Wossname -- November 2014 -- Second issue
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wossnameWossname
Newsletter of the Klatchian Foreign Legion
November 2014 (Volume 17, Issue 11, Post 2)
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WOSSNAME is a free publication offering news, reviews, and all the other stuff-that-fits pertaining to the works and activities of Sir Terry Pratchett. Originally founded by the late, great Joe Schaumburger for members of the worldwide Klatchian Foreign Legion and its affiliates, including the North American Discworld Society and other continental groups, Wossname is now for Discworld and Pratchett fans everywhere in Roundworld.
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Editor in Chief: Annie Mac
News Editor: Vera P
Newshounds: Mogg, Sir J of Croydon Below, the Shadow, Wolfiekins
Staff Writers: Asti, Pitt the Elder, Evil Steven Dread, Mrs Wynn-Jones
Staff Technomancers: Jason Parlevliet, Archchancellor Neil, DJ Helpful
Book Reviews: Annie Mac, Drusilla D'Afanguin, Your Name Here
Puzzle Editor: Tiff (still out there somewhere)
Bard in Residence: Weird Alice Lancrevic
Emergency Staff: Steven D'Aprano, Jason Parlevliet
World Membership Director: Steven D'Aprano (in his copious spare time)
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INDEX:
01) MORE QUOTES OF THE MONTH
02) LETTER FROM YOUR EDITOR
03) GOOD OMENS ON THE WIRELESS NEWS
04) NEW BOOK ON PRATCHETT AND PHILOSOPHY
05) DISCWORLD GAMES NEWS
06) MORE IMAGES
07) AROUND THE BLOGOSPHERE
08) CLOSE
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01) THE OTHER QUOTES OF THE MONTH
"He knew what he wanted to do. If they'd been people, scuffling in the gutter, he'd have known what to do. He'd have banged their heads together and maybe shoved them in the cells overnight. But you couldn't bang countries together." – Vimes contemplates the Borogravia-Zlobenia conflict, in Monstrous Regiment
"Ye used yer eyes and used yer heid. That's what a real hag does. The magicking is just there for advertisin'." – William the Gonnagle points out that Tiffany already knows the basics of witchery, in The Wee Free Men
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02) A LETTER FROM YOUR EDITOR
It's Hogswatch time! In the town of Wincanton! Right now! Far classier than any Black Friday crush, so if you happen to be near Wincanton, do go join in the festivities. From local news site Wincanton Window:
"Fans of the work of Sir Terry Pratchett, author of diverse works of fantasy and satire (and even some serious stuff), will be gathering in Wincanton in Somerset on 28/29/30 November 2014... This will be the 13th Hogswatch gathering in the town following its formal twinning in 2002 with Ankh-Morpork on the Circle Sea. Check the town sign! Fans will come from all over the globe including the USA, Australia and South Africa, to enjoy meeting friends old and new at the Discworld Emporium, the inns of the town, the Balsam Centre and the Memorial Hall. There will be a host of silly things to do, interesting lectures at the Balsam Centre – along with a Magnificent Makers Market – costumes to flaunt and to admire, lovely things to buy at the Emporium, and diverse activities in the Bear and the Memorial Hall...
"See entertainments by and for the fans before and after the watershed! Expect jolly fun with the Fools Guild circus workshops. There will be the Grand Charity Auction in aid of R.I.C.E. with at least one special item to raise money supporting the Wincanton local library. On the Sunday evening, there will be a quiz hosted by the Bear Inn. Come early if you would like to participate – it is very popular.
"We are going to have enormous fun as we always do. Come and join us. There is no cost to attend except for the important stuff like transport, food, accommodation and money to buy wondrous things! We look forward to meeting you whether 'tis again or for the very first time."
www.wincantonwindow.co.uk/hogswatch-2014-is-coming.htm
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Who ever thought an estate agent's advertisement would be relevant to feature in Wossname? Ah, but this is the sort of estate agent's advert you don't see every day:
"Property-seekers could enjoy their dream family Christmas in a brand new home if they choose one of the final two houses available at Kingwell Rise, Taylor Wimpey's sought-after development in Wincanton, Somerset... Kingwell Rise is located just outside Wincanton and enjoys a rural feel with a welcoming village atmosphere. Street names are inspired by Sir Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, such as Peach Pie Street or Treacle Mine Road. Wincanton, which itself is 'twinned' with Discworld's Ankh-Morpork, is conveniently placed off the A303, one of the main routes connecting the south-west to London..."
If you want to see the whole advert – the houses are more Scoone Avenue than Treacle Mine Road, but after all this is Roundworld – go to http://bit.ly/1zntsjn
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Now read on for some exciting news about the forthcoming Good Omens radio play... and a new book about Terry Pratchett and philosophy, by actual philosophers (Wossname's review copy is in transit, so expect a full review in next issue)... and updates on Discworld games... and stuff...
– Annie Mac, Editor
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03) GOOD OMENS ON THE WIRELESS NEWS
From Den of Geek:
"Tune in to BBC Radio 4 Mon 22nd to Sat 27th of December for the adaptation of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's Good Omens... Here's a festive gift we can open a wee bit early: BBC Radio 4 has confirmed that its six-part Good Omens adaptation will start on Monday the 22nd of December at 11pm, running throughout the Christmas week and culminating with an hour-long episode on Saturday the 27th of December (presumably just after tea). Geek radio drama doyen Dirk Maggs (The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, Neverwhere) has adapted Gaiman and Pratchett's 1990 comic apocalypse novel for the airwaves. Maggs and producer Heather Larmour have amassed an impressive cast for the series, led by Mark Heap and Peter Serafinowicz as angel Aziraphale and demon Crowley respectively. Those two are joined by Colin Morgan, Josie Lawrence, Paterson Joseph, Clive Russell, Phil Davis, Louise Brealey and more. Think of it as a geek Christmas selection box, for your ears, without the rubbish Chomp bar..."
http://bit.ly/1tooKOH
And now the best bit for the terminally impatient – an audio clip from Good Omens, featuring a pair of coppers called, mysteriously, Terry and Neil, in pursuit of Crowley's car:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02cv5cn
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04) PRATCHETT AND PHILOSOPHY
A new book, "Philosophy and Terry Pratchett", edited by Jacob M. Held and James B. South, will be published by Palgrave Macmillan on 3rd December 2014. Held is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Central Arkansas and has previously published works on the philosophy of other popular authors, while South is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Marquette University and has edited books on such subjects as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, James Bond, Mad Men, comic books, the Beatles and other cultural phenomena.
The official press release:
"'The hope is that this volume will bring readers and fans of Pratchett who may not know much philosophy an added appreciation of the complexity and depth of his work. For philosophers, we hope this volume will lead them to read Pratchett for the serious man of ideas that he is, as well as for his narrative verve, wicked since of humor, and nice (in the Pratchettian sense) distinctions made in his novels.' – James B. South, Preface: Philosophy and Terry Pratchett
"Philosophy and Terry Pratchett explores the genuine philosophical issues at the heart of some of the world's most-loved fantasy fiction novels, including the Discworld books. Sir Terry Pratchett, who has sold more than 85 million copies of his books, is read and respected worldwide. This book, the first to explicitly address philosophical themes in his work, will appeal to fans of Pratchett, to philosophers interested in popular culture, and to anyone interested in the relationship between fiction and philosophy.
"Covering topics in metaphysics, logic, epistemology, ethics, and social and political philosophy, the thirteen contributors to this volume illuminate the philosophical significance of Pratchett's work in a sophisticated way, but written so that anyone who reads Pratchett will find something thought-provoking."
Philosophy and Terry Pratchett will carry the recommended prices of £16.99 and $27.
...and here be a feature on Philosophy and Terry Pratchett in The Guardian, by Alison Flood:
"Philosophers looking for fresh insights into metaphysics, epistemology and ethics can add another author to their reading list, as a study reveals the philosophical issues explored in the work of Terry Pratchett... Philosophy and Terry Pratchett, published on 3 December, is the first study to explore the philosophical implications of Pratchett's imaginary world, which is perched on the back of a turtle. Edited by philosophy professors and Pratchett fans James South and Jacob Held, the collection of essays examines questions including 'Plato, the Witch, and the Cave: Granny Weatherwax and the Moral Problem of Paternalism', 'Equality and Difference: Just because the Disc Is Flat, Doesn't Make It a Level Playing Field for All', 'Hogfather and the Existentialism of Søren Kierkegaard', and 'the Importance of Being in the Right Trouser Leg of Time'.
"South, associate professor of philosophy at Marquette University, is adamant Pratchett's novels 'hold up to sustained philosophical reflection'. 'Pratchett is a very smart man, a gifted writer, and understands as well as any philosopher the power of storytelling and the problems humans face in making sense of their lives and the world they live in,' South said. 'Or, as Death puts it so well: "DO NOT PUT ALL YOUR TRUST IN ROOT VEGETABLES. WHAT THINGS SEEM TO BE MAY NOT BE WHAT THEY ARE." This is a truth that Pratchett relatedly acknowledges and tries to get his readers to acknowledge as well.'
"For Held, associate professor of philosophy at the University of Central Arkansas... Pratchett's character Death 'is profoundly Kantian... He speaks to the need for a rational faith or belief in values like dignity, or even an afterlife ... Then you have Carrot and Vimes, or the relativist versus the moral absolutist. So much of Pratchett's writings deal with value in the world, its origin, its origin in our beliefs, in our desire and need to value the world, and how it needs to be rigorously maintained through our practices.'... The academics have not approached Pratchett about the book, South saying they 'figured he'd think it was all a bit of nonsense taking his work seriously in this way', although adding that “secretly, I think he'd be pleased'..."
http://bit.ly/1w10kke
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05) DISCWORLD GAMES NEWS
From Backspindle Games' David Brashaw comes a long-awaited Discworld Con 2014 review and a Hogswatch Special Offer:
"This year our adventure to the fantastic Discworld Con was 'really very interesting', mainly due to the style of the venue. The Place Hotel, grand in stature was a bit more like Hogwarts – staircases everywhere and a lot of toing and froing of Discworld delegates trying to figure out if they can find Gaspode and a wonderful short cut through the maze from one event to another. Nevertheless we endured, running games of Guards! Guards! in the gaming room, running the wonderful run-around-the-convention LIVE game of Guards! Guards!, play-testing our new board game, Clacks, due to be published in 2015 and lastly Backspindle Boy, David, dawning the role of Lu Tze and giving two very relaxing sessions of Tai Chi. We really appreciated PJSM prints selling our games and t-shirts, the prizes from Discworld Ales and the special gift we received from Sir Terry. Other highlights were 'the interview' the Maskerade (so many wonderful costumes) and the early showing of Troll Bridge. However the best part was of course linking up with all our friends and having fun. Thank you all!
