much better over time. Tifanny Aching and Amazing Maurice are YA, I like YA literature, it can be intelligent and thoughtful too

I know that the Tiffany Aching series is classed as YA fiction, but it really doesn't read like it. The first four novels are among the best Pratchett ever wrote. As I said above, I Shall Wear Midnight is peak Pratchett alongside Thud!

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Ankh-Morpork never stops being Lankhmar. For that matter, almost no fantasy cities do (unless they're trying to be Gondor).

Sure, Lankhmar is the prototype generic fantasy city, and it's influence is all over the genre, including later AM. But AM was originally created as a setting for a direct, obvious and unsubtle parody of a Fafhad and Grey Mouser story. Which is one of the things about CoM - the stories targeted for parody are increasingly unrecognisable to anyone who isn't a hardcore Appendix N aficionado. And the linking misadventure is Pythonesque. As the series developed the targets became less genre-specific, changed from parody to satire, and the humour became more pointed and less silly.

It's been a long time since I read it, but I think it must have been the one he was working on when he was first diagnosed with Alzheimer's and perhaps didn't have the support he had with his later novels.

He was quite a way into the Alzheimer's by the time he wrote that (and Snuff, Raising Steam and Shepherd's Crown). What's impressive is that he was able to continue writing at all.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I know that the Tiffany Aching series is classed as YA fiction, but it really doesn't read like it.

It isn't full of self obsessed but impossibly good looking hormonal teens trying to have sex!

 

[Tonguez]

It isn't full of self obsessed but impossibly good looking hormonal teens trying to have sex!

well there is The Wintersmith
oh and Susan and Lobsang Ludd
and PerditaX
Detritus and Ruby?
Nanny Ogg and Cassanuda (okay maybe thats pushing it)

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I know my first venture into the world of Discworld was "Witches Abroad". I mentioned this 19 years ago. It was amazing, this might be surprising giving my user name, but Granny Weatherwax will probably alway be one of my favorite characters. (Aside from all the others )

 

[Maxperson]

I know my first venture into the world of Discworld was "Witches Abroad". I mentioned this 19 years ago. It was amazing, this might be surprising giving my user name, but Granny Weatherwax will probably alway be one of my favorite characters. (Aside from all the others )

Granny, Sam Vimes, The Librarian, and the Silver Horde top my list. No particular member of the horde makes the list, but collectively they are my favorite.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I can appreciate Small Gods from as much of an objective perspective as I can muster, but I still can't help but find it a little too sacrilegious at times, which makes me unable to place it in my top 5. Like I get that being sacrilegious and poking fun at religion is the whole point of the novel, but that still lessens my enjoyment of it.

Huh. It didn't strike me as anti-religious at all. I could see it being read in divinity school, for instance. Most of the great theologians subject religion to similarly tough questioning, whether St. Thomas Aquinas, rabbinical scholars or teachers at the great Islamic universities. But it's definitely a metaphorical jump into icy cold water and I can understand it being uncomfortable.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

They're OK in an extended epilogue sort of way, I guess, but they lack any real tension. I know Pratchett was struggling and wanted to wrap things up nicely. I just didn't enjoy his novel-length epilogues in which the heroes are all on top of things and the villains are sad imitations of their former selves.

He definitely wasn't coming up with new villains the way he possibly ought to have. Or maybe he was transitioning to have villains be unquestioned societal norms.

 

[pukunui]

He was quite a way into the Alzheimer's by the time he wrote that (and Snuff, Raising Steam and Shepherd's Crown). What's impressive is that he was able to continue writing at all.

The thing is, he wrote Thud! and I Shall Wear Midnight after Unseen Academicals. For me, the latter wasn't a bad concept. It just need more editing. It felt messy to me. Whereas the last few novels felt, as I said above, like extended epilogues.

Huh. It didn't strike me as anti-religious at all. I could see it being read in divinity school, for instance. Most of the great theologians subject religion to similarly tough questioning, whether St. Thomas Aquinas, rabbinical scholars or teachers at the great Islamic universities. But it's definitely a metaphorical jump into icy cold water and I can understand it being uncomfortable.

I decided to give Small Gods a reread. So far, the sacrilegious stuff is mostly near the beginning, and the book is more a satire of the human aspects of organised religion - specifically medieval Catholicism and the Inquisition and the like. Perhaps I am now far enough removed from my upbringing that I can appreciate it better. I'll let you know what I think once I've finished it. (Not quite halfway through.)

EDIT: And, while I was looking through my incomplete collection, I realized that there is one Discworld novel I haven't read: Eric.

 

[Tonguez]

The thing is, he wrote Thud! and I Shall Wear Midnight after Unseen Academicals. For me, the latter wasn't a bad concept. It just need more editing. It felt messy to me. Whereas the last few novels felt, as I said above, like extended epilogues.


I decided to give Small Gods a reread. So far, the sacrilegious stuff is mostly near the beginning, and the book is more a satire of the human aspects of organised religion - specifically medieval Catholicism and the Inquisition and the like. Perhaps I am now far enough removed from my upbringing that I can appreciate it better. I'll let you know what I think once I've finished it. (Not quite halfway through.)

EDIT: And, while I was looking through my incomplete collection, I realized that there is one Discworld novel I haven't read: Eric.

Thud! was published 2005, Pratchett announced his duagnosis in 2007 whereby he was exploring treatment options and becoming a Alzheimers advocate - I dont pretend to know what that involved but do assume that he was distracted hence Unseen Academicals coming out in 2009.
After that it seems things settled again