The Discworld Thread

I see to it that there is a lack of places for general Discworld discussion in the Literature sub-forum. So this thread will be dedicated to every Discworld novels and characters.

What is your favorite book? Mine are Small Gods, Going Postal and Night Watch.

My favorites are probably Night Watch and Thud!

edited 22nd May '11 5:42:53 PM by Zizoz

Equal Rites.

You know, one thing I like about Terry Prachett is that he writes good villains but he never make the villain more interesting than the heroes. The narrative makes us see no matter how awesome the villain is, he is truly a monster underneath and therefore we always cheer for the hero when he defeated the antagonist.

edited 23rd May '11 12:21:31 AM by Nightwire

Sourcery, Hogfather and Interesting Times for me.

As far as Pratchett's villains... I don't know. His villains have rarely struck me as all that fascinating. They tend to be more borderline-forces-of-nature than anything else, even the human-scale ones. The more intriguing ones (for me, at least) were Lily Weatherwax and Reacher Gilt, if only for not being so 'other' as to be almost totally unrelatable. A lot of the others were just cracked- Wolfgang, Jonathan Teatime, Carcer, or High Inquisitor whatsizface (from Small Gods), something totally alien (Holy Wood, the... shopping-mall-starfish-thing from Reaper Man, the Auditors, the Titania-alike Queen of the Elves, the dragon from Guards! Guards!, etc.), or rather abstract (human stupidity and greed is the prime antagonistic force in a lot of the books, like Jingo, Unseen Academicals or Monstrous Regiment).

And of course there's borderline Villain Sue Count Magpyr- I think it was a mistake to do another book starring Granny Weatherwax after Lords And Ladies, honestly- it feels like that should have been the peak of her career right there, slapping down the Queen of the Fae in a straight-out magical slugfest, and to try and top that... yah.

Eh, whatever. Still love PTerry's work, although I'm not certain on the most recent stuff (post-Going Postal). For example, while Thud had some superb moments, I'm not sure it was as strong as it could be, and it feels like it overdoes the Cerebus Retcon a bit.

I will have to agree with you about that. The strong point of Discworld is the heroes. They are so well-rounded and interesting characters that you can never get tired of. That is where Mr.Pratchett doesn't fall into the same pit as other writers: they often makes the villains too interesting but the heroes too bland for us to care.

Reaper Man, Small Gods and Hogfather, for me. I had the pleasure of hearing a tiny bit of the next book, Snuff, being read out, and I'm looking forward to reading it. More Vimes, hurrah!

I'd find it easier to pick out the ones I didn't like, to be honest. But Small Gods is definitely one of the best. It's not only funny, moving and able to say a lot about both the good and the bad of religion without preaching; it's also superbly plotted, with parallellism between Brutha and Om, and a climax that is a literal Deus ex Machina, except that it's been foreshadowed from page one.

And I agree that the majority of Pratchett's villains are great, without stealing the thunder from the heroes.

^^Oh, were you at the 2010 Discworld convention too?

Discworld is probably my favourite series of books. They have a bit of a rough start and I'm not really a fan of the first 3 novels (Colour of magic, Light Fantastic and Equal Rites), but starting from Mort there was a very noticeable improvement. As for my favourites, hmm, I'd say Reaper Man, Witches Abroad, Small Gods, Interesting Times, Hogfather, Jingo, Nightwatch and Going Postal. One of the things I really like about Pratchett's books is that while they are satirical, sometimes absurd and occasionally silly, they are also telling a story that I am genuinely interested in. He has a point that he wants to get across and the books have coherent themes. While humour based in absurdity or, as is often the case for Pratchett, taking certain concepts and following them to their logical extreme, wordplay and a general lampooning of clichés can be fun for a while, it can also get kind of tiring. With Discworld however, I don't get tired of it, because there is more to it than that.