"Clacks – is coming! We know it's been an age, but honestly, good games take time to develop, design, print and get to the masses. Following our massive success with Luchador Dice game, Clacks is now back on our schedule and will hopefully be available by summer 2015. We have been developing the cooperative game which this proved very popular on our recent trip to Spiel, Essen. We have also tendered for artwork and appointed an illustrator. Some of you may know her… She is very talented artist and knows the Discworld very well. Excitement is building.
"Hogswatch Special offer! Sadly we cannot make Bernard's tea party this year, but to celebrate all things Hogswatch including the Sausage Supper we have decided to discount Guards! Guards! boardgame down to a magical £28.99 for two weeks. Last shipping for ROW is 3 December and UK buyers 17 December."
Reprinted with permission, but do go to the webpage because it includes links and iconographs:
http://www.guardsguards.com/
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06) ANOTHER IMAGE OF THE MONTH
As he is after all the co-creator of Good Omens, it's appropriate that Neil Gaiman's posed with Aziraphale's flaming sword:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B3dGqlHIYAEujiW.jpg
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07) AROUND THE BLOGOSPHERE
Blogger Jonathan Feinstein is back with his review of the Long War audiobook:
"In Good Omens, which Mister Pratchett wrote with Neil Gaiman, it was fairly obvious which author wrote which parts of the story, but they fit together well. Here they fit together very well too, but there seems to be something missing. Even when writing a serious story, Terry Pratchett usually slips in his distinct sense of humor and fondness for word-play, none of which appears in this book. It made me wonder just how much of it he really wrote. I admit that aside from the first book of this series I do not recall ever having read any of Mister Baxter's work, so it is possible that this is unlike anything he has written as well. Now none of the above is meant to say that I did not like the book. I did think that the first book, The Long Earth was better, but maybe that is just me. I admit that in some of my own stories I sometimes follow more than one character too, but I really think it is important to bring it all together by the end of the current volume, even on a multi-volume story. The previous book concluded with Madison, Wisconsin being destroyed by a wacko with a back-pack nuclear device... Naturally I wanted to know much more about the incident and the name of this book, The Long War, seemed to imply that first bomb was just the first. Sorry, that is not the case... All told, though, while it was a very readable story, I was disappointed by the fact that there was very little new..."
http://bit.ly/1zTnVln
From blogger and novice published author SJ Griffin aka squintarium comes an amusing post about her love for the works of Pratchett even though they consumer her working hours:
"Marvel at how much time has passed since we were here last. Thrill at the total lack of words that have appeared on this site. Wonder at the audacity with which I point this out. I have an excuse: The dog ate it. No, wait. It was Terry Pratchett that ate it. Sorry dog! Terry Pratchett ate my blog post. Blog posts. Plural. He has been doing this for some considerable time. Over two months, I think. He is ravenous for blog posts... I decided that I would read the whole Discworld series in order. I sort of fell into this decision, in the same why that depressed men fall into the Foreign Legion. Or Isis, as it is now known. I took a few of the later books on holiday – as I'd already read up to The Truth a while ago I thought I would read the rest. Then I found I had devoured them and when I came to the last one, Raising Steam, I decided to start again. I'm now on The Fifth Elephant so I'm almost back where I started. I shall continue through to the end again. I don't think you can read Night Watch too often. Or Thud! Or Carpe Jugulum. Or... ah, you see the problem..."
http://squintarium.com/2014/11/17/i-blame-terry-pratchett/
New(ish) blogger Dynamite Review gives Johnny and the Dead 4 out of 5 stars:
"I like the fact that Pratchett doesn't stick with one power, sure Johnny can find a way into video games but he can also talk to the dead. He'll probably get to do something else in the next book. It would have been interesting to continue on with the video games but he would have ended up having to give more details and explanations and while I probably would have found it interesting I'm sure it would have gotten boring..."
http://dynamitereview.wordpress.com/2014/11/22/johnny-and-the-dead/
Punefully-named blogger Pratchett Job is, unsurprisingly, dedicated to reviewing all the Discworld novels. Here is the review of Mort:
"There are some wonderfully visual passages throughout the novel. While Pratchett has lent heavily on the apocalypse in each of the books to date, it hasn't really felt real or threatening. In Mort there are some incredibly evocative scenes- Death's room full of hourglasses, the aforementioned sun rising over the cesspit that is Ankh Morpork or the Grim Reaper propping up a bar are all wonderful. Mort's first piece of work experience – shepherding the witch Goodie Hamstring into the afterlife – is a brilliant scene and really hard to do justice here. It's very simply written and the everyday subtlety of it makes it surprisingly moving... It's far from a bad novel; like Equal Rites, it's a very exciting one because you can tell he is almost there. There is something tangibly great just outside of his grasp but he is getting better and better with each novel, and closer and closer. That's been one of the most exciting things about this re-read – being able to see a noticeable evolution in his writing ability with each book. It's a very exciting thing to read – God knows how it felt to Pratchett himself at the time..."
http://bit.ly/11RrWM8
...and The Colour of Magic:
"Throughout the book, imagination is celebrated and cherished and a line is clearly drawn between the power of magic in the Discworld and the power of thought and creativity in this... The flimsiness of the book is its main flaw and the plot is basically 'double act goes here, then here, then here'. Only the first part of the book – where Rincewind and Twoflower escape the city of Ankh-Morpork, its thieves and assassins, and accidentally invent insurance fraud in the process – rattles along with a degree of urgency and momentum. Nevertheless, The Colour of Magic remains a tremendous amount of fun, with Pratchett overloading pages with jokes, comic asides and deftly written set-pieces..."
http://bit.ly/1Fm7uiN
...and then there is the "apology", more of a paean, really:
"I needed something more. Something, well, disc-shaped. Enter Terry Pratchett. Not just Terry Pratchett – there was Douglas Adams, John Wyndham, Jeff Noon's Vurt, Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age a bit further down the line, Iain M Banks, Grant Naylor's Red Dwarf books. But Pratchett stood above them all. I can't remember which one I picked up first but I can still remember my favourite author biography – 'Terry Pratchett was born in 1948 and is still not dead'. His description of sex in Equal Rites – 'count the legs and divide by two'. The absolute absurdity of the Discworld and the sharp comic genius that drove his novels... then the absolute stupidity of teenagers kicked in and Terry Pratchett was definitely 'not cool'. I didn't like Discworld, I liked Bret Easton Ellis. I liked Jack Kerouac. I liked Irvine Welsh. Not once did it dawn upon me that it was ok to like all of it at the same time. But Pratchett was clearly the bridge between the excessive geekery of my youth reading habits and what I read now..."
http://bit.ly/1zTsKLA
...and The Light Fantastic:
"The Light Fantastic is a Discworld book that I've read before. I remember not liking it. Beyond that? Nothing. So I was rather surprised to find I enjoyed it. In short, The Light Fantastic is The Colour of Magic but with plot. While its predecessor threw joke after joke at the reader to stop them from noticing that not a lot was actually happening, Rincewind and Twoflower, TCM's protagonists, are trying to halt The End of the World, albeit in their usual cack-handed fashion... The Light Fantastic is about power and responsibility. I'll try and keep the Spider-Man references to a minimum but in Trymon we are shown a ruthless and ambitious mage set on modernisation, without actually thinking through the consequences. So when he packs the seven Spells into his head, he opens a portal through which the dreaded Things from the Dungeon Dimensions can travel through (plot, remember?). So far, so straightforward, but where The Light Fantastic is interesting is how Pratchett explores the importance of the right kind of authority and knowing one's limits..."
pratchettjob.wordpress.com/2014/11/06/strange-lights-the-light-fantastic/
Jacqui of the Land of Fog aka akiwisbookreviews tackles The Long Mars without having read the first two books:
"The 'alternate earths' concept is not new in science fiction, there are even multiple role-playing games and campaign settings based around the idea, but I have to admit that Pratchett and Baxter have gone somewhere original with it... I came to The Long Mars without reading either of its predecessors, The Long Earth and The Long War. I loved the ideas here, but there was a bit too much going on, maybe even too many narrative threads. And at the back of my mind was a niggling doubt – not about the Long Earth itself – but about infrastructure and logistics, the practical issues of a series of new, wild Earths. Step sideways into an uninhabited Earth-like world… how long can you survive? How long does it take to build a civilisation from the ground up? Never mind having a sizable chunk of the Earth you came from being blown up and the rest thrown into the deep freezer of a volcanic fimbulwinter! Maybe it'll make more sense with the two books in the series yet to come..."
http://bit.ly/1vj9vuB
Once again, blogger Vacuous Wastrel is dissing a Discworld novel. Except that to his apparent horror he found much to love in Jingo:
"So why do I say it's much better than I remember it being? Well, the form may be poor, but a lot of the material is excellent. Take out the annoying political set-up and the last third or so of the novel (a mixture of dodgy politics and people wandering around waiting for a plot that makes sense), and what we basically have is a big chunk of scenes of the Watch that Pterry thought were funny but that didn't fit into the previous books. [Disclaimer: I don't know if that's actually true, but it's how it feels]. And he was [hypothetically] right: they're funny. And having less of a plot around to get in the way is actually a massive bonus, because we get to see the characters 'at rest', as it were. As a result, as well as being very funny, this may be the best view we ever get of the Watch as people, and in particular of the relationships between them. We get scenes of Vimes and Sybil ('I'm just going out to kick some arse, dear'); we get some much-needed scenes of Angua and Carrot. We get Colon and Nobby. Breaking away from the established duets, we even get Angua and Nobby – not only on screen, but second-hand through Nobby, and it's interesting the different perspective Nobby has of her (his Angua anecdotes include her casually reading through an illustrated sex manual that Carrot accidentally acquired, and her suggesting that 'nudity is the traditional costume everywhere'; Nobby has something of a one-track mind).
