Tag: Terry Pratchett

Enter Three Witches

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Reviews, Summer in Discworld5 Comments

I finally managed to read the first proper Witches novel in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, Wyrd Sisters.  This was another Shakespearean-inspired one, with heavy Macbeth undertones.  Except, of course, it’s a comedy!

Duke Felmet killed a king to gain the throne of Lancre, and now has a few problems.  For one thing, he can’t seem to get the blood off his hands.  And for another, there are three witches in the neighborhood.  Magrat is a well-meaning witch who thought it would be a good idea to form a coven with Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg.  They don’t quite understand her interest in talismans and rituals (because it’s really headology that counts), but they join anyway.  The dead king’s baby son falls into their hands and they promptly pack him off with adoptive parents in a traveling theatre company.  Meanwhile the dead king is still hanging around as a ghost, there’s a Fool remarkably interested in Magrat, and the land doesn’t like its new ruler.

The witches are in fine form here.  This is the first with all three of them, but they’re already fully-defined.  Granny wasn’t quite there yet in her earlier book, Equal Rites, but she’s excellent here, with a will of iron–or harder.  Nanny is garrulous, irreverent and fun-loving, but don’t ever cross her (or invite her to sing).  Magrat, well…she tries so hard.  She wants to be a proper witch, with all the ceremony and theatrics, and doesn’t quite seem to realize it’s just not meant to be.

It may be the little touches I like best here.  The ghost king is thoroughly annoyed by all the other ghosts floating through his castle–it’s so crowded, and some are just blobs who have really let themselves go.  There’s a mystic stone out on a hill that’s so bashful it hides if anyone comes by.  There are frequent Macbeth quotes, as well as other Shakespeare references; the theatre company puts on a wide variety of identifiable albeit re-named plays.

And Death of course has a cameo, and he’s wonderful.  He’s much better at the role than the actor assigned to be Death in the play, and he’s very disturbed when a living character goes mad and decides to become a ghost (because…that’s just not allowed).

There’s a cartoon miniseries, which naturally is going straight into my Netflix queue.  Has anyone seen it?  Is it any good?

I think this would be a great place for someone to start the Discworld series.  It’s independent of earlier ones, introduces major characters, and is brilliantly funny.  It begins the Witches plotline, which spans several books that are more interconnected than most of Discworld.  It worked out for me, even though I read them in reverse order…but you might be better off going front-to-back!

Author’s Site: http://terrypratchettbooks.com/

Other reviews:
Books Writing Tea
Drown My Books
Sabrina’s Bookshelf
Anyone else?

Going Postal Group Read, Conclusion

On By cherylmahoneyIn Summer in Discworld14 Comments

We’re on the last week of the Going Postal Group Read, and before I get into the discussion, I want to thank everyone who participated. It’s been so much fun to see the differing thoughts of everyone reading this very fun book. 🙂

1) At this end of the book, which characters turned out to be your favorites?

This is actually quite hard, because I’m feeling very attached to a number of characters.  Stanley definitely had his moments (and Little Moments), and I liked Mr. Pump’s steadfast work ethic and surprising insights.  I liked Ms. Dearheart better the second time through the book, I think, getting more of a sense of what’s under her stern exterior and cloud of smoke.  And Groat was really funny.  So…I liked a lot of the characters here!

2) We’ve touched on Moist’s character growth throughout the discussion.  How do you feel about him by the end of the story?  Is it significantly different than the beginning, or did anything surprise you?

I loved Moist’s character growth.  It’s like Pratchett invites us to see past his charm, and invites Moist to do the same thing.  He ends up realizing that his life hasn’t been nearly as harmless as he’d like to think, delves into all the complex aspects of human nature he’d been taking advantage of before, and comes out the other side of it all as probably a nicer person than he realizes.  And he’s still maintaining a mad tap dance to stay ahead of everything.  I enjoy how he faces challenges by plunging in and creating even bigger challenges–and then fights like mad to make it work.  He’s kind of still charming at the end, but by then I think there’s something real in it.

3) Was there anything you haven’t had the chance to discuss in response to earlier questions?  Call this a “wild card” question. 🙂

This one was really for everybody else, because…I was writing the questions, so I discussed the things I wanted to cover!

