I Shall Wear Midnight

Newest Discworld book. Anyone read it, yet?

Yes! It came out here in Australia before it was due, for some reason, so I finished it like a week ago and am on my second read-through.

I was waiting for other people to read so I could talk about it somewhere...

It's already out in England, just wondering if I should wait for the paperback version.

The new covers for Terry Pratchett's books are god damn hot, though, seriously.

edited 6th Sep '10 8:25:45 AM by Autarch

Oh great, just when I'm broke...

I'll try to get a copy as soon as I can.

So, no one has seen the new covers? I'm not sure if I prefer them or not. They're very austere.

I got the book and WHY THE HELL HAS THIS JUST GOT DARKER AND EDGIER?!

^ Depending on how much time Pratchett has left, maybe he wants to end things on a climax.

^^ It's the whole story aging as Tiffany does thing. I've seen a comment from Pratchett somewhere that this book is effectively the end of Tiffany's childhood.

But, seriously, in the second chapter there is spousal abuse, a miscarriage and a beaten child. I mean, what the hell? :|

His writing's changing.

I noticed it in Unseen Academicals, but here it's in full effect: less narration, more huge paragraphs of character speech. The dialogue's less natural, and the flow of the story is off - not rushed per se, but I was surprised by how quickly things moved. And yet for all that the wit was still there, the themes were still there, the characterization was still there... but he's having trouble conveying it all.

For someone who got through high school with Discworld and had his adult life shaped by the series, it's heartbreaking. And when I read a line saying how Tiffany's "good at ending things," I got scared.

But, for all its problems, the book ends the Tiffany Aching series on a good note, and I was pleasantly-surprised by the Feegles meeting Wee Mad Arthur. Eskarina, though - what a tease! An out of nowhere appearance or two with lots of hints but so little explanation? I've got to know what happened between Equal Rites and now! Glad to have her back, all the same.

Sorry, I skipped some posts.

I just got this book for my birthday. :D

Now, I will commence reading it.

edited 7th Oct '10 8:09:14 PM by Zizoz

I just finished reading it. I really liked it. I think I enjoyed Wintersmith or Hat full of sky more, but it was still very good.

Just finished it last night. Yes, it's darker, but as someone else said, that's because Tiffany's (Seriously? Browser spellcheck doesn't recognize "Tiffany's"?) older now. You saw the same trend in the Harry Potter books, as the character and audience grow up, so does the story.

I'm not sure how much I like Tiffany/Preston. I was plenty glad to see Tiffany/Roland dropped, since I never cared much for him in the first place, but Preston is a little too perfect for me, and it stretches my suspension in a way Pratchett usually doesn't.

Also: Vimes need more lines!

edited 21st Oct '10 11:12:22 AM by Wryte

Agreed on the pairing thing. It seemed a bit... sudden? Like, it works, but more show less tell. Like Kataang :P

Nay, Esk needed more lines! Except not really, because had either of the characters we mentioned been accorded a greater part, Tiffany herself might well have been overshadowed.

@Tacitus: Ye ken the tragic thing? People'll be praising his "new literary bent". :rolleyes:

I liked it too. It's closer in feel to a Young Adult book like The Keys To The Kingdom or Little Brother,but that's no bad thing.

edited 21st Oct '10 6:34:33 AM by AckSed

Yeah, seeing Esk again after so very, very long was a nice treat. I want to go back and read that book again, now, if I can find it. I think it may actually be at my father's house... my family's collection is kind of spread between his, my mother's, and my libraries.

edited 21st Oct '10 11:16:45 AM by Wryte

How the frick was the Cunning Man cunning in any way?

I read it a couple of weeks ago and...well, it was okay. I love Pratchett's writing style and sense of humour, so I'll read pretty much anything by him and enjoy it (except possibly Colour of Magic and Light Fantastic - I'm sorry, I just don't like Rincewind books, even though I quite like Rincewind as a character. I have no idea how that works...) but I'm not such a fan of the young adult ones, despite being a teenager (refer to earlier parenthesis). One thing I do think is that I absolutely LOVE the new covers. I fecking hated the old ones. Yes, they were moderately amusing in their sheer hideousness, but by the time there were twenty-five of them the joke, such as it was, had gotten old.

Oh yes, and about the 'the Cunning Man isn't cunning' thing, read Unseen Academicals and check out Vetinari's little paragraph about the word 'cunning'. I'm pretty sure the Cunning Man fits at least a few of them. And I have a little Epileptic Tree that that was deliberate, and Pratchett put that in to avoid people saying that The Cunning Man Isn't Cunning.

I loved it. It did suffer to a lesser extent the same problem that Unseen Academicals had of too much going on, but in this case a) it tied together better and b) it involved characters I already cared about.

^ That's a good way to put it.

I really, really liked it, though there was a definite departure from the previous Tiffany Aching style - for one thing, anyone who would start the series by reading this would have thought that Nanny Ogg was Tiffany's mentor, and not Granny Weatherwax, just because Nanny is mentioned so much more. I eventually figured this was all right, because the book had a stronger focus on romance and marriage, and that's definitely Nanny's domain.

I wondered a bit with Preston, too, especially because I was quite fond of Tiffany/Roland, but Pterry managed to convince me on it. And it helps that I quite like Letitia.

Probably the one part of the ending that really disappoints me is the whole plotline of the Duchess. Tiffany was kind of starting to accept her (she'd complain and boss and gripe, but she gets things done and she looks after her own), and then Pterry really flattened out her character with the used to be a dance hall girl bit. It was like, "Got an unruly character? Just blackmail 'em! Blackmail solves everything!" 'Twas a bit of a cheap shot, IMHO.

Also, this was a very different way of Tiffany Aching facing down the monster than in the previous books. Those always employed some method of coming to understand, or reconcile with, the Queen of the Fairies, or the hiver, or the Wintersmith (best. showdown. ever.) This was more solid confrontation - though I'm still not quite sure what happened. Talking the Monster to Death?

ETA: no, wait, Talking the Monster to Death was what Tiffany did in Hat - and did well, I must say.

edited 18th Jan '11 1:05:54 PM by vifetoile

This time she killed it with fire.

I was actually rather disappointed in I Shall Wear Midnight - whereas I had previously thought the accusations that Pratchett was deriving off his own stuff were somewhat unjustified, the villain and general characterization of Midnight really, really grated, as it was basically just the same subtheme of the series combined with the ancient evil villain from Thud (or Men at Arms, or even A Hat Full of Sky). The forced tolerance and euthenasia authorial sermons were quite annoying as well.

It was well written, it was fun, it was even moving (and the ending was actually quite well done, unusually for a Pratchett romance), but I have read it before. 34 or so times, in fact.

I just hope Snuff doesn't do the same thing...

Read it a while back, quite liked it. As a finale of the whole Tiffany Aching series, it was pretty good. I liked Letitia, and though I liked Tiffany/Roland, Pterry convinced me of the change in the apparent shipping quite well.

Though is is just me or did Esk not play as much of a role as I was hoping for? Though i did love what I saw.

Did anyone else notice this or just me: the Tiffany Aching books tend to have a theme of seasons/elements to them:

• The Wee Free Men: spring/earth
• A Hat Full Of Sky: autumn/air
• Wintersmith: winter/water
• I Shall Wear Midnight: summer/fire

edited 22nd Jan '11 4:45:31 PM by alliterator