Guards! Guards! is where the Discworld really started to gel for me, but the Watch stories are my favourites. Light Fantastic is on par with Colour of Magic.
The Ankh-Morpork City Watch books are amongst the best for his adult stuff (although my nan would likely say the Witches or Death), but I have to say his best Discworld stuff overall are the Tiffany Aching books.Originally Posted by corbain
True - though the only distinction between the Tiffany Aching books and the 'adult' stuff is that there isn't swearing in the Tiffany Aching books. The maturity of the content and suchlike aren't affected at all. Though anybody who considers anything of what Pratchett writes 'adult' only is weird.
Anything with Vetinari in it does it for me, with bonus points for books with Sam as his foil. Or is it the other way 'round?
The Medallion of the Imperial Psychopath, a Napoleon: Total War AAR
For the Emperor!, a Total War: Shogun 2: Fall of the Samurai AAR
I gave Discworld a shot a few years back and got about six books in (plus The Last Continent) before giving up. There's some good material there, but its too thin. Course I was approaching the books mostly as a poor man's substitute for Douglas Adams, so ymmv. For what it's worth, I do recall that The Colour of Magic was the weakest one I read.
Kostova's The Historian is still my fiction read at the moment. I think I'm going to dive into Arabian Nights next, although a friend is pushing more Asimov.
Last edited by Rii; 25-04-2012 at 02:27 AM.
Finished The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss and was compelled to immediately purchase the sequel A Wise Man's Fear. The combination of being virtually unputdownable and extremely long means that I'm currently sat at work on about 3 hours sleep last night thanks to the damn thing and I'm still only about halfway through.
A compelling protagonist, wonderful prose and an absolutely brilliant magic system. The structure of the story is not exactly original, but it's wonderfully told. I am pretty upset as a newcomer to these books to realise that the 2nd only came out last year and that there was a five year gap between the first two.
Apart from a number of non-fiction works, NR:
James Stephens - The Crock of Gold (decent mix of Irish myth and folklore, and humour. Sort of proto-Pratchett-ish.)
Gustav Meyrink - Der Engel vom Westlichen Fenster (so far a quite gripping tale centered around renaissance magus John Dee. Slow goings because of the German, but worthwhile so far.)
Gots me a Goodreads profile here if you want to add me: http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/947244-oscar.
My first venture into the 'Other Stuff' part of RPS, and I find there has been a book thread for ages without my knowledge! Well, over time I shall fascinate you with many books that I enjoy. However, I'll just follow the purpose of the thread and say what I'm currently reading:
Flashman and the Mountain of Light. The 9th in a fantastic series by George McDonald Fraser concerning Harry Paget Flashman, a guy who happened to be involved in many big events (and many little ones too) during the 19th Century. Funny AND educational.
Last edited by plivesey; 25-04-2012 at 07:37 PM. Reason: Emboldened the title.
No, not at all. The differences are greater. His children's books are written differently. The casts tend to be smaller, the number of good punes goes up and they tend to be much funnier in general as he's genuinely being humorous. And you can't say there isn't any swearing when the Nac Mac Feegle come out with "pished", and someone says "croap" or something similar. But even his adult books (I don't mean 'adult' as in naughty naughty, but as in that's the term for the market) don't have a lot of swearing.
But by focusing more in his children's books, he tends to be so much better. He gets too wrapped up in the adult books with going off on one.
I've read all of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels and loved each and every single one of them. I must admit though that I really enjoy the ones with Vetinari in them. His latest book, Snuff, was okay. It was good, but in comparison to the other novels he has written it wasn't his best. I put it down to his illness taking hold of him, which is sad and unfortunate.
I'm blessed that he is a guest lecturer in Trinity here in Dublin. But alas, I lack the funds and the time to make it to any of his lectures.
A book that I'm reading now is the Necronomicon by H.P.Lovecraft. It is a collection of his best short stories and, as a first time reader of his works, I find it fascinating.
I don't think his illness really has much to do with it. It's certainly sad that he has it, but his books have always been rather inconsistent in quality. My nan has been reading them for well over 10 years, maybe even 20, and she'll say the same thing.
Sometimes he scores a hit, but more often than not he seems to hit a lot of misses.
I see your point. Pyramids just didn't cut it to me, even as a good book. Still, I really like his works.
I'd say pretty much the opposite: occasional misses, but mostly hits. I've been reading them as long as your nan, although I haven't read any of the young adult books (I didn't even enjoy YA stuff when I could still be described as young) and I haven't picked up Snuff yet, but since Guards! Guards! there have only been a couple I didn't hugely enjoy: Small Gods and Soul Music. And even then I still liked them, just not as much as, say, Jingo or Monstrous Regiment.
I'd describe the majority of the Pratchett books I've read as "largely average with moments of glory". Unless it's the children's stuff, because his Tiffany Aching stuff is WIN WIN WIN WIN.
Win.
Anyway, I'm reading Stephen King's The Wind Through the Keyhole.
Ah you should really check out Johnny and the Dead, Johnny and the Bomb and my personal favourite: Only You Can Save Mankind (If not you, then who?)
Plus Truckers, Diggers and Wings are all awesome too. The Carpet People was fun too though reading after Truckers it feels a bit similar.
I read Carpet People and Truckers a long time ago, but I never got round to reading the others, or the Johnny books.
If you like that kind of whimsical, slightly subversive humour that Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett do so well I'd heartily recommend Tom Holt and Robert Rankin as well; particularly Rankin's ever more inaccurately named Brentford Trilogy (comprised of nine books last time I looked).
Douglas Adams isn't that great. H2G2 is largely overrated and culturally irrelevant now, and Dirk Gently sucks majorly.
There, I said it.
OT, I'm going through Cora Harrison's medieval Ireland mystery novel series, as well as Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson's Why Nations Fail.
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