4) Share your favorite quotes and moments from the final section—or let us know your absolute favorite line.

There were some good Wizard bits in this section of the book.  For instance:

…”nothing to see” is what most of the universe consists of, and many a wizard has peacefully trimmed his beard while gazing into the dark heart of the cosmos.

“Oh, please sue the university!” Ridcully bellowed.  “We’ve got a pond full of people who tried to sue the university.”

Probably not a good idea to bring legal proceedings against wizards.  I also loved the whole epilogue, and Vetinari’s final line: “You have to admire a man who really believes in freedom of choice.  Sadly, he did not believe in angels.”

Since I couldn’t even pick a favorite character, I think I’d better not try to pick a favorite line!

Guarding Ankh-Morpork

On By cherylmahoneyIn Summer in Discworld3 Comments
Not Pictured: Snuff, which isn’t in paperback yet

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about one of Discworld’s most frequent recurring characters, Death.  This week, let’s look at my favorite group of regulars, the City Guard of Ankh-Morpork.  There are eight books focused on this group of rather hapless police officers, and they’re the one subseries I’ve read all the way through (but completely out of order).

The City Guard are led by Sam Vimes, the relatively sane focus point in the middle of some very odd characters.  I think Vimes is what makes these my favorite set of books.  Besides being an awesome character, he’s the straight man who makes the comedians even funnier.  Vimes is a world-weary police officer with a cynical streak a mile wide, who nevertheless believes in honor and justice and above all, the rule of law.  He’s uncorruptable while completely practical about the corrupt city he guards.  He undergoes more evolution than most Discworld characters, and even though I read him all out of order it’s interesting to see his character grow through the books.

Vime’s righthand man is Corporal Carrot, biologically a six-foot human and culturally a dwarf (it’s complicated).  He’s simple, but not stupid.  He also believes in honor and honesty, but unlike Vimes, he believes everyone else is honorable and honest too.  The funny thing is, around Carrot, they are.

Sargeant Fred Colon and Nobby Nobbs typically appear together.  Colon always knows the best place for a drink or a smoke, and the best ways to avoid any and all trouble.  Nobby has to carry around a card to verify that he’s human; descriptions are vague, but I picture him short, skinny, pimply and hairy.  He’s convinced of his own vast wisdom and sophistication, and is a guardsman who is nevertheless addicted to petty theft.

There are a few women on the force: Cheery Littlebottom is a dwarf who breaks dwarfish taboos by openly admitting to being female, and Angua is a brilliant fighter and tracker, largely because she’s a werewolf.

There are some other regulars among the guards, but those are my favorites.  They’re a motley and very funny crew, who generally manage to pull success out of chaos.  Guards! Guards! is the first in the subseries, and Jingo, Night Watch and Thud! are among my favorites.  But really, they’re all good, and you can probably just grab any you like.  It’s Discworld–you’ll figure things out.

Going Postal Group Read, Week Three

On By cherylmahoneyIn Summer in Discworld8 Comments

It’s Week Three of the Going Postal Group Read!  We’re past the halfway point now.  Here’s the discussion for the next quarter of the book:

1) So far we’ve talked about characters and settings.  What are your thoughts on either the plot or the romance?  Anything surprising, or anything you particularly enjoy?

I do enjoy the mere fact that Pratchett has a plot.  Some comedy writers rely only on the humpr and have novels that are basically just strings of jokes.  I like that Going Postal has a compelling plot driving it forward, centered on the restoration of the Post Office, the conspiracy and business competition of the Clacks, and of course Moist’s character development.  The romance is an interesting aspect of that.  He’s lived his whole life showing people only the outside.  I love that when he starts to fall for a girl, it’s because of what’s behind her outside, stern exterior.  “Outside exterior” is redundant, but I trust you know what I mean!

2) Pratchett has used a number of ideas throughout the book as satirical commentary on our society—golem rights, pin collecting, collective responsibility, business corruption…  What have you found the most interesting?

