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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tonguez" data-source="post: 9862349" data-attributes="member: 1125">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.I very much agree with your premise here and it is very much seen over the Discworld lifecycle where as you say the first couple of books are a parody of the fantasy genre, built mostly on cliches and running on fantasy logic to package the joke with the setting just being background. They are good parodies in themselves but they are not what the Discworld becomes.Its not until Guards, Guards and the invention of Samuel Vimes that Pratchett starts taking the Discworld seriously. Samuel Vimes is the first time a person actually responds to the fantasy silliness like a real person living in it - and he does so by arresting it and demanding a permit! Vimes looks at the fantastic and imposes law and social awareness and that is what gives the Discworld Shape.Its after Guards, Guards that Pratchett stops just doing parody of the fantasy genre and starts doing character driven satire, examining how People* (to a certain value of "People") respond to the fantasy.* Most Notably you have Reaper Man and Hogfather in both of which DEATH attempts to understand People and in Hogfather we get DEATHs famous speech "HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE."The rest of the Discworld novels move between being character studies, social satires and philosophical musings where Pratchett got to share his views and discuss how beleifs and prejudice and morality create the world we experience. He was no longer just making jokes about fantasy he was raising a mirror to the round world and getting his readers to think.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 doubt 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 legacyfair 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</blockquote>

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