This is also the main reason that I don't enjoy the first couple of Discworld novels, because it felt as if the story, the characters and the situations where all part of a big set-up for one joke after another. In the other Discworld novels the humour comes more organically from within the story and the characters, it doesn't control said story and characters. Ok, a lot of humour comes from the narration as well, but it doesn't feel particularly intrusive, even if it at times goes off on a bit of a tangent. Interestingly, I thought that Strata and especially Dark Side of The Sun were by far superior to those first Discworld novels, despite having been written earlier.

edited 23rd May '11 5:13:21 PM by Mathias

Night Watch is my favourite: the other fantastic ones are Thud! and Small Gods.

Vimes is my favourite character.

I agree about the villains: they're wonderful, especially Vorbis, Dios, Carcer, the villain in 'The Truth'' (not revealing who 'cause of possible spoiler) and also Mr Pin and Mr Tulip, and many others.

Shame on me. For a self-proclaimed Discworld fan, I haven't actually read the first three books. Partly because I really enjoy the later books and I'm afraid the early ones won't meet my expectation.

^^^I missed out on that, sadly. Went to see him being interviewed by Garth Nix at the Opera House.

i got into the series via Small Gods and Mort... i like the whole Death trilogy, to be honest.

The first one I have ever read is Small Gods, and I fell in love with the series immediately. My favorite theme is probably the City Watch's.

I don't think the first three books are as bad as a lot of people consider them (admittedly, I was already a fan when I got around to reading them). The Colour of Magic has some Early-Installment Weirdness and feels a lot more like clichéd Heroic Fantasy than later books, but I don't hate it. Equal Rites isn't my favourite, though, mainly because of Characterization Marches On regarding Granny, and the fact that its pro-feminist Aesop felt a bit broken at the end.

I have very few problems with The Light Fantastic, though. It benefits greatly from having a more driving plot than The Colour of Magic, Cohen the Barbarian is introduced, and it just generally feels like the series is starting to come into its own there.

Still, it'd be hard to argue that Mort is where this series really starts to shine.

edited 24th May '11 1:42:37 AM by DoktorvonEurotrash

^^ What a coincidence. Small Gods was my introduction to the series as well. I wonder if it's an especially good introduction since it has a completely different set of characters so you don't need to know anything?

Also, my favorites are Interesting Times and Guards! Guards!

edited 30th May '11 12:00:46 PM by storyyeller

I think so too. You don't really need to know the background of the Discworld when you read Small Gods. To me, it felt like a fun yet thought-provoking book about the nature of religions. And that makes it an excellent read to newbies.

I just finished Mort and am reading Pyramids, right now. Those are my first two novels from the series.

Anyone here knows what I should read after finishing the latter? I was thinking on reading the first in chronology from each theme.

I read the books in no chronological order, so I think you can do that too. You can pretty much read any Discworld book and still have no trouble in understanding it.

My favourite is the Watch series, starting with Guards! Guards!...I think you'll get more out of the books reading them in order tbh.

Oh, okay. Just finished Pyramids and Soul Music. Currently reading Thud!.

Eyup, seems like I won't have to worry about following the themes closely.

^^ What a coincident. I am reading Thud! too. Though personally I think that you should read the other Watch books before it, just to get familiar with the theme and its characters first.

edited 2nd Jun '11 5:16:44 PM by Nightwire

Night Watch and Thud! are probably the best Discworld books, but they rely a lot on the reader knowing the character of Vimes properly to work. Also I found the "This! Is! Not! My! Cow!!" bits a bit Wallbanger-ish, more because it's a berserk killing spree by Vimes, than because of the children´s story thing.

I too read them non-chronologically, and I've just recently read the Witches books. I think Wyrd Sisters, Lords and Ladies and Carpe Jugulum were great, but Witches Abroad and Maskerade were just too silly.

Yeah, I think Witches Abroad is a little silly too. Mr.Pratchett seems to use it as an excuse to parody as much stories as possible, but I enjoy it nonetheless. Maskerade is a little weak for my taste, mostly because it serves as a Breather Episode between Lords and Ladies and Carpe Jugulum. It just feels out of place compared to the most awesomes book of Witches theme.

Just finished Thud!. Sam Vimes and his son is so sweet. I'd love to hear more of Where's My Cow? - street version.

I feel really, really sorry for Helmclever. The poor guy didn't do anything to deserve his fate.