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Very much overdue. 😛
Members: just my hapence, squeak, ItcheSrulik, Yserbius123, notasheep, Showjoe, OneOfMany <– if your name does not appear on this, speak up
Honorary Members: Luna Lovegood <– if you would like to join as an honorary member, speak up *coughcough42cough*
Now, everyone post how many you’ve read so we can determine club rankings (jmh, you are probably president, but just to make sure… :P).
^_^
“Very much overdue.” agreed!
so to the rankings: i have so far read 24 of terry Pratchett’s <b> discworld series, but i have plans to read 3 more.
we have to determine what is considered discworld books or not (the free wee men, the last hero (comic book about Cohen the Barbarian), The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, and various other discworld related books)
also i think every member should have to name their favorite TP book; mine is night watch (awesome book!)
(and to all the people who haven’t yet read any TP books, you should!)
“*owowowthathurt*”
why? what other book would you chose?
and where is everybody else?
All right. Give me a solid reason why I should read it.
Some info please….genre?level?author?reason why it is so amazing?book lengths?…..
Okay, so I’ve read all of them multiple times. First one I ever read was Eric and I still have a bit of a soft spot for it even though it’s not my favourite by a long way. I loved Thief of Time for it’s Top Gear references, and Soul Music/Moving Pictures?Maskerade for their pop-culture references. But my all-time favourite is Jingo – it captures quintessential Englishness so well. It’s a tough call though. I do have a least favourite – Thud! just tries too hard for me.
As for what is and isn’t canonical, good question. For me TAMAHER is not as it is simply a story on Discworld, not about it. Although with that criterion Monstrous Regiment would also fail without the shoehorning in of Vimes. The Tiffany Aching books are a tough one as they are clearly about Discworld but apart from the Nac Mac Feegle there is very little bleed-through between them and the rest of the Discworld series, which do have a fair bit of cross-pollination internally despite the general stand-alone structure of each book and indeed each mini-series. The Last Hero most definitely is, despite its format.
The first one I ever read was Sourcery, followed by Monstrous Regiment. Lost count of how many I have read, although I think it’s pretty much all of them. My list of favourites includes Hogfather, Moving Pictures, Snuff (purely because of the amazing Austen theme that runs throughout the whole book if you spot all the references)and Going Postal. My absolute favourite has to be Maskerade. 1) I love the witches. 2) I love Phantom of the Opera, it’s my favourite musical. 3)The rest of the Andrew Lloyd Weber references are brilliant.
And I think that Terry Pratchett still being able to write his brilliant stories is nothing short of amazing.
I have read many of the discworld books, including Going Postal, Making Money, Thief of Time, (as well as others), and am currently in the middle of Unseen Academicals. Characters that I like include Lord Vetinari,
DEATH (AND SUSAN STO HELIT), von Lipwig (its nice to get a second chance), and Detrius (Strong but knows his limitations.Favourite book? At this point Thief of Time (death by chocolate!), but I haven’t read all of them yet.
Nanny Ogg is just pure comedy though
Small Gods, Men at Arms, Reaper Man, Interesting Times or Masquerade. I’m old fashioned like that with my favorites being one of every series that I’ve read in high school. I’ve also read The Long Earth more out of loyalty than anything else. Let’s do a favorite quotes thread!
- Why the platypus?
- “It’s a rhetorical question, like what’s the sound of one hand clapping!” “CL. THE OTHER HAND MAKES THE AP.” “Yeah, er, wot?”
- Wait, was that store that was always there for as long as you can remember, always there for as long as you can remember yesterday?
What’s incredible is that Pratchett is still writing despite having a variant of Alzheimers called PCA for many years. He’s published a couple of books in the past year. They are still typical witty Pratchett, the plots may be even more rambling than usual.
Ash – that’s what I was referring to. He currently dictates his novels to someone, who types them for him.
“It’s made from apples. Well… mainly apples.”
Rule #1: Do not act incautiously when confronting little bald wrinkly smiling men!
Rule #18: Never ever forget rule number one!
Aha. Well, thanks OOM that was quite informative.
Well, I’ve requested it at da local biblioteca…we shall see, friends, we shall see.