"Speaking of whom: the book finally made me realise what I want from Discworld. I want a Watch book from the perspective of Angua. Why not? She's clearly the smartest of them. She's with the possible exception of Detritus the most physically intimidating of them. Given that she's constantly fighting back the temptation to kill and eat people, she's probably the most frightening of them when the chips are down. Her sense of smell is basically a superpower. She may not know the city as well as Carrot or Vimes, but that can be an asset, and she does know parts of it that they don't know; she's also the most level-headed and sensible of the bunch; and she's the one who treats her work as a (morally good, and important) job, rather than as some sort of divine mission, her viewpoint is lighter and a better opportunity for humour. I want an 'Angua Investigates' series, damnit..."
http://bit.ly/1C85QEX
Blogger elzebrook has very strong views about Nation:
"This is one of the best books I have ever read in my life. Taken together, Terry Pratchett's collected works can be seen as an exploration of how to be human, and why you would even want to, and Nation is the culmination of forty years worth of exploring. It is achingly, gloriously good... Nation has so many applications. It is a coming of age story, but it would also be a good book to recommend to young people (or anyone) dealing with major life change or loss. It is an excellent fantasy novel, but it also provides a fantastic example of turning a familiar narrative on its head, so it would be a great book to use in a creative writing or English class to analyze how Pratchett does that. My foremost idea, though, is that everyone should read this book. Right now."
http://bit.ly/1HDPHrd
...but did not feel the Dodger love:
"The book reads a love letter to the time and the people more than it reads as a story with three dimensional characters. It is a fun read, but it's a bit too twee, a bit too pat, and a bit too convenient... Honestly, I did not like this book. Despite this, it has value as an easy read with an excellent sense of 'place'–a setting so well described that the reader feels truly embedded in the time and location. I can see this book as the book that captures the imagination of a younger reader and sparks a life long love of the Victorian Era... It would be a good choice to display with, or read in tandem with, other perhaps more historically focused or nonfiction books about the same era. Reading it in tandem with drier texts would provide much needed entry points, context, and color (as well as sympathetic characters) for young history learners."
http://bit.ly/1xwpDGc
Blogger Sapna Sricharan loved Wyrd Sisters:
"Wyrd Sisters is one of my favourites. In fact I love all of Terry Pratchett's books featuring the three witches. So this was a re-read but it's been so long since I read it first that I had forgotten most of it and it read like a fresh book. It kept me engrossed all through and I was taken again, but how clever the book is. This is Pratchett's take on Shakespeare, complete with a theatre called the Dysk and a performance of Macbeth featuring three very real witches, a murderous Duke and his scheming wife... It is such an engrossing book, an absolute romp from start to finish. If you like Terry Pratchett, you will love this book. And if you haven't read him before, this book is a great place to start."
http://bit.ly/1xVXwWm
Blogger readingsff, a "Non-native English speaker blogging about her SFF reading experiences and related activities", was blown away by Snuff:
"I was pretty sure I would like this book, and I did! It's a very well-written, neatly plotted and angry book. It felt very angry, indeed. I never noticed this before in Pratchett's Discworld novels (maybe with Monstrous Regiment being a notable exception), but then I have aged significantly since I started reading Discworld novels and I wouldn't have noticed such things as a thirteen-year-old... The beginning is very Austenesque with some Jane Austen references and an atmosphere almost but not quiet as in Pride and Prejudice. This first impression fooled me, don't let it fool you. While reading, I kept thinking 'What's he [Terry] going to do with this?'. It turned out, it was not, what I expected. It was much better than that..."
http://bit.ly/1FlDdSY
Blogger Anneliese O'Malley salutes Pratchett's genius for creating supernatural characters:
"Oh boy, does Pratchett write a good witch. Actually, he writes lots of good witches. I know people who'd love me forever if I described them as a Granny Weatherwax, ultimate wielder of common sense and 'headology'. Or perhaps you prefer your witches with sprawling families, occupying a place at the heart of the community. Or maybe you think your witches should be entitled to love stories, or to being tough and vulnerable at the same time, or to tales of being torn between duty and desire... Pratchett writes great zombies. From those brought to life via magic, to those who can't pass beyond (because Death has gone roaming), to those who are far too angry to die, there's a range of undead scattered throughout his books... There's something about the way Pratchett uses werewolves. There's Sergeant (now Captain) Angua in the Night Watch series of books, there are her family, and then there are the incidental characters, all of whom show that werewolf-hood is a spectrum. Mrs Cake's daughter is one. A sadder example by far is the humanised wolf encountered by Granny Weatherwax in Witches Abroad..."
http://bit.ly/11RvKgv
Blogger Jasmin Kirkbride has come back to Discworld and fallen for Mort:
"Whilst I devoured the witches books as a teenager, seeking out any story that contained pointed hats in between Harry Potter releases, I don't think I fully appreciated what Terry Pratchett was about until quite recently. His dry, often sarcastic and ironic humour, is not my native ground and it's taken me a while to develop a taste for his work, but now that I have, I love it. Bit by bit, I'm trying to make my way through all the Discworld books, but even as I expand my Pratchett-knowledge, I still love the character of Death best of all. So, of course, when I picked up Mort and read the blurb, I knew I was going to love it from the off... It's a rip-roaring, time-bending, reality-ripping yarn, full of Pratchett's signature long sentences, made-up adjectives and matchless humour. Unlike many of the Discworld books, however, it rips along at a really fast pace. I barely noticed reading it..."
http://jasminonajourney.wordpress.com/2014/05/14/mort-by-terry-pratchett/
Blogger Steph Swint aka Bookish felt similar love for Reaper Man, her first foray into Discworld:
"This delightful book explores how we want what we can't have. More accurately, it explores whether we really want the things we think we want: another job, more time, an escape from death. This is another fun quick read that has more depth for an adult audience but can still be enjoyed by younger ones. I recommend you read rather than listen to 'Reaper Man.' Audible has a good narration of it by Nigel Planer. There are so many characters to differentiate and he does a good job, but I preferred my own interpretation of Death. You can enjoy it either way but I liked it when I listened to it and truly enjoyed it when I was reading it..."
bookishswint.wordpress.com/2014/10/26/reaper-man-terry-pratchett/
Twin-sister bloggers clraven offer their rave review of Monstrous Productions' recent staging of Wyrd Sisters:
"A winning combination if you like Shakespeare and Pratchett, which we do. It was hilarious. The audience were laughing most of the way through. For some of the cast, this is their first time of being in a play, but you honestly cannot tell. The acting is superb. There's no background scenery and few props but it works because you're completely focused on the actors and the story. If you've ever seen the production of Woman In Black you'll know how effective a minimal set can be. We have short attention spans and get distracted by shinies (and pain in Cat's knee and Lynx's back caused by sitting too long) but these guys keep our attention the entire time. You can tell how much everyone enjoys being involved. Zoe Azzopardi, who played Nanny Ogg, was fantastic. Nanny Ogg was our favourite character. Every line she had was funny. We loved the play within a play (think Hamlet) and the Wyrd Sisters joining the audience to watch it... We hope Monstrous Productions perform every single book in the Discworld series – we will be going to every one..."
https://clraven.wordpress.com/2014/11/08/wyrd-sisters/
On the game website Eleventh Legion, blogger Tara has a positive review of Treefrog's "Ankh-Morpork" board game:
"The fun in this game is knowing the characters. If it was any other game, I wouldn't have bothered. Yet, because of its setting, I love it. The Discworld universe has so much character and narrative. It is a pastiche of everything that I love about the many fantastical worlds out there. I really admire Terry Pratchett as an author and as the creator of an original, scintillating universe. I would gladly play this game anytime. It's simple to play, it doesn't take too long and I don't need to over think my strategy. Discworld is a good game for fans who are not necessarily gamers. Basically, if you are a fan, buy it. If you have no idea, read the damn books! Then buy it."
eleventhlegion.com/2014/10/29/discworld-good-books-good-boardgame/
Blogger Jennykathleen compares her favourite Deaths, Pratchett's and Gaiman's:
"So, on the surface, you'd think these Deaths are pretty different. But the thing that makes them the same is that they are the kindest, most compassionate portrayals of Death I have ever seen, in any media. They care about their duty, they care about the lives they collect. The quote at the top of this post is when Death is convincing Azrael to let him stay in his post, as the New Death does not care, whereas old Death sees the lives as an intrinsically good and valuable thing. At one point, a witch challenges him to a round of poker for a newborn baby's life. She wins, it lives; he wins, it dies. Only thing is, he throws the game intentionally, allowing the child to live. As the Hogfather, he is able to twist the rules just enough to grant a sick little girl the gift of a future, again sparing an innocent young life. In the first volume of Sandman, Death is seen comforting and reassuring the recently deceased, kicking her brother Dream into shape, and generally being the most soothing presence seen after a fairly harrowing story... Of course, a big part of these personifications' empathy is how close they are to humanity..."
http://bit.ly/1FmeY5a
...and goes on cogently and at length about the joys of Nation:
"The transition between childhood and adulthood is basically the entire foundation of the young adult genre. For some, it's something that stays relatable long after it's technically relevant; others lose interest and 'graduate' to more adult literature. I don't think I want to be the type of person who can no longer relate to her younger self. God knows I make fun of middle-school and high-school-age me, but I still understand who I was and why I was that way. The main characters of Nation were basically thrown into adulthood unprepared, and I think it's easy to see why that's relatable... The timeline of the book is not explicit, but it's clear that less than a year has passed between the start of the book and the end. And in that very brief amount of time, Mau and Daphne have become adults and can't go back to the way things were. They have to make hard choices and deal with terrible things, because that's what adulthood is, and there isn't really any other alternative. It's daunting, as anyone else who is a newly minted adult can tell you... any kind of struggle between science and religion is going to be near and dear to my heart, and Nation is notable because the book stands firmly with one foot in each camp. There's definitely a scientific slant to it, but the spirit behind religion is shown to be no less real. Mau was raised to just believe what he was told about the world and not ask silly questions, the religion and spirituality of the island being firmly traditional. Daphne was raised by her rational father, and she stopped believing in god at a very young age, but she did believe very strongly in science. Over the course of the book, they both find some gray area in between... In one of the Discworld books, a character says, 'If there is any kind of supreme being, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior' and I can't help but agree..."
http://bit.ly/1HDTswE
Blogger allthenamesaretakensothisisreallyreallylong (no, really) reviews Guards! Guards!:
"When someone asked me to describe the author's books, I suggested science fiction with a British sense of humor. This resulted in a, 'Oh like Douglas Adams' (author of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy), response. After consideration, I responded with, 'No more like if Monty Python were to rewrite Star Wars and tackle broader questions around the nature of our existence.'... The city in which the guards keep watch has established an equilibrium between criminal and legitimate activities by normalizing crime. The thieves guild and the assassins guild ensure that only people without the proper money or connections are victimized. This is the first of many instances that Pratchett provides commentary on our current environment via satire. While I do enjoy Pratchett's humor, it's the satire that will drive me to read more of his books. There's wit and searing clarity in Pratchett's satire that I didn't find in Douglas Adams' writing. Pratchett's satire reminds me of the scene in The Holy Grail in which King Arthur is thwarted by a peasant refusing to recognize him as King due to the peasant's rejection of feudal rule. The argument devolves to, 'Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help! Help! I'm being repressed!' Pratchett dispenses with just as many moral lessons if not more than Suzanne Collins does in The Hunger Games trilogy. But Pratchett sneaks it in with less horror and violence..."
http://queencitynotes.com/2014/10/24/100-books-by-40-guards-guards/
The Bookwitch offers a short (for her) but positive review of Dragons at Crumbling Castle:
"Terry Pratchett's youthful short stories, as collected in Dragons at Crumbling Castle, just prove that he has always been what he is. Only he was younger once, but then that is an affliction we have all suffered from. I admit, I was worried that someone, somewhere was scraping the barrel, and that I'd not like this book so much. I'm sorry, I occasionally get very crazy notions. Won't happen again.
