Terry Pratchett

[Chimera]

Great author. Love his stuff.

The only problem is that, with @30 books out, I can no longer keep track of what I have and what I don't have. Got nearly 20 in paperback and a couple in hardcover. Afraid to buy new ones for fear that I'll get home and find it already on my shelves.

Love all the little stabs too. Like in Night Watch where the guy yells "They can take away our lives, but they can never take away our freedom!". Whereupon all the attackers stop in confusion at 'possibly the worst thought out revolutionary slogan of all time', then kill the guy. (Take that, Mel Gibson!)

But my favorite scene of all-time is when DEATH goes fly-fishing.

 

[shilsen]

The fact that the Italian translations are god-awful doesn't help either.

I know Pratchett has been translated into a number of languages, but since so much of his humour lies in his awareness of language and the way he puns and makes plays on words, I wonder how much is lost in translation. I haven't read Pratchett in anything other than English, so could someone who has read the translations comment on this? Zappo's comment seems clearly a thumbs-down.

Another question for Pratchett fans - do you get much enjoyment out of catching the little allusions that he so liberally sprinkles through the text? I always get a little frisson of delight from realizing that William de Worde is a reference to the Elizabethan printer Wynkyn de Worde or that the title of Monstrous Regiment is a reference to John Knox's "The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women". Do others do so too, or must I bask alone in the light of my unbearable nerdiness ?

 

[Capellan]

For me, it is easier to pick the 'failures' in the series than the successes: The Fifth Elephant, Lost Continent, Equal Rites -- these are all books that I found disappointing, compared to his other work.

They aren't bad, but they also aren't as good as the others.

 

[Berandor]

I know Pratchett has been translated into a number of languages, but since so much of his humour lies in his awareness of language and the way he puns and makes plays on words, I wonder how much is lost in translation. I haven't read Pratchett in anything other than English, so could someone who has read the translations comment on this? Zappo's comment seems clearly a thumbs-down.

Another question for Pratchett fans - do you get much enjoyment out of catching the little allusions that he so liberally sprinkles through the text? I always get a little frisson of delight from realizing that William de Worde is a reference to the Elizabethan printer Wynkyn de Worde or that the title of Monstrous Regiment is a reference to John Knox's "The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women". Do others do so too, or must I bask alone in the light of my unbearable nerdiness ?

You must bask alone.

I find the German translations to be pretty good, actually, even though some names or phrases I translate to English to see whether there's something hidden in them. Despite the high quality, though, I'm pretty sure the German version is not as good as the original, simply because you can't really translate every pun or allusion to a German equivalent.

 

[Staffan]

Another question for Pratchett fans - do you get much enjoyment out of catching the little allusions that he so liberally sprinkles through the text? I always get a little frisson of delight from realizing that William de Worde is a reference to the Elizabethan printer Wynkyn de Worde or that the title of Monstrous Regiment is a reference to John Knox's "The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women". Do others do so too, or must I bask alone in the light of my unbearable nerdiness ?

I like that too, though I don't get them all. That's why god (or at least alt.fan.pratchett) invented the Annotated Pratchett File, at http://www.lspace.org/books/apf/index.html.

 

[haiiro]

Pratchett is one of my favorite authors, but others have already said everything I would have brought up about him.

I'll just add that at a signing, I asked him to write something Rincewind-related in my copy of Interesting Times (probably my favorite overall), and he did:

"Stercus, stercus, stercus!"

I had to go look it up -- it's Latin for, "Sh*t, sh*t, sh*t!" That man has style.

 

[Christopher Lambert]

I love his work.

I've read more than 80% of his Diskworld books and there were only a few I didn't like.

Err... not much more to say. Sometimes I feel like statting up some of his characters in D20; Cohen would be amazing to do.

IMO the Patrician is borderline between LN and LE... although I'm a big fan of D20 Modern where allegiances aren't straightjackets. (Best version of alignment I've seen in DnD is the Honor-Bound feat from Dragonlance.) Alas, the Patrician's personality is only given a good reveal in Jingo and Night Watch (IMO) and I didn't like Jingo.

 

[nonamazing]

Pratchett is, of course, an excellent writer--probably one of the greatest of our times. He has a very elegant grasp of the language and is able to use it evoke emotion in a consistant way. I only wish that his books were as popular here in America as they are in the UK, where they're constantly on multiple best-seller lists.

 

[Particle_Man]

Another question for Pratchett fans - do you get much enjoyment out of catching the little allusions that he so liberally sprinkles through the text?

I too like the references, although I am sure I didn't get them all. Great to have that link now, though.

Pratchett himself had to help me with one. One of the Rincewind books has some other wizard describe Rincewind as "Number two to an ape" (the Librarian). Then a bit down the page, the same wizard says "That's rather good, isn't it? Number two to an ape" and then I got it -- a reference to

Spoiler

The Prisoner, final episode!

It seemed like somehow Pratchett had accurately judged my perceptiveness and knew I would need help to get that reference! How cool is that?

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I know Pratchett has been translated into a number of languages, but since so much of his humour lies in his awareness of language and the way he puns and makes plays on words, I wonder how much is lost in translation. I haven't read Pratchett in anything other than English, so could someone who has read the translations comment on this? Zappo's comment seems clearly a thumbs-down.

Another question for Pratchett fans - do you get much enjoyment out of catching the little allusions that he so liberally sprinkles through the text? I always get a little frisson of delight from realizing that William de Worde is a reference to the Elizabethan printer Wynkyn de Worde or that the title of Monstrous Regiment is a reference to John Knox's "The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women". Do others do so too, or must I bask alone in the light of my unbearable nerdiness ?

I didn't catch Wynkyn deWorde, but I did catch Knoxe. How many puns and allusions did Pratchett manage to fit into that one, short title?

Going Postal is essentially a quick dance through the histories of both stamps and paper money. And Ankh-Morpork borrows from so very many cities... from Elizabethian London to post fire Seattle, and I think a bit of Chicago, or at least some city that sinks slowly into the ground... (They used to build extra doors on the second floors of Chicago buildings, with the assumpion that it would eventually sink to that level...)

And how many pokes did Soul Music make at the movie The Blues Brothers?

The Auld Grump