Posts Tagged ‘discworld’

The 21st novel in the Discworld series is Jingo. It sees Ankh-Morpork face off against Klatch in a territorial dispute over a new island. It was not one of my favourites.

The plot is a bit predictable. The two armies line up to fight each other, but never actually do, which reminded me strongly of “Interesting Times“. Of course Lord Vetinari has a plan all along, as always. I am also left wondering just how many extra titles and promotions can possibly forced upon Samuel Vimes.

Given the popularity of the 20th Discworld novel, Hogfather, I started to think that given the anticipation I had built up on finally reaching it, it could only really be a disappointment.

I was a little. It had all the right ingredients, and by that I mean it had Death in it. Also The Wizards. But it just did not do it for me. I am not a big fan of Susan Sto Helit, she is just a bit too normal.

Terry Pratchett’s nineteenth Discworld novel, Feet of Clay, looks at golems and the City Watch. What more could you want? I probably say that in all my blog posts about Discworld books. I really did enjoy this one though, it might be my favourite Discworld novel so far.

The problem with Terry Pratchett novels is that I often have not read the book that it is a satire of. This is true of Maskerade. I have not read Phantom of the Opera. So when I do, I imagine I will spend the whole time thinking “ha, they have just stolen that from Discworld”. Good read, but nothing amazing.

Rinsewind. Two Flower. The Counterweight Continent? What more could you really want from a Discworld novel? There was even a Dibbler-style character, not to mention a great horde of rather ageing hero barbarians! Good read.

The sixteenth book in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series looks at music with rocks in it. It might be just a noise but it’s all the kids are listening to these days.

It has some good characters in it, including Susan (the granddaughter of Death), Dibbler and the Death of Rats. The commentary on the music industry, stardom and the rise of rock and roll was somewhat interesting, though I didn’t find it particularly deep.

Men at Arms is the 15th book in the Discworld series. It focuses around the City Watch, so I was rather looking forward to it. However, while it had its ups and downs, I felt it dragged on a little and some of the stretches I found a little dull. A happy ending will see everything alright though, and with Captain Vimes becoming Commander Vimes, all was well.

The fourteenth book in the Discworld series is Lords & Ladies. It takes place in the Kingdom of Lancre and primarily centres around the witches, with a guest appearance from the wizards, but nothing too substancial.

One thing I did like about Lords & Ladies was the good use of humour, especially when it came to describing the many facets of Lancre society.

The fifteenth book in the Discworld series is Small Gods. It tells the tale of Brutha, the simple minded novice with a perfect memory, who finds out that his all powerful god is in fact, a tortoise.

It presents an entertaining, though fairly straight forward criticism of religious organisations and structures that have long ago forgotten what they are actually about (and what they were actually about was a. wrong and b. now irrelevant anyway). Plus, there is a tortoise, so what more could you want?

The tenth book in the Discworld series, Moving Pictures, describes how the alchemists invented film and moved to Holy Wood to set up the moving picture industry.

It’s not one of my favourite novels from the series. I found it a bit silly at first until it finally settled down, but even then I found it quite hard going in comparison to some of the previous novels. C.M.O.T. Dibbler and Detritus the troll are great characters though, and that kept things entertaining.

I occasionally find myself pining for some better similes too. Pratchett often uses phrases like “as muddy as, well, mud” which certainly have their place in a witty text, but I do feel the technique is becoming a little overused.