And,I do expect applause for trying…;)
not a sheep: “Lost count of how many I have read” go to terry pratchet.com and see the complete list of discworld books and see if you read them .
nobody mentioned how many they read except for just my hapence, so can you all please tell us how many u read.
just my hapence: “I do have a least favourite (sic) – Thud! just tries too hard for me.” really? i thought it was brilliant, Terry Pratchett cant try too hard, the more he tryes the better the book is!
favorite quote: “Was that justice? Was that a proper reward for being a firm believer in reincarnation for almost 130 years? You come back as a corpse? No wonder the undead were traditionally considered to be very angry.” hilarious!
sorry, no links
favorite character: igor, a brilliant contraction by terry prattchet
shnitzy: what does da local biblioteca mean (but u can have an applause anyway)
all right mod, no links.
lets try again. so if you want a complete list of all discworld qoutes go to Wikiquote and search for “discworld”. (yea its awsome i know)
showjoe, biblioteca=library in espanol. 😀 go learn spanish. it’s good for you.
Oh. and I accept your applause most graciously.
Oom, Thanks!! I was a shtickle befuddled by the myriads of books that appeared before me. *sigh of relief*
See ya after! 😉
“I Do Not Believe In Gods” said Dorfl “I Challenge You To A Debate.” A bolt of lightning stuck him directly on the head, melting his watch badge. “That Was Cheating”.
“You’re insane!” Said Rincewind to Twoflowers in his native tongue (A poor translation. What he actually said was “You are one who wears wet copper armor and stands at the top of a hill in a rainstorm saying that Umquorra the Goddess of Lightning has a face like a beet root”)
Thunder rolled. It rolled a six.
Lightning cracked. Three darkened figures stood over a boiling cauldron. “When shall we three meet again?” one cackled. “Tuesday’s fine with me, I have babysitting tomorrow” said a perfectly ordinary voice.
Some of my favourite quotes:
“Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.”
“It was a small village, and wouldn’t have shown up on a map of the mountains. It barely showed up on a map of the village.”
“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.”
“I’ve seen excitement, and I’ve seen boredom. And boredom was best.”
“The sun rose slowly, as if it wasn’t sure it was worth all the effort.”
“The truth isn’t easily pinned to a page. In the bathtub of history the truth is harder to hold than the soap, and much more difficult to find…”
I had a look at the list of books, and counted 39 I have read…
Best quotes:
Bee There Orr Bee A Rectangular Thyng
I’m mean and turf and I’m mean and turf and
I’m mean and turf and I’m mean and turf.
Me and my friends will walk towards you
With our hats on backwards in a menacing way.
Yo!
“Well, basically there are two sorts of opera,’ said Nanny, who also had the true witch’s ability to be confidently expert on the basis of no experience whatsoever. ‘There’s your heavy opera, where basically people sing foreign and it goes like “Oh oh oh, I am dyin’, oh, I am dyin’, oh, oh, oh, that’s what I’m doin'”, and there’s your light opera, where they sing in foreign and it basically goes “Beer! Beer! Beer! Beer! I like to drink lots of beer!”, although sometimes they drink champagne instead. That’s basically all of opera, really.”
Give a man a fire and he’s warm for a day, but set fire to him and he’s warm for the rest of his life.
That just goes to show that you never know, although what it is we never know I suspect we’ll never know.
Wow… I never thought I’d find a thread to bring me back… but when I find a Terry Pratchett fanclub on YWN, boy am I here!
(Anyone remember me? No? That’s okay… I’ll just go away and cry a bit…)
Anywho, I’ve read 31 of them and am a founding co-member of the (unfortunately two-member) [CENSORED NAME OF SCHOOL] Pratchettism Club. My favorite books are Going Postal (not so much Making Money), Hogfather and all of the Susan/Death books (including Mort), Moving Pictures, Reaper Man (which is a Death book but deserves its own listing), The Truth and anything with the Watch in it. And anything with an Igor in it. I’m not always enthused with the witches, though I did love Maskerade.
Looking back at that list, I feel like the only ones I left out were the Rincewind ones, which I admittedly never got into.
Thanks for reminding about that open mind quote – I totally missed that one out!
