Discworld

[Shoggoth2588]

The Death Series [Mort, Soul Music, etc] are my favorite books but, I also loved Going Postal and, Making Money o.o

I didn't know there were cartoons but I have seen Hogfather ...

 

[gxs]

I like Detritus and Vimes.

I've read almost all the books (I can't get the last three) and watched the movie.

 

[Xhu]

Out of interest, how do the audiobooks deal with the humourous footnotes that are so common in Pratchett's works? Does the narrator skip them?

 

[grollo]

I was a big fan of the books for several years before I realised how famous they were. Then someone asked me if I had seen the movies, and I was really suprised becouse I had never heard of any movies. Now you're telling me there's cartoons and stuff too? It's just like dragonball I hate the so many were introduced by the cartoons and not the books there.

 

[Vhite]

i would like to ask if these books follow in some order or you can just pick anyone of them and read it? i was trying to get The Colour of Magic but sadly i cant get it anywhere

 

[Wicky_42]

Long time Pratchet fan here, I absolutely love pretty much all of his stuff - even managed to read one of his picture books in German ^_^

 

[Rogue 9]

I've been a huge fan of the Discworld books ever since I bought the first four in the series in compact form, second-hand, from a pottery shop on the Isle of Skye (seems like a suitably bizarre way to get into the series =P)

I had actually seen the Wyrd Sisters and Soul Music animated series' before that, and loved them, but wasn't aware that they were adaptations of books.

My favourite novels are Night Watch, The Fifth Elephant and The Last Continent in roughly that order but there hasn't been a single book I've read of Pratchett's that I haven't enjoyed, which is a lot more than I can say for most writers. I've read several of his non-Discworld books as well, and highly recommend the Johnny Maxwell trilogy (the third one is, I think, the origin of 'the trousers of time') and Carpet People if you can track them down, along with Good Omens.

 

[lewiswhitling]

He's my favorite fiction writer.. funny, but with a very real and serious core. They are also the only books I've ever read to make inroads into why a universe with magic etc. would be so recognisably similar to ours. Even if it is still making fun

 

[Platinum117]

Please tell me someone has read the EdgeWorld series? PLEASE! When i was a kid i fucking loved those books, some author i think. So imaginative

 

[Vhite]

ok thanks, if i wont find it in any of local shops i may try ebay

 

[ZombieGenesis]

That's the one in which the world is carried on a turtles back, correct?
I used to think that was incredibly creative, until I found out he lifted that right out of Hindu mythology... oh writers, how you do like to pilfer.

 

[figment of mind]

I love Mort but my favorite Pratchett book is called Good Omens which he co-authored with Neil Gaiman. I hadn't laughed like that in ages, awesome book!.

True that. Personally, my favorite of the Discworld series is Men at arms. It's just a wonderfully interesting book(If you don't know about it it's about captian vimes and corporal carrot dealing with an assassin who has the first gun in discworld).

Others that i've read:
Wyrd sisters
Mort
Carpe Lugulum(or however you spell it)
Sourcery

 

[Thwarted]

love em all. night watch is my favourite. love commander Vimes

 

[Disco110]

hehe thanks for the spelling correction, now i remember, hes so good a the portmanto jokes.
almost forgot about nobby and colon (!) if thats possable, and i like angua too.

also, one of my favorite quotes
Carrot: why is he called Gavin?
Angua: He once ate someone called Gavin.

 

[Trivun]

There are two ways to read or listen to the books. One is reading each book in every story arc in order, somehow fitting the individual books (like Pyramids) in around them in chronological order. The other is to read every book in actual chronological order, forsaking seperate story arcs. Since there are so many crossovers of minor characters (most notably Vetinari, the Wizards, and more recently certain Watch members) in each book, I prefer this approach. Judging by the order of all the books (including the 'kids' ones) listed in the release of Unseen Academicals, it appears that Pratchett himself favours this approach too, though the other way is perfectly fine.