The Golem rights and the business corruption are probably the most obvious satires.  I was most intrigued, however, by Stanley and the pin collectors.  On the face of it, collecting pins is ridiculous, with all his fascination in precisely how they’re made and what year they’re from and so on.  But on the other hand, how many collectable items have value beyond what we put into them?  With all due respect to cute china figurines, for example, they don’t have any actual use.  And even things that may be useful in some capacity end up endowed with far more value because collectors decided they’re valuable.  On the other hand, is that genuine value?  I think to a certain extent it is–and at other times, as with Stanley’s pins, it can be taken to an extent that’s ridiculous!

3) And of course, share your favorite quotes and moments from this section of Going Postal!

The headlines screamed at [Moist] as soon as he saw the paper.  He almost screamed back.

This section featured Mr. Groat’s trip to the hospital, leading to some very funny remarks from the examining doctor.

“His trousers were the subject of a controlled detonation after one of his socks exploded.  We’re not sure why.”

“Oh, and do take his wig, will you?  We tried putting it in a cupboard, but it got out.”

As usual, leave links to reviews in the comments! 🙂

Favorites Friday: Fantasy Worlds

On By cherylmahoneyIn Favorites Friday12 Comments

I recently read Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, about a future where most of humanity spends most of their time in a massive virtual world (stay tuned for a review!)  Made up of thousands of planets and universes, there’s a tantalizing mention that many fictional worlds have been created within the virtual universe.  Which got me thinking about which fictional universes I’d most like to visit…

Star Trek is an obvious first choice.  It’s such an idealized future, both in terms of technology and humanity’s advancement, that it would be an amazing place to live.  I’m not so sure about being a tourist there, because I don’t know precisely what I’d like to see–the universe in general is amazing, but isn’t so much big on the landmarks.  If I was just visiting, I’d be most interested if I could hang out with the known characters (by which I mostly mean Kirk, Spock and McCoy).  It’s a very much character-driven fictional universe for me, and they’re wonderful characters who also live in a really nice universe.  So either meeting them or having a whole life there sounds…well, fascinating!

I find more appealing a vacation on Pern, Anne McCaffrey’s dragon world.  I’d like to come by long enough to fly dragon-back and visit the Harper Hall for a concert.  If I managed to discover that I have musical ability, I could see living at the Harper Hall (the Harpers are, after all, the storytellers), but that’s a big if.  It would be a great place to visit, though, and then come home to my air conditioner and indoor plumbing.

I’d also like to visit Discworld, but only with a friendly native guide.  I love reading about the corrupt city of Ankh-Morpork, but I know I’d get into an enormous amount of trouble if I was actually there.  For one thing, I’m not paid up with the Thieves’ Guild!

I’d like a long trip to Diana Wynne Jones’ Time City, where residents seem to be able to get the best bits of every period of history, from the ancient world on up to 100,000 AD.  I’d just be so fascinated to find out about the whole sweep of history.  I could see myself spending a very long time in the library (or equivalent) and being perfectly happy.

On first thought I have doubts about going to any of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ worlds–I guess the significant one is Barsoom (or Mars).  It is, after all, a rather violent place.  I think I’d only want to live there if I could be a Burroughs heroine, because nothing really bad ever happens to them; and, of course, they all get brave, noble Burroughs heroes!

Much as I love Tamora Pierce’s Tortall books, I don’t think I’d much like to live there.  There’s magic, but it’s magic in a rather gritty, historical-fiction-type world and, well, see air conditioning and indoor plumbing above.  I’d love to visit long enough to meet my favorite characters, but the world itself doesn’t particularly draw me in.

There are lots of other worlds I love reading about, and lots of characters I’d love to meet (which I guess would mean visiting their worlds, but it’s not the world that counts there), but that covers at least some of my top choices for worlds to visit or take up residence in.  I know as soon as I post this I’ll think of somewhere else!

It’s funny how in some books, the setting is just the background, and in others, it’s really an integral part, as interesting as anything else.  The worlds I’m most drawn to, besides being reasonably pleasant places (for contrast, the world of The Hunger Games? Never want to go there), are also immensely detailed and elaborate worlds.  Perhaps I can imagine living there because I can believe in them as places, and because there are plenty of details to be fascinated by.

Your turn!  Where would you go if you could?