"There are Carpet People stories, and abominable snowmen and tortoises, boring knights and people who dance funny and a bus that jumps through time. And those dragons. This is a lovely collection of stories. The illustrations by Mark Beech are quite crazy, in a Quentin Blake-ish sort of style, and I must warn you that on page 169 there is a picture of individuals wearing feather head-dresses. But then I suppose Terry isn't running for diversity. These stories are far too good for children. Oops, I mean for children not to share with older people. But you knew that."
bookwitch.wordpress.com/2014/10/22/dragons-at-crumbling-castle/
Blogger Michael Dodd aka trackofwords reviews A Slip of the Keyboard:
"There's something about the way Terry Pratchett sees the world, an ability to look further than most and see truths that the rest of us miss, that makes his writing so interesting. It's not just the wit and the wordplay, it's the observations both large and small that fill his writing, both fiction and non-fiction, and identify it so clearly as his. Here there are pieces of writing on an enormous range of subjects, from the choice of hats and the key requirements for laptops, to childhood influences, the joys and perils of touring Australia, thoughts on what makes something science fiction and reflections on seeing his own work on stage. Some pieces are only a few paragraphs long while others are lengthy articles, but from the longest to the shortest they are entertaining, engrossing and often enlightening... It's a rare book that has the reader in fits of laughter one minute and floods of tears the next, but then Terry Pratchett is a rare author..."
http://bit.ly/1vjbhvY
...and on a different blog, Mr Dodd continues his A Slip of the Keyboard observations:
"I've been a fan of Terry Pratchett for about as long as I can remember, ever since being introduced to his Bromeliad trilogy as a child, and there's no question to me that he's my all time favourite author. I buy any book he releases as soon as it's available, no questions asked. As such, I knew that he was suffering from Alzheimer's, had read a couple of interviews with him where he talked about the implications it had on his life, and I knew that he supported the cause of assisted death. Nevertheless, reading his essays on these topics was a difficult experience for me. It surprised me how little I knew about either of the topics, both in general and in relation to Terry specifically, and while he writes with his customary wit and intelligence, it's heartbreaking to read what he has to say about both of them. Many people would withdraw into themselves, seek out privacy and ways to deal as quietly and discreetly as possible; not Terry Pratchett. In speaking out he has done incredible amounts to raise awareness of Alzheimer's and dementia in general, and his writing is filled with tales of other people who have come across his path since his diagnosis, rather than being focused solely on his own personal woes. This is a man whose life is based around his mind, his imagination and his creativity, and he's having to deal with a disease which insidiously eats away at the very parts of him he needs the most. No wonder he's a strong advocate for assisted death..."
http://bit.ly/1phv9yJ
Blogger Nadine muses on Mort:
"Many people recommend Mort as a Discworld starter novel and I see why (although I disagree). It is the fourth Discworld novel and the first one to introduce Death as a protagonist. However, and many Pratchett fans will tell you this, the earlier novels aren't nearly as great as the later ones. I fell in love with the YA novels (The Amazing Maurice and Tiffany Aching) long after I tried the starter novels. Both Mort and Guards! Guards! were fun but, to me, they come from a time when Discworld was still growing and each sub-series was still finding its own voice. And you can read them without any plan or order whatsoever and still get all the fun. To me, reading the witches books after meeting Granny and Nanny in the Tiffany Aching novels, was still brilliant. I didn't stick with them after reading Equal Rites, the first witches novel, which goes to show that starting at the beginning is not always the best idea... I enjoyed Mort much more the second time I read it. The audiobook narration is probably as much responsible as my general love for the Discworld, and if you know me, you'll guess that it's really the characters that make this book so good. Death personified could have been many things, but Terry Pratchett decided to make the Grim Reaper not all that grim, rather a very strange, ancient being who is trying to learn more about humans. Watching Death learn how to have fun and watching Mort grow more and more into his master was just fascinating..."
http://sffbookreview.wordpress.com/2014/10/18/terry-pratchett-mort/
Blogger Lynn aka Ms Oh Waily Waily did feel the Dodger love:
"I cracked open my first Pratchett in a few years. While I was expecting this to be another in the Discworld series, I was wrong, this novel is set in Victorian England. Dodger is definitely inspired by Mr Dickens (or Charlie as he here) and his Artful one. Dodger is a tosher, eventually the King of the Toshers, who is known by everyone. He is also a geezer, one smart lad and eventually a reluctant hero... It is a very easy read, as all of Pratchett's books are. It is a delightful way to look into the past, and a very murky and less than salubrious past it was in Victorian London. Despite the darkness of the setting, it is always alleviated by the underlying sense of humour that is inherent in nearly all of Pratchett's writings. The story winds along to a satisfactory conclusion, and in some respects reminds me of Kim – minus the setting of the sub-continent. I would recommend it to folk who know and like Dickens..."
http://ohwailywaily.com/2014/10/17/dodger-terry-pratchett/
The wonderfully-named blogger Conor Has Too Many Books reviews Mort:
"My exposure to Pratchett's work has been pretty limited so far, having only read one other book by the author: the terrific Small Gods, which I enjoyed thoroughly and left me wanting more. I was drawn in by the way his writing could be bitingly satirical, deeply resonant and poignant, and really freaking funny all at once. But Pratchett's writing is far more subtle than it might seem from that description. His humor is typically British, very dry and yet very silly all at once, and his satire doesn't go for the throat so much as shake its head at all the foibles of man. In general, he strikes me as what it would be like to have a really smart and funny grandfather telling a story, with all the head-shaking and winks in the listener's direction intact... I was struck by how deeply philosophical Mort can be at times. Pratchett expounds on the nature of death and our understanding of it as humans, as well as our seemingly innate need to mess with the course of history... In addition to being so enjoyable on a micro-level, Pratchett's storytelling is fantastic as well. Though I will argue that Small Gods was more spot-on structurally, with not a wasted detail all leading to a fantastic conclusion, the plotting of Mort is pretty terrific. Pratchett sets it up in such a way that we really have no idea how this story is going to end, and our own expectations only further complicate things. I definitely didn't expect the climactic showdown that occurs near the book's end, but it's all the better for it..."
conorhastoomanybooks.wordpress.com/2014/10/13/mort-by-terry-pratchett/
Blogger Paula Brook Green is very much in favour of the Long Earth books:
"The premises of the book are so interesting, you cannot stop reading. They deal with the way in which each country (China, U.S., England, Australia etc.) approached this new possibilities. There is humour throughout the book too and interesting characters, like a talking vending machine which claims to be a Tibetan monk reincarnated, a guy that can step naturally, that is, without the aid of a stepper, and singing trolls that keep the balance of the Long Earth. After the Long Earth comes the Long War, what happened with the Datum and the other Earths many years later, after men had settled all over these worlds and started using the trolls as labour. All of a sudden, the trolls start fleeing no one knows where to... Really worth reading, they are not only great entertainment, but they make you reflect about your own humanity and the way you behave to yourself and others, and whether, given the chance of a better, brighter future, you'll be able to do anything different that what you are already doing."
http://bit.ly/1AL6W89
Blogger Stevanie Claibourne sings the praises of Pratchett:
"Terry Pratchett is one of the only writers whose books I read without even once thinking, 'Here's what I will say when I review this book.' I enjoy him so much I can barely stop to critique or even balance out the highlights of the novel with its hindrances. Over the past few months, I've devoured Going Postal, Making Money, and Feet of Clay without stopping to write a review. I'm almost done reading Jingo and I have holds on The Fifth Elephant and Raising Steam at the library. Pratchett embodies the value of engaging, authentic, flawed, fantastic characters for me. His characters, while absurd in many respects, are so authentic to themselves. The author never pushes or pulls them. There is no covering-up of their flaws, no excuses for their mistakes. They just live and they live so colorfully and with so many riveting moments that I can't stop reading... Fantasy in many ways is built to be a microcosm of the real world, and Pratchett barrels out the gate with this idea. His satire is addictive, his humor makes me laugh aloud, his writing is crisp. His characters are real..."
http://someplaceintheair.wordpress.com/2014/10/07/on-terry-pratchett/
Blogger Ryan Sean O'Reilly goes nicely postal over Going Postal:
"You will not Return this Book to Sender — because it's hilarious and awesome!... The cast of characters that Pratchett dreams up are brilliant and memorable. Whether it's the fire-eyed Golem parole officer who must keep tabs on the protagonist; the old-guard of anal-retentive postal workers; the slick zombie-faced lawyer; the mostly-sane former Clacks workers turned code-crackers and rabble rousers; the boisterous and bumbling stuffy-robed wizards of the Unseen University; the sulking and skulking Igor butler henchman; the disturbing pigeon-eating banshee; or the chain-smoking golem-rights activist/love interest — you fall in love with them all. Everyone comes alive. An unforgettable cast. Sometimes there are heartfelt moments of kind and generous acts, other times you revel in the satire that floods through the streets of Ankh-Morpork. Everyone is a character and a caricature and always faintly familiar... Pratchett really hits the spot. He is refreshingly funny and a good storyteller. The world can be a very awful place sometimes, when you look at all the problems one can suffer through during a lifetime. Yet, it is books like this one that help to put all the grim things in their proper place of absurdity..."
http://bit.ly/1tfWqOl
...and finally, something one doesn't see often – a poetic tribute to The Carpet People, in the language of Quirm, by the amusingly-named Quirmian blogger Cochonfucious:
"Au chemin qu'il parcourt avec un grand sourire.
Terry Pratchett, fort jeune, a bien su nous décrire
Le peuple surprenant qui s'agite en ce lieu :
De taille minuscule et de formes étranges,
Ils semblent imiter les démons et les anges..."
paysdepoesie.wordpress.com/2014/10/27/tapis-de-pratchett/
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08) CLOSE
I recently came across "Tribute to Terry Pratchett", by a fan called Sillynity. It's a long piece of paired couplets covering pretty much the entire Discworld canon, and while Sillynity's attempts at poetry are more Wee Billy Bigchin than T S Eliot, her heart is very much in the right place. Have a look for yourself:
http://sillynity.wordpress.com/2014/11/13/tribute-to-terry-pratchett/
Lastly, here be an action replay, because one simply cannot have too much orangutan DIY:
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20140924-diy-orangutans
I hope those of you who celebrate Thanksgiving had a good one, and those of you insan–, er, brave enough to participate in the Black Friday sales have escaped with only minimal injury. See you next month!