Anyway, Pratchett is definitely one of my favourite authors. I'm shocked that so few people on DA have heard of Discworld, since even most of my peers who don't read Discworld have heard of it. My parents barely ever read anything and when they do they favour autobiographies and crime novels, and even they've heard of Terry Pratchett and Discworld. Although I suspect that's down to the fact that I've bugged them so much in the past to get me copies of certain Discworld books when Christmas and my birthday have been approaching...

EDIT: For the record, my favourite story arc was the Watch arc, but now is shifting slowly towards Moist von Lipwig. He's definitely one of my favourite characters, along with Sally, Carrot, Angua and Vimes. Death is so damn awesome too. And I wish Terry Pratchett would write another Susan Sto Helit book, that arc was another favourite of mine too

 

[Queen Michael]

Want my advice? Skip Vimes and go right into Rincewind. Rincewind is one of the most awesome characters I've ever read, at least as good as death and in some ways better. In combination (as they often are during Color of Magic) they create a comic/comic foil pair of such high caliber I've yet to see it matched in any other work of literature.

Rincewind is basically my hero.

Rincewind is awesome. I wasn't satisfied with his casting in the film. David Jason was too old and didn't capture the character well.

Vimes is just as good. In fact he's better, because he's a deep character and he's got just as many funny lines.
And the average quality of his books is higher, too.

By the way, I've read all of the Discworld novels, including The Science of Discworld.

 

[Trivun]

That's the one in which the world is carried on a turtles back, correct?
I used to think that was incredibly creative, until I found out he lifted that right out of Hindu mythology... oh writers, how you do like to pilfer.

Yup, 'tis true. Although every author does that. I'm writing a vampire novel where the vampires are more or less vicious versions of Twilight vampires, except they actually fight each other, they do drink human blood (though they don't attack humans, they steal it from hospitals), and they definitely don't sparkle. Everything else is pretty much the same.

Anyway, I recall a quote from Phillip Pullman in the Achnolegements section of The Amber Spyglass:

"Read like a butterfly, write like a bee, and if there is any honey in this book then it is solely down to the quality of the nectar I have found from better writers".

As for the turtle, Pratchett made a reference in one edition of the Discworld Companion to a woman he met who believed the Flat Earth theory. Basically the woman was barking mad and came up to him at a signing and said that he'd got it all completely right and that the Earth really is carried on the back of a giant turtle. Pratchett tried to explain it was fiction but she just ignored any evidence he cited for a round Earth. He then said "so what's the turtle standing on then?" to try and put her off, and she replied "Hah! It's turtles all the way down!". So apparently there are turtles standing on top of each other for infinity...

 

[Disco110]

Thanks for the correction Cogito, i remember the joke now, he?s so good at port-mantoing words like that.
I almost forgot Nobby and Colon, if that?s possible, and angua too who has one of my favourite lines.

The Fifth Elephant; Carrot and Angua talking about Gavin the Wolf.
Carrot: so, why is he called Gavin?
Angua: he once ate someone called Gavin.

Probably done it no justice but i like it

 

[ZombieGenesis]

/snip

Actually yes I heard that same story from the show QI, I found it rather amusing actually. Good to see that writers are, in part, admiting to the inspirations of their works. I'm pretty sure everyone is quite aware that J.R.R and J.K borrowed heavily from general mythologies, in particular the celtic and germanic.
I actually do this quite a lot in my own works, though since I'm overtly-English I like to put that across in the references. Such as the age old fable of the Black Moor Dog, who follows your steps when you come close to death. So I can understand why it's done, I was just somewhat dissapointed to find such a unique world point was not an original design. Then again, what is these days?

On that point I would normally make some comment on how there are -way- too many vampire stories coming out since the Twilight plague, but anything that doesn't sparkle is a step in the right direction in my books.

 

[kiwisushi]

Yep. Currently reading some of the older ones. At the mo Thief of Time. I mean seriously, two deaths, one called death and the other called death of rats ... no real reason for there being that one!