Least favourite Discworld book
- Thread starter bikkit
- Start date
A
Tonyblack said:
That was one of the real problems for me - the ending. I didn't like it at all and it didn't make sense.
I won't go into details here for fear of spoilers, but you might look at the Making Money discussion that we did HERE.
I won't go into details here for fear of spoilers, but you might look at the Making Money discussion that we did HERE.
(and heck, saying plot was a blurry mess for me says a lot. Normally I'm pretty good at getting what's going on, no matter how bad something's written...)
On a further note on UA:
I think it is NEVER a good sign when all of a sudden (almost) all characters a reader has ever met come together in one story (seriously, who WAS absent in UA? Didn't even the characters from Pyramids and MR get a mention?)
A
poohcarrot said:
From Pyramids? Who? I don't remember that.
On yet another sidenote on MM and UA: Say, did I miss something or is the Cabinet of Curiosity nothing but a plotdevice paraphernalia if you look at it closely?
in MM all it actually did was to provide something that in other stories was as easily done with regular research (mostly offscreen)
and in UA: the same. why get a ball from the thing? why not just say the old rules mentioned a round, bouncy ball or ancientamphoras etc? why have the CoC there?
Because I have found the activity in the 'drum a bit slow lately, I've been trolling through The Shades (so to speak) of past threads and some of the more erudite ones.
Having read now every post in this thread I would like to make an observation that you may disagree with or find contraversial. It goes like this.
With Terry You can either have an hysterically funny book that nearly causes you to have "an accident" because you have laughed so hard, or you can have an absolutely cracking tale that has so much depth you have just got read it in a single sitting.
Apparently, and this is only my opinion, you can't have both. Wintersmith, Maurice et al, Night Watch and Nation (in particular) are brilliant stories but a bit thin on laughs.
Wee Free Men, Soul Music, Moving Pictures and Witches Abroad are not all that deep but by the Gods did I laugh!!
Now if this hypothesis has any validity, it does raise a couple of questions that you might like to ponder. What is the funniest of the books and which is a 'cracking good read'(Let's call that CGR)
One final observation. If in fact what I am proposing stands up then where is the breakpoint (if there is one). Well IMHO it happened with Hogfather. After that I just enjoyed the storyline hugely but never ever laughed so hard as I did with the previous books.
What do you think?
Having read now every post in this thread I would like to make an observation that you may disagree with or find contraversial. It goes like this.
With Terry You can either have an hysterically funny book that nearly causes you to have "an accident" because you have laughed so hard, or you can have an absolutely cracking tale that has so much depth you have just got read it in a single sitting.
Apparently, and this is only my opinion, you can't have both. Wintersmith, Maurice et al, Night Watch and Nation (in particular) are brilliant stories but a bit thin on laughs.
Wee Free Men, Soul Music, Moving Pictures and Witches Abroad are not all that deep but by the Gods did I laugh!!
Now if this hypothesis has any validity, it does raise a couple of questions that you might like to ponder. What is the funniest of the books and which is a 'cracking good read'(Let's call that CGR)
One final observation. If in fact what I am proposing stands up then where is the breakpoint (if there is one). Well IMHO it happened with Hogfather. After that I just enjoyed the storyline hugely but never ever laughed so hard as I did with the previous books.
What do you think?
In one of the interviews with Terry that Sjoerd posted HERE, Terry talks about the humour in the books and that to have 'lightness' you also need to have 'darkness'.
When I first started to read the books I went for funny. But funny is only funny so many times. And thoughtful (I'd say rather than dark) lasts longer and has more rewards.
For quite some time, Moving Pictures was my favourite book - because it was funny and had clever movie references. But I would now list it as one of my least favourite - because there's very little depth in it. It's almost like doing a crossword puzzle and then rubbing out the answers and filling it in again and again. Once you've got all the jokes and references, the book falls flat.
So I'd prefer substance to humour any time.
When I first started to read the books I went for funny. But funny is only funny so many times. And thoughtful (I'd say rather than dark) lasts longer and has more rewards.
For quite some time, Moving Pictures was my favourite book - because it was funny and had clever movie references. But I would now list it as one of my least favourite - because there's very little depth in it. It's almost like doing a crossword puzzle and then rubbing out the answers and filling it in again and again. Once you've got all the jokes and references, the book falls flat.
So I'd prefer substance to humour any time.
With respect I really don't agree with you there. I think there's plenty of Discworld books that are both hilarious and gripping reads:
Mort
Pyramids
Witches Abroad (I disagree that it's lacking in depth)
Men at Arms
Soul Music (again I disagree with you on this one)
Interesting Times
Feet of Clay
Hogfather
Carpe Jugulum
The Truth
I would also say humour can make a book more gripping. The depressing atmosphere in Night Watch didn't really make me want to follow the (in my opinion, not all that engaging) story. Looking at more serious books, Small Gods succeeds in having a deep, thought-provoking story, but there's definitely a lot more humour evident than in most of Terry's recent offerings.