– Annie Mac
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The End. If you have any questions or requests, write: wossname-owner (at) pearwood (dot) info
Copyright (c) 2014 by Wossname for the Klatchian Foreign Legion
Newsletter of the Klatchian Foreign Legion
November 2014 (Volume 17, Issue 11, Post 2)
********************************************************************
WOSSNAME is a free publication offering news, reviews, and all the other stuff-that-fits pertaining to the works and activities of Sir Terry Pratchett. Originally founded by the late, great Joe Schaumburger for members of the worldwide Klatchian Foreign Legion and its affiliates, including the North American Discworld Society and other continental groups, Wossname is now for Discworld and Pratchett fans everywhere in Roundworld.
********************************************************************
Editor in Chief: Annie Mac
News Editor: Vera P
Newshounds: Mogg, Sir J of Croydon Below, the Shadow, Wolfiekins
Staff Writers: Asti, Pitt the Elder, Evil Steven Dread, Mrs Wynn-Jones
Staff Technomancers: Jason Parlevliet, Archchancellor Neil, DJ Helpful
Book Reviews: Annie Mac, Drusilla D'Afanguin, Your Name Here
Puzzle Editor: Tiff (still out there somewhere)
Bard in Residence: Weird Alice Lancrevic
Emergency Staff: Steven D'Aprano, Jason Parlevliet
World Membership Director: Steven D'Aprano (in his copious spare time)
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INDEX:
01) MORE QUOTES OF THE MONTH
02) LETTER FROM YOUR EDITOR
03) GOOD OMENS ON THE WIRELESS NEWS
04) NEW BOOK ON PRATCHETT AND PHILOSOPHY
05) DISCWORLD GAMES NEWS
06) MORE IMAGES
07) AROUND THE BLOGOSPHERE
08) CLOSE
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01) THE OTHER QUOTES OF THE MONTH
"He knew what he wanted to do. If they'd been people, scuffling in the gutter, he'd have known what to do. He'd have banged their heads together and maybe shoved them in the cells overnight. But you couldn't bang countries together." – Vimes contemplates the Borogravia-Zlobenia conflict, in Monstrous Regiment
"Ye used yer eyes and used yer heid. That's what a real hag does. The magicking is just there for advertisin'." – William the Gonnagle points out that Tiffany already knows the basics of witchery, in The Wee Free Men
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02) A LETTER FROM YOUR EDITOR
It's Hogswatch time! In the town of Wincanton! Right now! Far classier than any Black Friday crush, so if you happen to be near Wincanton, do go join in the festivities. From local news site Wincanton Window:
"Fans of the work of Sir Terry Pratchett, author of diverse works of fantasy and satire (and even some serious stuff), will be gathering in Wincanton in Somerset on 28/29/30 November 2014... This will be the 13th Hogswatch gathering in the town following its formal twinning in 2002 with Ankh-Morpork on the Circle Sea. Check the town sign! Fans will come from all over the globe including the USA, Australia and South Africa, to enjoy meeting friends old and new at the Discworld Emporium, the inns of the town, the Balsam Centre and the Memorial Hall. There will be a host of silly things to do, interesting lectures at the Balsam Centre – along with a Magnificent Makers Market – costumes to flaunt and to admire, lovely things to buy at the Emporium, and diverse activities in the Bear and the Memorial Hall...
"See entertainments by and for the fans before and after the watershed! Expect jolly fun with the Fools Guild circus workshops. There will be the Grand Charity Auction in aid of R.I.C.E. with at least one special item to raise money supporting the Wincanton local library. On the Sunday evening, there will be a quiz hosted by the Bear Inn. Come early if you would like to participate – it is very popular.
"We are going to have enormous fun as we always do. Come and join us. There is no cost to attend except for the important stuff like transport, food, accommodation and money to buy wondrous things! We look forward to meeting you whether 'tis again or for the very first time."
www.wincantonwindow.co.uk/hogswatch-2014-is-coming.htm
*
Who ever thought an estate agent's advertisement would be relevant to feature in Wossname? Ah, but this is the sort of estate agent's advert you don't see every day:
"Property-seekers could enjoy their dream family Christmas in a brand new home if they choose one of the final two houses available at Kingwell Rise, Taylor Wimpey's sought-after development in Wincanton, Somerset... Kingwell Rise is located just outside Wincanton and enjoys a rural feel with a welcoming village atmosphere. Street names are inspired by Sir Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, such as Peach Pie Street or Treacle Mine Road. Wincanton, which itself is 'twinned' with Discworld's Ankh-Morpork, is conveniently placed off the A303, one of the main routes connecting the south-west to London..."
If you want to see the whole advert – the houses are more Scoone Avenue than Treacle Mine Road, but after all this is Roundworld – go to http://bit.ly/1zntsjn
*
Now read on for some exciting news about the forthcoming Good Omens radio play... and a new book about Terry Pratchett and philosophy, by actual philosophers (Wossname's review copy is in transit, so expect a full review in next issue)... and updates on Discworld games... and stuff...
– Annie Mac, Editor
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03) GOOD OMENS ON THE WIRELESS NEWS
From Den of Geek:
"Tune in to BBC Radio 4 Mon 22nd to Sat 27th of December for the adaptation of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's Good Omens... Here's a festive gift we can open a wee bit early: BBC Radio 4 has confirmed that its six-part Good Omens adaptation will start on Monday the 22nd of December at 11pm, running throughout the Christmas week and culminating with an hour-long episode on Saturday the 27th of December (presumably just after tea). Geek radio drama doyen Dirk Maggs (The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, Neverwhere) has adapted Gaiman and Pratchett's 1990 comic apocalypse novel for the airwaves. Maggs and producer Heather Larmour have amassed an impressive cast for the series, led by Mark Heap and Peter Serafinowicz as angel Aziraphale and demon Crowley respectively. Those two are joined by Colin Morgan, Josie Lawrence, Paterson Joseph, Clive Russell, Phil Davis, Louise Brealey and more. Think of it as a geek Christmas selection box, for your ears, without the rubbish Chomp bar..."
http://bit.ly/1tooKOH
And now the best bit for the terminally impatient – an audio clip from Good Omens, featuring a pair of coppers called, mysteriously, Terry and Neil, in pursuit of Crowley's car:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02cv5cn
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04) PRATCHETT AND PHILOSOPHY
A new book, "Philosophy and Terry Pratchett", edited by Jacob M. Held and James B. South, will be published by Palgrave Macmillan on 3rd December 2014. Held is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Central Arkansas and has previously published works on the philosophy of other popular authors, while South is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Marquette University and has edited books on such subjects as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, James Bond, Mad Men, comic books, the Beatles and other cultural phenomena.
The official press release:
"'The hope is that this volume will bring readers and fans of Pratchett who may not know much philosophy an added appreciation of the complexity and depth of his work. For philosophers, we hope this volume will lead them to read Pratchett for the serious man of ideas that he is, as well as for his narrative verve, wicked since of humor, and nice (in the Pratchettian sense) distinctions made in his novels.' – James B. South, Preface: Philosophy and Terry Pratchett
"Philosophy and Terry Pratchett explores the genuine philosophical issues at the heart of some of the world's most-loved fantasy fiction novels, including the Discworld books. Sir Terry Pratchett, who has sold more than 85 million copies of his books, is read and respected worldwide. This book, the first to explicitly address philosophical themes in his work, will appeal to fans of Pratchett, to philosophers interested in popular culture, and to anyone interested in the relationship between fiction and philosophy.
"Covering topics in metaphysics, logic, epistemology, ethics, and social and political philosophy, the thirteen contributors to this volume illuminate the philosophical significance of Pratchett's work in a sophisticated way, but written so that anyone who reads Pratchett will find something thought-provoking."
Philosophy and Terry Pratchett will carry the recommended prices of £16.99 and $27.
...and here be a feature on Philosophy and Terry Pratchett in The Guardian, by Alison Flood:
"Philosophers looking for fresh insights into metaphysics, epistemology and ethics can add another author to their reading list, as a study reveals the philosophical issues explored in the work of Terry Pratchett... Philosophy and Terry Pratchett, published on 3 December, is the first study to explore the philosophical implications of Pratchett's imaginary world, which is perched on the back of a turtle. Edited by philosophy professors and Pratchett fans James South and Jacob Held, the collection of essays examines questions including 'Plato, the Witch, and the Cave: Granny Weatherwax and the Moral Problem of Paternalism', 'Equality and Difference: Just because the Disc Is Flat, Doesn't Make It a Level Playing Field for All', 'Hogfather and the Existentialism of Søren Kierkegaard', and 'the Importance of Being in the Right Trouser Leg of Time'.
"South, associate professor of philosophy at Marquette University, is adamant Pratchett's novels 'hold up to sustained philosophical reflection'. 'Pratchett is a very smart man, a gifted writer, and understands as well as any philosopher the power of storytelling and the problems humans face in making sense of their lives and the world they live in,' South said. 'Or, as Death puts it so well: "DO NOT PUT ALL YOUR TRUST IN ROOT VEGETABLES. WHAT THINGS SEEM TO BE MAY NOT BE WHAT THEY ARE." This is a truth that Pratchett relatedly acknowledges and tries to get his readers to acknowledge as well.'
"For Held, associate professor of philosophy at the University of Central Arkansas... Pratchett's character Death 'is profoundly Kantian... He speaks to the need for a rational faith or belief in values like dignity, or even an afterlife ... Then you have Carrot and Vimes, or the relativist versus the moral absolutist. So much of Pratchett's writings deal with value in the world, its origin, its origin in our beliefs, in our desire and need to value the world, and how it needs to be rigorously maintained through our practices.'... The academics have not approached Pratchett about the book, South saying they 'figured he'd think it was all a bit of nonsense taking his work seriously in this way', although adding that “secretly, I think he'd be pleased'..."
http://bit.ly/1w10kke
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05) DISCWORLD GAMES NEWS
From Backspindle Games' David Brashaw comes a long-awaited Discworld Con 2014 review and a Hogswatch Special Offer:
"This year our adventure to the fantastic Discworld Con was 'really very interesting', mainly due to the style of the venue. The Place Hotel, grand in stature was a bit more like Hogwarts – staircases everywhere and a lot of toing and froing of Discworld delegates trying to figure out if they can find Gaspode and a wonderful short cut through the maze from one event to another. Nevertheless we endured, running games of Guards! Guards! in the gaming room, running the wonderful run-around-the-convention LIVE game of Guards! Guards!, play-testing our new board game, Clacks, due to be published in 2015 and lastly Backspindle Boy, David, dawning the role of Lu Tze and giving two very relaxing sessions of Tai Chi. We really appreciated PJSM prints selling our games and t-shirts, the prizes from Discworld Ales and the special gift we received from Sir Terry. Other highlights were 'the interview' the Maskerade (so many wonderful costumes) and the early showing of Troll Bridge. However the best part was of course linking up with all our friends and having fun. Thank you all!
