positivestress

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positivestress
@positivestress

it's so funny how thoroughly wrong I was about what Discworld is. the name always made me think it was sci-fi, like Tron or something? and once I learned a little more about it and started hearing things like "Ankh-Morpork" and "Great A'Tuin the World Turtle" I was like, ah, I see, it's actually very dry high fantasy bullshit! and it turns out that's also wrong

nobody told me Terry Pratchett was funny! I'm a little ways into Mort and I've been laffing my way through this book! it's been a long time, so I can't guarantee that this is a good comparison, but it reminds me of how it felt reading Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as a teenager. here's a line, for example, describing the Discworld itself:

Scientists have calculated that the chance of anything so patently absurd actually existing are millions to one. But magicians have calculated that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.

that's great! it's full of so much charming detail that is, much like the kind of stuff Douglas Adams would write, really funny in how it gets hung up on ridiculous little concepts taken to logical extremes. like the "reannual grapes" which grow before you plant them, and can be made into wine that lets you see the future, but gives you a hangover the day before you drink it. or the footnote about a guy who theorized that if monarchy transfers instantaneously on death, that means it travels faster than light, so it might be possible to harness "kingium particles" for FTL communication. it's all completely ridiculous, but there's an internal logic to all of it, and I love that shit

anyway since I'm enjoying Mort so much, I decided to buy a few more. Guards! Guards!, Reaper Man, and Equal Rites. I might become a Pratchetthead. watch this space


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in reply to @positivestress's post:

in reply to @positivestress's post:

So happy to see you're enjoying Mort so much! I would actually recommend going with Guards Guards next, as an introduction to the Watch books. Equal Rites is a fine book, but being classified as part of the early Discworld books it features the world in a bit more raw state than the later ones. All the early Discworld books are still very much worth reading, but with Guards Guards you'll get a much better sense of how Pratchett is starting to grow as a story teller and create a universe that's entirely his own.

noted! would you recommend reading it next over Reaper Man? I know a lot of these books are organized into storylines, but I don't know what is the general consensus on sticking with one storyline vs. jumping around

The storylines in Discworld are very loose and every book basically stands on its own even if it is a part of a "series". Reaper Man is really good too, but I would recommend Guards Guards just for a different perspective on the world. The Death books tend to be a bit more focused on things like metaphysics, the power of belief and narrative storytelling and the relationship between individuals and cosmic forces they can't really control, while the Watch books are more about society, politics, class divide etc. All of course still told in a very funny way! But Pratchett does touch on some very deep themes in his book in a way you don't often even notice before you start thinking about it.

I'm delighted by how delighted you are with "Mort" and wondering what circles you've run in that you weren't aware of Pratchett as a comedy writer, but I suppose coming to him in the '90s as opposed to the 2020s is a very different thing, regardless of age.

Seconding Montrith's recommendation of "Guards! Guards!"

yeah, I feel like the series is just so established now that I can't really recall anyone ever talking about what it is. just sometimes I'll see people, who have presumably been fans of the books for years, say very general stuff like "Discworld is good!" and I would say "that's nice" and move on