Of course with Unseen Academicals I feel it fails on both counts.
Interesting. I'm quite the opposite. If I'm re-reading a DW book (and I would only do so once every few years) I tend to enjoy the funny ones more, mainly because I tend to have forgetten the incidental jokes while as the dramatic thrust of the book stays with me more.
Mort
Pyramids
Witches Abroad (I disagree that it's lacking in depth)
Men at Arms
Soul Music (again I disagree with you on this one)
Interesting Times
Feet of Clay
Hogfather
Carpe Jugulum
The Truth
I would also say humour can make a book more gripping. The depressing atmosphere in Night Watch didn't really make me want to follow the (in my opinion, not all that engaging) story. Looking at more serious books, Small Gods succeeds in having a deep, thought-provoking story, but there's definitely a lot more humour evident than in most of Terry's recent offerings.
Of course with Unseen Academicals I feel it fails on both counts.
Interesting. I'm quite the opposite. If I'm re-reading a DW book (and I would only do so once every few years) I tend to enjoy the funny ones more, mainly because I tend to have forgetten the incidental jokes while as the dramatic thrust of the book stays with me more.
A
I, too, would say that what makes a DW book great is the right mixture of comedy and drama.
Nightwatch, to go with that example, was not a great read to me, simply cause it was a tad too dark and serious. (And I found carcer to be one of the most annoying and boring villains in the whole series)
Soul Music and Hogfather, for another example, are within my top 10 list, simply because they take themes we think we're familiar with, dissect them, twist them around, show us how wrong we were and yet give us all candy.
Nightwatch, to go with that example, was not a great read to me, simply cause it was a tad too dark and serious. (And I found carcer to be one of the most annoying and boring villains in the whole series)
Soul Music and Hogfather, for another example, are within my top 10 list, simply because they take themes we think we're familiar with, dissect them, twist them around, show us how wrong we were and yet give us all candy.
Tonyblack said:
In one of the interviews with Terry that Sjoerd posted HERE, Terry talks about the humour in the books and that to have 'lightness' you also need to have 'darkness'.
When I first started to read the books I went for funny. But funny is only funny so many times. And thoughtful (I'd say rather than dark) lasts longer and has more rewards.
For quite some time, Moving Pictures was my favourite book - because it was funny and had clever movie references. But I would now list it as one of my least favourite - because there's very little depth in it. It's almost like doing a crossword puzzle and then rubbing out the answers and filling it in again and again. Once you've got all the jokes and references, the book falls flat.
So I'd prefer substance to humour any time.
When I first started to read the books I went for funny. But funny is only funny so many times. And thoughtful (I'd say rather than dark) lasts longer and has more rewards.
For quite some time, Moving Pictures was my favourite book - because it was funny and had clever movie references. But I would now list it as one of my least favourite - because there's very little depth in it. It's almost like doing a crossword puzzle and then rubbing out the answers and filling it in again and again. Once you've got all the jokes and references, the book falls flat.
So I'd prefer substance to humour any time.
Books which are funny with less serious "substance", like Moving Pictures or The Truth, work because they flow well and are very good parodies of particular industries. I think Going Postal and Making Money (I know you're not keen on the latter Tony) do an even better job of this and seem to have more substance behind them; maybe that's because the city and the characters are more established but maybe - and I think this is also true - it's because TP relies less on "magic" in the later books which seem to involve much more character development (compare Victor Tugelbend in Moving Pictures who's pretty 2D to MvL's first appearance in Going Postal).
But the point is, I think, the two sides of the coin - funniness and seriousness - work best when they're constantly playing off of one another and the narrative isn't interrupted for a funny moment. In other words, when the line between the two is blurred, because the novels flow better when this is the case. And sorry to go back to my bugbear but that's why I really didn't like Reaper Man. The forced "funniness" of the shopping malls parachuted into a tale with real substance about Death and Mrs Flitworth annoyed the bejusus out of me! I don't care about the bloody shopping trolleys, go back to the story!!
{and breathe....}
I think I agree with you in general BT but disagree on the details
so I wouldn't class Hogfather as a CGR for example
I also think one of the most interesting things about this thread is that there are very few of Pratchett's books that don't have someone who will vehemently defend them as soon as someone else classes them as the worst (I think the exceptions are COM and LF)
As far as UA is concerned - I think Glenda's storyline is brilliant and the first time I read it I was laughing out loud.
so I wouldn't class Hogfather as a CGR for example
I also think one of the most interesting things about this thread is that there are very few of Pratchett's books that don't have someone who will vehemently defend them as soon as someone else classes them as the worst (I think the exceptions are COM and LF)
As far as UA is concerned - I think Glenda's storyline is brilliant and the first time I read it I was laughing out loud.