"Clacks – is coming! We know it's been an age, but honestly, good games take time to develop, design, print and get to the masses. Following our massive success with Luchador Dice game, Clacks is now back on our schedule and will hopefully be available by summer 2015. We have been developing the cooperative game which this proved very popular on our recent trip to Spiel, Essen. We have also tendered for artwork and appointed an illustrator. Some of you may know her… She is very talented artist and knows the Discworld very well. Excitement is building.
"Hogswatch Special offer! Sadly we cannot make Bernard's tea party this year, but to celebrate all things Hogswatch including the Sausage Supper we have decided to discount Guards! Guards! boardgame down to a magical £28.99 for two weeks. Last shipping for ROW is 3 December and UK buyers 17 December."
Reprinted with permission, but do go to the webpage because it includes links and iconographs:
http://www.guardsguards.com/
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06) ANOTHER IMAGE OF THE MONTH
As he is after all the co-creator of Good Omens, it's appropriate that Neil Gaiman's posed with Aziraphale's flaming sword:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B3dGqlHIYAEujiW.jpg
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07) AROUND THE BLOGOSPHERE
Blogger Jonathan Feinstein is back with his review of the Long War audiobook:
"In Good Omens, which Mister Pratchett wrote with Neil Gaiman, it was fairly obvious which author wrote which parts of the story, but they fit together well. Here they fit together very well too, but there seems to be something missing. Even when writing a serious story, Terry Pratchett usually slips in his distinct sense of humor and fondness for word-play, none of which appears in this book. It made me wonder just how much of it he really wrote. I admit that aside from the first book of this series I do not recall ever having read any of Mister Baxter's work, so it is possible that this is unlike anything he has written as well. Now none of the above is meant to say that I did not like the book. I did think that the first book, The Long Earth was better, but maybe that is just me. I admit that in some of my own stories I sometimes follow more than one character too, but I really think it is important to bring it all together by the end of the current volume, even on a multi-volume story. The previous book concluded with Madison, Wisconsin being destroyed by a wacko with a back-pack nuclear device... Naturally I wanted to know much more about the incident and the name of this book, The Long War, seemed to imply that first bomb was just the first. Sorry, that is not the case... All told, though, while it was a very readable story, I was disappointed by the fact that there was very little new..."
http://bit.ly/1zTnVln
From blogger and novice published author SJ Griffin aka squintarium comes an amusing post about her love for the works of Pratchett even though they consumer her working hours:
"Marvel at how much time has passed since we were here last. Thrill at the total lack of words that have appeared on this site. Wonder at the audacity with which I point this out. I have an excuse: The dog ate it. No, wait. It was Terry Pratchett that ate it. Sorry dog! Terry Pratchett ate my blog post. Blog posts. Plural. He has been doing this for some considerable time. Over two months, I think. He is ravenous for blog posts... I decided that I would read the whole Discworld series in order. I sort of fell into this decision, in the same why that depressed men fall into the Foreign Legion. Or Isis, as it is now known. I took a few of the later books on holiday – as I'd already read up to The Truth a while ago I thought I would read the rest. Then I found I had devoured them and when I came to the last one, Raising Steam, I decided to start again. I'm now on The Fifth Elephant so I'm almost back where I started. I shall continue through to the end again. I don't think you can read Night Watch too often. Or Thud! Or Carpe Jugulum. Or... ah, you see the problem..."
http://squintarium.com/2014/11/17/i-blame-terry-pratchett/
New(ish) blogger Dynamite Review gives Johnny and the Dead 4 out of 5 stars:
"I like the fact that Pratchett doesn't stick with one power, sure Johnny can find a way into video games but he can also talk to the dead. He'll probably get to do something else in the next book. It would have been interesting to continue on with the video games but he would have ended up having to give more details and explanations and while I probably would have found it interesting I'm sure it would have gotten boring..."
http://dynamitereview.wordpress.com/2014/11/22/johnny-and-the-dead/
Punefully-named blogger Pratchett Job is, unsurprisingly, dedicated to reviewing all the Discworld novels. Here is the review of Mort:
"There are some wonderfully visual passages throughout the novel. While Pratchett has lent heavily on the apocalypse in each of the books to date, it hasn't really felt real or threatening. In Mort there are some incredibly evocative scenes- Death's room full of hourglasses, the aforementioned sun rising over the cesspit that is Ankh Morpork or the Grim Reaper propping up a bar are all wonderful. Mort's first piece of work experience – shepherding the witch Goodie Hamstring into the afterlife – is a brilliant scene and really hard to do justice here. It's very simply written and the everyday subtlety of it makes it surprisingly moving... It's far from a bad novel; like Equal Rites, it's a very exciting one because you can tell he is almost there. There is something tangibly great just outside of his grasp but he is getting better and better with each novel, and closer and closer. That's been one of the most exciting things about this re-read – being able to see a noticeable evolution in his writing ability with each book. It's a very exciting thing to read – God knows how it felt to Pratchett himself at the time..."
http://bit.ly/11RrWM8
...and The Colour of Magic:
"Throughout the book, imagination is celebrated and cherished and a line is clearly drawn between the power of magic in the Discworld and the power of thought and creativity in this... The flimsiness of the book is its main flaw and the plot is basically 'double act goes here, then here, then here'. Only the first part of the book – where Rincewind and Twoflower escape the city of Ankh-Morpork, its thieves and assassins, and accidentally invent insurance fraud in the process – rattles along with a degree of urgency and momentum. Nevertheless, The Colour of Magic remains a tremendous amount of fun, with Pratchett overloading pages with jokes, comic asides and deftly written set-pieces..."
http://bit.ly/1Fm7uiN
...and then there is the "apology", more of a paean, really:
"I needed something more. Something, well, disc-shaped. Enter Terry Pratchett. Not just Terry Pratchett – there was Douglas Adams, John Wyndham, Jeff Noon's Vurt, Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age a bit further down the line, Iain M Banks, Grant Naylor's Red Dwarf books. But Pratchett stood above them all. I can't remember which one I picked up first but I can still remember my favourite author biography – 'Terry Pratchett was born in 1948 and is still not dead'. His description of sex in Equal Rites – 'count the legs and divide by two'. The absolute absurdity of the Discworld and the sharp comic genius that drove his novels... then the absolute stupidity of teenagers kicked in and Terry Pratchett was definitely 'not cool'. I didn't like Discworld, I liked Bret Easton Ellis. I liked Jack Kerouac. I liked Irvine Welsh. Not once did it dawn upon me that it was ok to like all of it at the same time. But Pratchett was clearly the bridge between the excessive geekery of my youth reading habits and what I read now..."
http://bit.ly/1zTsKLA
...and The Light Fantastic:
"The Light Fantastic is a Discworld book that I've read before. I remember not liking it. Beyond that? Nothing. So I was rather surprised to find I enjoyed it. In short, The Light Fantastic is The Colour of Magic but with plot. While its predecessor threw joke after joke at the reader to stop them from noticing that not a lot was actually happening, Rincewind and Twoflower, TCM's protagonists, are trying to halt The End of the World, albeit in their usual cack-handed fashion... The Light Fantastic is about power and responsibility. I'll try and keep the Spider-Man references to a minimum but in Trymon we are shown a ruthless and ambitious mage set on modernisation, without actually thinking through the consequences. So when he packs the seven Spells into his head, he opens a portal through which the dreaded Things from the Dungeon Dimensions can travel through (plot, remember?). So far, so straightforward, but where The Light Fantastic is interesting is how Pratchett explores the importance of the right kind of authority and knowing one's limits..."
pratchettjob.wordpress.com/2014/11/06/strange-lights-the-light-fantastic/
Jacqui of the Land of Fog aka akiwisbookreviews tackles The Long Mars without having read the first two books:
"The 'alternate earths' concept is not new in science fiction, there are even multiple role-playing games and campaign settings based around the idea, but I have to admit that Pratchett and Baxter have gone somewhere original with it... I came to The Long Mars without reading either of its predecessors, The Long Earth and The Long War. I loved the ideas here, but there was a bit too much going on, maybe even too many narrative threads. And at the back of my mind was a niggling doubt – not about the Long Earth itself – but about infrastructure and logistics, the practical issues of a series of new, wild Earths. Step sideways into an uninhabited Earth-like world… how long can you survive? How long does it take to build a civilisation from the ground up? Never mind having a sizable chunk of the Earth you came from being blown up and the rest thrown into the deep freezer of a volcanic fimbulwinter! Maybe it'll make more sense with the two books in the series yet to come..."
http://bit.ly/1vj9vuB
Once again, blogger Vacuous Wastrel is dissing a Discworld novel. Except that to his apparent horror he found much to love in Jingo:
"So why do I say it's much better than I remember it being? Well, the form may be poor, but a lot of the material is excellent. Take out the annoying political set-up and the last third or so of the novel (a mixture of dodgy politics and people wandering around waiting for a plot that makes sense), and what we basically have is a big chunk of scenes of the Watch that Pterry thought were funny but that didn't fit into the previous books. [Disclaimer: I don't know if that's actually true, but it's how it feels]. And he was [hypothetically] right: they're funny. And having less of a plot around to get in the way is actually a massive bonus, because we get to see the characters 'at rest', as it were. As a result, as well as being very funny, this may be the best view we ever get of the Watch as people, and in particular of the relationships between them. We get scenes of Vimes and Sybil ('I'm just going out to kick some arse, dear'); we get some much-needed scenes of Angua and Carrot. We get Colon and Nobby. Breaking away from the established duets, we even get Angua and Nobby – not only on screen, but second-hand through Nobby, and it's interesting the different perspective Nobby has of her (his Angua anecdotes include her casually reading through an illustrated sex manual that Carrot accidentally acquired, and her suggesting that 'nudity is the traditional costume everywhere'; Nobby has something of a one-track mind).
