All things Discworld

[Takhisis]

Forty books, a few short stories, dubious reading order, and may Granny Weatherwax do her worst on you if you do something disagreeable.

Open floor.
Spoilers allowed!

This thread founded under the benevolent auspices of Queen Esmerelda Margaret Note Spelling of Lancre.

 

[Morty]

Read the first half ad-hoc when at Uni, and then got the latest release in hardback every Christmas off parents. I must go back and fill in the gaps at some point!

 

[tjs282]

All his life, my dad has fed an SF book-habit (also classical music on vinyl) comparable to Imelda Marcos' penchant for shoes. So he bought most of the DW novels as they were published, and (having graduated from Douglas Adams) I read them all off his shelf at least once during my early/mid-teens. (I also read the first 8 or so of Robert Asprin's 'Myth/M.Y.T.H.' books, but I always liked Pterry's stuff better).

From my early twenties onwards (once I was working!), regular and diligent scouring of the local secondhand bookshops has allowed me to (re)acquire most of the main-sequence DW novels for myself (in paperback). More recently, those from Going Postal onwards were delivered as Christmas/birthday presents (so in hardback, although I still prefer paperbacks). I'm missing 'only' Moving Pictures, The Fifth Elephant, Thief of Time*, and The Truth, and all the Tiffany Aching books except A Hat Full Of Sky (I could have sworn I also had a second TA novel, but none of the synopses on Wikipedia sound familiar).

*I did actually acquire secondhand copies of ToT and TFE -- among others -- during the 18 months I was working in Dahab,. Unfortunately, I did not own a Luggage! So to lighten my extremely excess baggage, just before I left I passed on all the paperbacks that I'd accumulated to a friend. I still occasionally kick myself about that...

I know I could almost certianly locate/order the missing titles over the internet, but some of the fun of this little project is the physical search itself: so resorting to Amazon (quite apart from all the problematic financial/ethical aspects) just feels like cheating. Also, while browsing an actual bookshelf, I often find other books/authors that pique my interest (as opposed to having things shoved at me by a 'smart' algorithm).

I also have GoOd oMeNs, all 5 of The Long... books, the Bromeliad, Johnny and the Dead, Nation, A Blink of the Screen, and Dragons at Crumbling Castle.

I've never read FaustEric or The Last Hero -- mostly because (to the best of my recollection) I've never encountered a copy of either of them. And though I remember not liking Strata or The Dark Side of the Sun very much as an early teenager, I wouldn't be averse to buying/ re-reading them now, with the benefit of 30+ years' (mis)education behind me. (I might well even have read Strata before Ringworld, so some of the jokes/ parodies/ satire in there would have whooshed straight over 12 y.o. me's head). Dodger is also on my to-read list, if I can find a copy.

 

[Takhisis]

Oh, the Bromeliad, yes, I should reread those.

 

[Plotinus]

Here's my smug claim to fame:

I proof-read Night Watch and Monstrous Regiment. So I got paid for reading Terry Pratchett. If you spot any typos in those two, it's my fault.

 

[Takhisis]

What edition? Corgi? I read them only a fortnight ago and they are highly re-readable.

 

[Plotinus]

The original edition, published by Transworld. I don't know if that's the Corgi one, but it probably is, as Corgi is an imprint of Transworld. In any case I don't think they'd reset them for subsequent editions, at least not within the UK.

I haven't read them since, as proof-reading is quite intensive and feels like rereading as you're doing it. But I should, as I thought they were both among his strongest books.

 

[Takhisis]

Yes, you should.

I got meself The Streets of Ankh-Morpork, yay!

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

I have very little left of his writing to read. I have to limit myself as I will be so sad the day I have no more left. I must have read a lot of the main Discworld books dozens of times.

 

[Takhisis]

@Ajidica how's your current reading of Pterry's works going?

 

[Ajidica]

@Ajidica how's your current reading of Pterry's works going?

Finished up The Truth, it was okay. Was screaming to be a Watch story and the lack of the Watch's involvement despite it occurring in Ankh-Morpork felt like a plot hole.
Started The Last Continent but abandoned it halfway through. Seems to come from the period when Pratchett was transitioning from a parody writer to a story writer, but the result was he was good at neither. The parody references either weren't funny or were referring to something I was unfamiliar with (or was too obvious to be a funny parody), and the story was too thin to hold the plot together. It doesn't help that Rincewind is a terrible story protagonist. Things happen to him, he doesn't cause things to happen.

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

How odd, TLC is my favourite by far, and I absolutely loved Rincewind completely lost within the adventure!

 

[Takhisis]

Finished up The Truth, it was okay. Was screaming to be a Watch story and the lack of the Watch's involvement despite it occurring in Ankh-Morpork felt like a plot hole.

IIRC at the time of writing Pratchett was getting tired of the Watch somehow hogging all the storylines that took place in Ankh-Morpork so he consciously began developing characters that would have to stay away from them, for which -of course- Moist von Lipwig is a far better fit than the De Worde boy.

 

[Ajidica]

How odd, TLC is my favourite by far, and I absolutely loved Rincewind completely lost within the adventure!

So, I got started with later Pratchett - first book of his was Monstrous Regiment, followed by Thud! and The Fifth Elephant, both of which rely far more on story and characters than parody. In The Last Continent, while the wizards are funny enough, it isn't enough to hold me through obvious parody/reference (a post-apocalyptic leather-clad dwarf in Australia named Mad? ) or stuff I don't get (most of the Australian culture references).

IIRC at the time of writing Pratchett was getting tired of the Watch somehow hogging all the storylines that took place in Ankh-Morpork so he consciously began developing characters that would have to stay away from them, for which -of course- Moist von Lipwig is a far better fit than the De Worde boy.

True, though 'the Patrician is framed for murder' is definitely the sort of story one would think The Watch would take a vested interest in!