Read through of all the books

Whispered · 30-12-2017 12:49am

Lords and ladies is a fantastic read. One of my favourites.

jasonb · 09-02-2018 2:08pm

Well, you were right Whispered, it is a good book. Finished it a little while ago (in fact, I’ve already started Men At Arms) and I really enjoyed it. Once again, I’ve found a Witches story much more interesting than I did when I first read them when I was younger.

There’s just something down to earth and ‘real’ about the Witches and even Lancre. Maybe it’s the setting that most closely mirrors Earth, I don’t know. The three Witches are great characters, and the fact that a lot of what they do isn’t witchcraft as such, but ‘headology’, adds some realism as well. And I love that their books have themes like the power of words, and the power of memory and stories. Such excellent ideas to explore. Having a history between

Esme and Ridcully

was cool as well, linking two extremes of Discworld.

Some great quotes (as always) too, some of my favourites include:

“Nanny Ogg never did any housework herself, but she was the cause of housework in other people.”

“Mustrum Ridcully did a lot for rare species. For one thing, he kept them rare.”

“Verence suddenly looked like a man who had been expecting a frontal attack and suddenly finds nasty things happening behind him”

“Aphrodisiac food never caught on in Lancre, apart from Nanny Ogg’s famous Carrot and Oyster Pie*

*Carrots so you can see in the dark, she’d explain, and oysters so’s you’ve got something to look at”

So all in all, a great read, and my new love of the Witches continues.

Next is Men At Arms, which brings us back to the Night Watch. Vimes is one of my favourite characters, so I’m enjoying it already.

jasonb · 16-02-2018 1:12pm

Well, I finished Men at Arms a few days ago, book number 15 done/1 I flew through it, partly because I was sick at home, but mainly 'cos I just loved it.

I've always had a soft spot for Vimes and the Watch, and this book, after their introduction in Guards! Guards!, is the one that seems to put in place a lot of what I know and love about them. We also get to see some of the new characters that we'll get to know better in future books. In fact, that's one of the things I love about Terry's writing, a passing mention or character in one book could come back and eventually be the main character in a later one. It gives a great sense of continuity, and that these ideas and characters are still 'living' on Discworld even if he's not writing about them. For example, in this one he mentions the Motto on the Post Office, and that comes back in Going Postal.

Another thing I love about his books is how the characters get more backstory and more depth as the books go on, he doesn't just rest on their original, basic, characteristics. Carrot is a great example of this, he starts off simple and single-minded, and he keeps those traits while gaining a lot more depth and weight on his shoulders. I love how

he takes that he's descended from the King so calmly, realises the implications and decides to keep it quiet, but uses it with the Patrician to get improvements for the Watch, far more clever and subtle than Carrot has been in the past

.

Anyhow, Men at Arms has all the classics, the Watch, the Patrician, the Guilds, and a mystery (and a half decent one at that, I do like the whodunit nature of this story). Vimes, as always, can't let something lie and has to get to the bottom of it, get the truth out, no matter the cost.

Like in Reaper Man, this book has

characters that die in it, and I'd forgotten that Cuddy doesn't make it, and has also forgotten (happily) that Angua does in the end

. There's also a joke that I didn't get the first time where

we think Angua is unusual because she's a Woman in the Watch, but then find out that she's actually a Werewolf. Terry even had one character say something like '...turn in their graves if they knew that the Watch had taken on a W--' which works both ways.

As usual, Terry has some great ways at looking at things, like how happy are Clowns really, or that fact that

trolls get more intelligent the colder they get, due to superconducting, and his whole take on Leonardo is excellent

. Even Molly Malone gets a look in here!

All in all, possibly my favourite book so far I have to say. Some great quotes from it of course, including:

"The river Ankh is probably the only river in the universe on which the investigators can chalk the outline of the corpse."

"The Patrician relaxed, in a way which only then drew gentle attention to the foregoing moment of tension."

"The maze was so small that people got lost looking for it."

And this little conversation between Sergeant Colon and a Fool:

Colon (who is rather fat) knocks on the door in the Fools' Guild and a small clown answers it:

"'I say, I say, I say' the Clown said, 'why did the fat man knock at the door?'

'I don't know', said Colon automatically. 'Why did the fat man knock at the door?'

They stared at each other, tangled in the punchline.

'That's what I asked you', said the clown reproachfully"

Speaking of quotes, if you're reading any of the books, have a look at the Annotated Pratchett File (just google the name of the book and 'apf' and you'll find it). It has quotes from each book, and also some notes to explain some of the references that are made. It's a great little reference, and I read it after each book to see if I missed anything.

Next up is Soul Music, which I loved when I was younger as I played in bands myself (I still joke about drummers counting in with 'One, Two, Many, Lots'). However, I loved Moving Pictures when I was younger and found it a bit too heavy handed this time around, so I'll see how Soul Music goes.

jasonb · 26-03-2018 9:44pm

Hmmm... I enjoyed Soul Music, but I think it kinda went the same way as Moving Pictures, my memory of it was better than how I felt about reading it now. Maybe it just suited that point in my life when I was in a band etc.

Once again, it's a book about something we don't think of being alive, being, well, alive. Something Terry does very well (still not used to past tense for Terry). And once again there are a lot of references, some subtle, some not so much, to the music industry from the 60s onwards. I did like the references, but also found some of them a little too in your face, like I did with Moving Pictures.

But, as always, Terry's magic still makes it a good read, the prism he looks through is always interesting, and funny. There were lots of little things I loved, like the Raven's name being 'Quote', the 'My Little Binky' toy set for girls, and the cliché of rock bands 'redecorating' their hotel rooms actually being turned into the band redecorating the hotel room, adding new curtains etc.!

In some ways the plot was similar to Moving Pictures (

some idea coming to life and threatening everything

) and Mort (

Death going off on one of his 'what's it all about' breaks

), but I did find Susan's story (

especially about Death 'letting' her Parents die, and her memories of him as her Grandfather when she was little

) quite moving, which is probably linked to the fact that I have a daughter of my own.

So all in all, I enjoyed it, but not as much as I'd hoped. Some of the quotes I liked from this one included:

"The man gave a shrug which indicated that, although the world did indeed have many problems, this was one of them that was not his."

"The class was learning about some revolt in which some peasants had wanted to stop being peasants and, since the nobles had won, had stopped being peasants really quickly."

"They looked at one another in incomprehension, two minds driving opposite ways up a narrow street and waiting for the other man to reverse first."

I've moved on to Interesting Times now. I'm not a massive fan of Rincewind (Blasphemer!) but I'm enjoying it so far.

Read through of all the books

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