I still have to decide on a favourite character, which is really hard since there are so many good ones. Main ones would have to be Vetinari, DEATH, Nanny Ogg, Sam Vimes. We’ll see who else will be added to the list later
What’s with the Rincewind hate? He’s one of my favourite recurring characters… Other favourites include Ridcully, Granny Weatherwax and DEATH (and his extended family, including Death Of Rats)
Rincewind can be a bit of annoying character; as failed wizards (wizzards) go, a better character is Mr Sideney. I sometimes find Rincewind a bit tiresome, but then again, I suppose that is the whole point of his character. He’s not exactly endearing. When you’re a teacher, you tend to find that the kids who try too hard and have too little talent can be the most annoying.
notasheep – It’s not about his lack of talent, or the fact that he tries too hard (frankly, he doesn’t try at all). I like his pragmatic cowardice, the fact that he knows he’s rubbish and doesn’t bother trying to hide it, the fact that he has pride in his rubbishness but decides that, despite it all, he’s still a wizzard because that’s the only definition he has for himself. And the fact that at the end of the day it’s ridiculous, cowardly Rincewind who saves the skins of all the talented stuck-up lot by pure accident.
Hey! Someone remembers me!
You’re awesome, OneOfMany!
I actually wasn’t a Discworlder when I was on here last- I only really got into them this year. I read Hitchhiker’s and my friend was like, you like Hitchhhiker’s, you’ll like this. And so it began.
I really don’t know why I don’t like the Rincewind books. Maybe that’s part of Pratchett’s genius, that he makesa useless character and we all feel like he’s useless. I just feel like he’s a lot more flat than some other characters, like even the other wizards, who are also pretty useless but at least are funnier in the process. I dunno, that’s just me.
Just finished The Truth- I love the word —-ing. I think I’m going to start using it. Good ol’ Mr Tulip.
This must be a British thing I will never understand.
You’ll never understand ’til you start reading!
Where do you folks recommend arifree starts? I personally think he should start with the Watch arc, as it’s pretty all-inclusive and starts from the very beginning.
“I’ve seen excitement, and I’ve seen boredom. And boredom was best.”
What does this even mean?
I’m starting with The Colour of Magic. Is that alright?
Shnitzy: NO!
I wrote a whole long post about this, which apparently did not make it through, but Discworld is not a traditional series, as in it does not go in a continuous stream from the first book to the last. There are a bunch of individual streams within the greater series, and I recommend, as above, that you start with the Watch arc, with Men at Arms, as the first couple books (like Colour) can seem kind of slow to first-timers.
OK OK! Well, after I finish these Agatha Christie Poirot novels.
Alright! The Wee Free Men it is! (Somehow, I can’t see myself liking a book called the Wyrd Sisters…)
Like I said, it’s British.
I meant the sisters part. I don’t do girly books.
Seriously?! Oh lord…
Now what? Which one???
“Torah613Torah: lol. I don’t remember where that quote is from exactly, but it is a classic Rincewind quote. Basically, Rincewind is this cowardly wizard (“WIZZARD”) who just wants to be left alone, yet keeps getting swept off on these epic adventures to save all of the Disc, etc. So…yeah.”
Oh. It’s a character.
Anyway, some good lines, but how can a book about a universe on the back of a giant turtle really be so interesting? But I will definitely have to read it now next time I’m at friends. 🙂
Torah – the way the Discworld is set out is in itself a parody of some actual theories of how the world looked before people discovered it was round. And then Terry Pratchett takes different cultures and parodies them, different countries or situations (such as Moving Pictures ripping off Hollywood) and basically presents them with a comical and largely cynical twist.
Shnitzy: I once again recommend starting with the first Watch book, which is, as OneOfMany remembered correctly (as opposed to me) Guards, Guards! It gives a very good background of the general plot that will be useful moving forward (besides or being a good one in and of itself).
OOM: Actually, I didn’t hear about the Guide on here- I was recommended it by a friend. I then recommended it to the friend who recommended me Discworld- one good turn deserves another :).
oh. I’ll look for it…
These better be good after all my tiresome work 😉
Delurking just for this. I don’t remember how many I’ve read though.
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