"Speaking of whom: the book finally made me realise what I want from Discworld. I want a Watch book from the perspective of Angua. Why not? She's clearly the smartest of them. She's with the possible exception of Detritus the most physically intimidating of them. Given that she's constantly fighting back the temptation to kill and eat people, she's probably the most frightening of them when the chips are down. Her sense of smell is basically a superpower. She may not know the city as well as Carrot or Vimes, but that can be an asset, and she does know parts of it that they don't know; she's also the most level-headed and sensible of the bunch; and she's the one who treats her work as a (morally good, and important) job, rather than as some sort of divine mission, her viewpoint is lighter and a better opportunity for humour. I want an 'Angua Investigates' series, damnit..."
http://bit.ly/1C85QEX
Blogger elzebrook has very strong views about Nation:
"This is one of the best books I have ever read in my life. Taken together, Terry Pratchett's collected works can be seen as an exploration of how to be human, and why you would even want to, and Nation is the culmination of forty years worth of exploring. It is achingly, gloriously good... Nation has so many applications. It is a coming of age story, but it would also be a good book to recommend to young people (or anyone) dealing with major life change or loss. It is an excellent fantasy novel, but it also provides a fantastic example of turning a familiar narrative on its head, so it would be a great book to use in a creative writing or English class to analyze how Pratchett does that. My foremost idea, though, is that everyone should read this book. Right now."
http://bit.ly/1HDPHrd
...but did not feel the Dodger love:
"The book reads a love letter to the time and the people more than it reads as a story with three dimensional characters. It is a fun read, but it's a bit too twee, a bit too pat, and a bit too convenient... Honestly, I did not like this book. Despite this, it has value as an easy read with an excellent sense of 'place'–a setting so well described that the reader feels truly embedded in the time and location. I can see this book as the book that captures the imagination of a younger reader and sparks a life long love of the Victorian Era... It would be a good choice to display with, or read in tandem with, other perhaps more historically focused or nonfiction books about the same era. Reading it in tandem with drier texts would provide much needed entry points, context, and color (as well as sympathetic characters) for young history learners."
http://bit.ly/1xwpDGc
Blogger Sapna Sricharan loved Wyrd Sisters:
"Wyrd Sisters is one of my favourites. In fact I love all of Terry Pratchett's books featuring the three witches. So this was a re-read but it's been so long since I read it first that I had forgotten most of it and it read like a fresh book. It kept me engrossed all through and I was taken again, but how clever the book is. This is Pratchett's take on Shakespeare, complete with a theatre called the Dysk and a performance of Macbeth featuring three very real witches, a murderous Duke and his scheming wife... It is such an engrossing book, an absolute romp from start to finish. If you like Terry Pratchett, you will love this book. And if you haven't read him before, this book is a great place to start."
http://bit.ly/1xVXwWm
Blogger readingsff, a "Non-native English speaker blogging about her SFF reading experiences and related activities", was blown away by Snuff:
"I was pretty sure I would like this book, and I did! It's a very well-written, neatly plotted and angry book. It felt very angry, indeed. I never noticed this before in Pratchett's Discworld novels (maybe with Monstrous Regiment being a notable exception), but then I have aged significantly since I started reading Discworld novels and I wouldn't have noticed such things as a thirteen-year-old... The beginning is very Austenesque with some Jane Austen references and an atmosphere almost but not quiet as in Pride and Prejudice. This first impression fooled me, don't let it fool you. While reading, I kept thinking 'What's he [Terry] going to do with this?'. It turned out, it was not, what I expected. It was much better than that..."
http://bit.ly/1FlDdSY
Blogger Anneliese O'Malley salutes Pratchett's genius for creating supernatural characters:
"Oh boy, does Pratchett write a good witch. Actually, he writes lots of good witches. I know people who'd love me forever if I described them as a Granny Weatherwax, ultimate wielder of common sense and 'headology'. Or perhaps you prefer your witches with sprawling families, occupying a place at the heart of the community. Or maybe you think your witches should be entitled to love stories, or to being tough and vulnerable at the same time, or to tales of being torn between duty and desire... Pratchett writes great zombies. From those brought to life via magic, to those who can't pass beyond (because Death has gone roaming), to those who are far too angry to die, there's a range of undead scattered throughout his books... There's something about the way Pratchett uses werewolves. There's Sergeant (now Captain) Angua in the Night Watch series of books, there are her family, and then there are the incidental characters, all of whom show that werewolf-hood is a spectrum. Mrs Cake's daughter is one. A sadder example by far is the humanised wolf encountered by Granny Weatherwax in Witches Abroad..."
http://bit.ly/11RvKgv
Blogger Jasmin Kirkbride has come back to Discworld and fallen for Mort:
"Whilst I devoured the witches books as a teenager, seeking out any story that contained pointed hats in between Harry Potter releases, I don't think I fully appreciated what Terry Pratchett was about until quite recently. His dry, often sarcastic and ironic humour, is not my native ground and it's taken me a while to develop a taste for his work, but now that I have, I love it. Bit by bit, I'm trying to make my way through all the Discworld books, but even as I expand my Pratchett-knowledge, I still love the character of Death best of all. So, of course, when I picked up Mort and read the blurb, I knew I was going to love it from the off... It's a rip-roaring, time-bending, reality-ripping yarn, full of Pratchett's signature long sentences, made-up adjectives and matchless humour. Unlike many of the Discworld books, however, it rips along at a really fast pace. I barely noticed reading it..."
http://jasminonajourney.wordpress.com/2014/05/14/mort-by-terry-pratchett/
Blogger Steph Swint aka Bookish felt similar love for Reaper Man, her first foray into Discworld:
"This delightful book explores how we want what we can't have. More accurately, it explores whether we really want the things we think we want: another job, more time, an escape from death. This is another fun quick read that has more depth for an adult audience but can still be enjoyed by younger ones. I recommend you read rather than listen to 'Reaper Man.' Audible has a good narration of it by Nigel Planer. There are so many characters to differentiate and he does a good job, but I preferred my own interpretation of Death. You can enjoy it either way but I liked it when I listened to it and truly enjoyed it when I was reading it..."
bookishswint.wordpress.com/2014/10/26/reaper-man-terry-pratchett/
Twin-sister bloggers clraven offer their rave review of Monstrous Productions' recent staging of Wyrd Sisters:
"A winning combination if you like Shakespeare and Pratchett, which we do. It was hilarious. The audience were laughing most of the way through. For some of the cast, this is their first time of being in a play, but you honestly cannot tell. The acting is superb. There's no background scenery and few props but it works because you're completely focused on the actors and the story. If you've ever seen the production of Woman In Black you'll know how effective a minimal set can be. We have short attention spans and get distracted by shinies (and pain in Cat's knee and Lynx's back caused by sitting too long) but these guys keep our attention the entire time. You can tell how much everyone enjoys being involved. Zoe Azzopardi, who played Nanny Ogg, was fantastic. Nanny Ogg was our favourite character. Every line she had was funny. We loved the play within a play (think Hamlet) and the Wyrd Sisters joining the audience to watch it... We hope Monstrous Productions perform every single book in the Discworld series – we will be going to every one..."
https://clraven.wordpress.com/2014/11/08/wyrd-sisters/
On the game website Eleventh Legion, blogger Tara has a positive review of Treefrog's "Ankh-Morpork" board game:
"The fun in this game is knowing the characters. If it was any other game, I wouldn't have bothered. Yet, because of its setting, I love it. The Discworld universe has so much character and narrative. It is a pastiche of everything that I love about the many fantastical worlds out there. I really admire Terry Pratchett as an author and as the creator of an original, scintillating universe. I would gladly play this game anytime. It's simple to play, it doesn't take too long and I don't need to over think my strategy. Discworld is a good game for fans who are not necessarily gamers. Basically, if you are a fan, buy it. If you have no idea, read the damn books! Then buy it."
eleventhlegion.com/2014/10/29/discworld-good-books-good-boardgame/
Blogger Jennykathleen compares her favourite Deaths, Pratchett's and Gaiman's:
"So, on the surface, you'd think these Deaths are pretty different. But the thing that makes them the same is that they are the kindest, most compassionate portrayals of Death I have ever seen, in any media. They care about their duty, they care about the lives they collect. The quote at the top of this post is when Death is convincing Azrael to let him stay in his post, as the New Death does not care, whereas old Death sees the lives as an intrinsically good and valuable thing. At one point, a witch challenges him to a round of poker for a newborn baby's life. She wins, it lives; he wins, it dies. Only thing is, he throws the game intentionally, allowing the child to live. As the Hogfather, he is able to twist the rules just enough to grant a sick little girl the gift of a future, again sparing an innocent young life. In the first volume of Sandman, Death is seen comforting and reassuring the recently deceased, kicking her brother Dream into shape, and generally being the most soothing presence seen after a fairly harrowing story... Of course, a big part of these personifications' empathy is how close they are to humanity..."
http://bit.ly/1FmeY5a
...and goes on cogently and at length about the joys of Nation:
"The transition between childhood and adulthood is basically the entire foundation of the young adult genre. For some, it's something that stays relatable long after it's technically relevant; others lose interest and 'graduate' to more adult literature. I don't think I want to be the type of person who can no longer relate to her younger self. God knows I make fun of middle-school and high-school-age me, but I still understand who I was and why I was that way. The main characters of Nation were basically thrown into adulthood unprepared, and I think it's easy to see why that's relatable... The timeline of the book is not explicit, but it's clear that less than a year has passed between the start of the book and the end. And in that very brief amount of time, Mau and Daphne have become adults and can't go back to the way things were. They have to make hard choices and deal with terrible things, because that's what adulthood is, and there isn't really any other alternative. It's daunting, as anyone else who is a newly minted adult can tell you... any kind of struggle between science and religion is going to be near and dear to my heart, and Nation is notable because the book stands firmly with one foot in each camp. There's definitely a scientific slant to it, but the spirit behind religion is shown to be no less real. Mau was raised to just believe what he was told about the world and not ask silly questions, the religion and spirituality of the island being firmly traditional. Daphne was raised by her rational father, and she stopped believing in god at a very young age, but she did believe very strongly in science. Over the course of the book, they both find some gray area in between... In one of the Discworld books, a character says, 'If there is any kind of supreme being, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior' and I can't help but agree..."
http://bit.ly/1HDTswE
Blogger allthenamesaretakensothisisreallyreallylong (no, really) reviews Guards! Guards!:
"When someone asked me to describe the author's books, I suggested science fiction with a British sense of humor. This resulted in a, 'Oh like Douglas Adams' (author of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy), response. After consideration, I responded with, 'No more like if Monty Python were to rewrite Star Wars and tackle broader questions around the nature of our existence.'... The city in which the guards keep watch has established an equilibrium between criminal and legitimate activities by normalizing crime. The thieves guild and the assassins guild ensure that only people without the proper money or connections are victimized. This is the first of many instances that Pratchett provides commentary on our current environment via satire. While I do enjoy Pratchett's humor, it's the satire that will drive me to read more of his books. There's wit and searing clarity in Pratchett's satire that I didn't find in Douglas Adams' writing. Pratchett's satire reminds me of the scene in The Holy Grail in which King Arthur is thwarted by a peasant refusing to recognize him as King due to the peasant's rejection of feudal rule. The argument devolves to, 'Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help! Help! I'm being repressed!' Pratchett dispenses with just as many moral lessons if not more than Suzanne Collins does in The Hunger Games trilogy. But Pratchett sneaks it in with less horror and violence..."
http://queencitynotes.com/2014/10/24/100-books-by-40-guards-guards/
The Bookwitch offers a short (for her) but positive review of Dragons at Crumbling Castle:
"Terry Pratchett's youthful short stories, as collected in Dragons at Crumbling Castle, just prove that he has always been what he is. Only he was younger once, but then that is an affliction we have all suffered from. I admit, I was worried that someone, somewhere was scraping the barrel, and that I'd not like this book so much. I'm sorry, I occasionally get very crazy notions. Won't happen again.
"There are Carpet People stories, and abominable snowmen and tortoises, boring knights and people who dance funny and a bus that jumps through time. And those dragons. This is a lovely collection of stories. The illustrations by Mark Beech are quite crazy, in a Quentin Blake-ish sort of style, and I must warn you that on page 169 there is a picture of individuals wearing feather head-dresses. But then I suppose Terry isn't running for diversity. These stories are far too good for children. Oops, I mean for children not to share with older people. But you knew that."
bookwitch.wordpress.com/2014/10/22/dragons-at-crumbling-castle/
Blogger Michael Dodd aka trackofwords reviews A Slip of the Keyboard:
"There's something about the way Terry Pratchett sees the world, an ability to look further than most and see truths that the rest of us miss, that makes his writing so interesting. It's not just the wit and the wordplay, it's the observations both large and small that fill his writing, both fiction and non-fiction, and identify it so clearly as his. Here there are pieces of writing on an enormous range of subjects, from the choice of hats and the key requirements for laptops, to childhood influences, the joys and perils of touring Australia, thoughts on what makes something science fiction and reflections on seeing his own work on stage. Some pieces are only a few paragraphs long while others are lengthy articles, but from the longest to the shortest they are entertaining, engrossing and often enlightening... It's a rare book that has the reader in fits of laughter one minute and floods of tears the next, but then Terry Pratchett is a rare author..."
http://bit.ly/1vjbhvY
...and on a different blog, Mr Dodd continues his A Slip of the Keyboard observations:
"I've been a fan of Terry Pratchett for about as long as I can remember, ever since being introduced to his Bromeliad trilogy as a child, and there's no question to me that he's my all time favourite author. I buy any book he releases as soon as it's available, no questions asked. As such, I knew that he was suffering from Alzheimer's, had read a couple of interviews with him where he talked about the implications it had on his life, and I knew that he supported the cause of assisted death. Nevertheless, reading his essays on these topics was a difficult experience for me. It surprised me how little I knew about either of the topics, both in general and in relation to Terry specifically, and while he writes with his customary wit and intelligence, it's heartbreaking to read what he has to say about both of them. Many people would withdraw into themselves, seek out privacy and ways to deal as quietly and discreetly as possible; not Terry Pratchett. In speaking out he has done incredible amounts to raise awareness of Alzheimer's and dementia in general, and his writing is filled with tales of other people who have come across his path since his diagnosis, rather than being focused solely on his own personal woes. This is a man whose life is based around his mind, his imagination and his creativity, and he's having to deal with a disease which insidiously eats away at the very parts of him he needs the most. No wonder he's a strong advocate for assisted death..."
http://bit.ly/1phv9yJ
Blogger Nadine muses on Mort:
"Many people recommend Mort as a Discworld starter novel and I see why (although I disagree). It is the fourth Discworld novel and the first one to introduce Death as a protagonist. However, and many Pratchett fans will tell you this, the earlier novels aren't nearly as great as the later ones. I fell in love with the YA novels (The Amazing Maurice and Tiffany Aching) long after I tried the starter novels. Both Mort and Guards! Guards! were fun but, to me, they come from a time when Discworld was still growing and each sub-series was still finding its own voice. And you can read them without any plan or order whatsoever and still get all the fun. To me, reading the witches books after meeting Granny and Nanny in the Tiffany Aching novels, was still brilliant. I didn't stick with them after reading Equal Rites, the first witches novel, which goes to show that starting at the beginning is not always the best idea... I enjoyed Mort much more the second time I read it. The audiobook narration is probably as much responsible as my general love for the Discworld, and if you know me, you'll guess that it's really the characters that make this book so good. Death personified could have been many things, but Terry Pratchett decided to make the Grim Reaper not all that grim, rather a very strange, ancient being who is trying to learn more about humans. Watching Death learn how to have fun and watching Mort grow more and more into his master was just fascinating..."
http://sffbookreview.wordpress.com/2014/10/18/terry-pratchett-mort/
Blogger Lynn aka Ms Oh Waily Waily did feel the Dodger love:
"I cracked open my first Pratchett in a few years. While I was expecting this to be another in the Discworld series, I was wrong, this novel is set in Victorian England. Dodger is definitely inspired by Mr Dickens (or Charlie as he here) and his Artful one. Dodger is a tosher, eventually the King of the Toshers, who is known by everyone. He is also a geezer, one smart lad and eventually a reluctant hero... It is a very easy read, as all of Pratchett's books are. It is a delightful way to look into the past, and a very murky and less than salubrious past it was in Victorian London. Despite the darkness of the setting, it is always alleviated by the underlying sense of humour that is inherent in nearly all of Pratchett's writings. The story winds along to a satisfactory conclusion, and in some respects reminds me of Kim – minus the setting of the sub-continent. I would recommend it to folk who know and like Dickens..."
http://ohwailywaily.com/2014/10/17/dodger-terry-pratchett/
The wonderfully-named blogger Conor Has Too Many Books reviews Mort:
"My exposure to Pratchett's work has been pretty limited so far, having only read one other book by the author: the terrific Small Gods, which I enjoyed thoroughly and left me wanting more. I was drawn in by the way his writing could be bitingly satirical, deeply resonant and poignant, and really freaking funny all at once. But Pratchett's writing is far more subtle than it might seem from that description. His humor is typically British, very dry and yet very silly all at once, and his satire doesn't go for the throat so much as shake its head at all the foibles of man. In general, he strikes me as what it would be like to have a really smart and funny grandfather telling a story, with all the head-shaking and winks in the listener's direction intact... I was struck by how deeply philosophical Mort can be at times. Pratchett expounds on the nature of death and our understanding of it as humans, as well as our seemingly innate need to mess with the course of history... In addition to being so enjoyable on a micro-level, Pratchett's storytelling is fantastic as well. Though I will argue that Small Gods was more spot-on structurally, with not a wasted detail all leading to a fantastic conclusion, the plotting of Mort is pretty terrific. Pratchett sets it up in such a way that we really have no idea how this story is going to end, and our own expectations only further complicate things. I definitely didn't expect the climactic showdown that occurs near the book's end, but it's all the better for it..."
conorhastoomanybooks.wordpress.com/2014/10/13/mort-by-terry-pratchett/
Blogger Paula Brook Green is very much in favour of the Long Earth books:
"The premises of the book are so interesting, you cannot stop reading. They deal with the way in which each country (China, U.S., England, Australia etc.) approached this new possibilities. There is humour throughout the book too and interesting characters, like a talking vending machine which claims to be a Tibetan monk reincarnated, a guy that can step naturally, that is, without the aid of a stepper, and singing trolls that keep the balance of the Long Earth. After the Long Earth comes the Long War, what happened with the Datum and the other Earths many years later, after men had settled all over these worlds and started using the trolls as labour. All of a sudden, the trolls start fleeing no one knows where to... Really worth reading, they are not only great entertainment, but they make you reflect about your own humanity and the way you behave to yourself and others, and whether, given the chance of a better, brighter future, you'll be able to do anything different that what you are already doing."
http://bit.ly/1AL6W89
Blogger Stevanie Claibourne sings the praises of Pratchett:
"Terry Pratchett is one of the only writers whose books I read without even once thinking, 'Here's what I will say when I review this book.' I enjoy him so much I can barely stop to critique or even balance out the highlights of the novel with its hindrances. Over the past few months, I've devoured Going Postal, Making Money, and Feet of Clay without stopping to write a review. I'm almost done reading Jingo and I have holds on The Fifth Elephant and Raising Steam at the library. Pratchett embodies the value of engaging, authentic, flawed, fantastic characters for me. His characters, while absurd in many respects, are so authentic to themselves. The author never pushes or pulls them. There is no covering-up of their flaws, no excuses for their mistakes. They just live and they live so colorfully and with so many riveting moments that I can't stop reading... Fantasy in many ways is built to be a microcosm of the real world, and Pratchett barrels out the gate with this idea. His satire is addictive, his humor makes me laugh aloud, his writing is crisp. His characters are real..."
http://someplaceintheair.wordpress.com/2014/10/07/on-terry-pratchett/
Blogger Ryan Sean O'Reilly goes nicely postal over Going Postal:
"You will not Return this Book to Sender — because it's hilarious and awesome!... The cast of characters that Pratchett dreams up are brilliant and memorable. Whether it's the fire-eyed Golem parole officer who must keep tabs on the protagonist; the old-guard of anal-retentive postal workers; the slick zombie-faced lawyer; the mostly-sane former Clacks workers turned code-crackers and rabble rousers; the boisterous and bumbling stuffy-robed wizards of the Unseen University; the sulking and skulking Igor butler henchman; the disturbing pigeon-eating banshee; or the chain-smoking golem-rights activist/love interest — you fall in love with them all. Everyone comes alive. An unforgettable cast. Sometimes there are heartfelt moments of kind and generous acts, other times you revel in the satire that floods through the streets of Ankh-Morpork. Everyone is a character and a caricature and always faintly familiar... Pratchett really hits the spot. He is refreshingly funny and a good storyteller. The world can be a very awful place sometimes, when you look at all the problems one can suffer through during a lifetime. Yet, it is books like this one that help to put all the grim things in their proper place of absurdity..."
http://bit.ly/1tfWqOl
...and finally, something one doesn't see often – a poetic tribute to The Carpet People, in the language of Quirm, by the amusingly-named Quirmian blogger Cochonfucious:
"Au chemin qu'il parcourt avec un grand sourire.
Terry Pratchett, fort jeune, a bien su nous décrire
Le peuple surprenant qui s'agite en ce lieu :
De taille minuscule et de formes étranges,
Ils semblent imiter les démons et les anges..."
paysdepoesie.wordpress.com/2014/10/27/tapis-de-pratchett/
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08) CLOSE
I recently came across "Tribute to Terry Pratchett", by a fan called Sillynity. It's a long piece of paired couplets covering pretty much the entire Discworld canon, and while Sillynity's attempts at poetry are more Wee Billy Bigchin than T S Eliot, her heart is very much in the right place. Have a look for yourself:
http://sillynity.wordpress.com/2014/11/13/tribute-to-terry-pratchett/
Lastly, here be an action replay, because one simply cannot have too much orangutan DIY:
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20140924-diy-orangutans
I hope those of you who celebrate Thanksgiving had a good one, and those of you insan–, er, brave enough to participate in the Black Friday sales have escaped with only minimal injury. See you next month!
– Annie Mac
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Copyright (c) 2014 by Wossname for the Klatchian Foreign Legion
