Sidebar

Pooh's Mini-Marathon Blog

Welcome to the Sir Terry Pratchett Forums
Register here for the Sir Terry Pratchett forum and message boards.
Sign up
P

poohcarrot

Sergeant-at-Arms
#1
Sep 13, 2009
8,317
2,300
NOT The land of the risen Son!!
#1
For the sake of balance, here's my DW blog.

PYRAMIDS

Apart from giving us further insights into the workings of Ankh-Morpork, Pyramids parodies the ancient civilisations of Greece and Egypt, while at the same time slamming religion and posing a theological mind-bomb of a question of awesome proportions. This is all done in a brilliantly illogical Pythonesque style of humour.

Slapstick humour? Hardly! I mean, to understand just one of the jokes on the very first page, it requires knowledge of astro-physics! And the parody of Zeno's Hercules/tortoise paradox is nothing short of genius.

I personally rate Pyramids as TP's funniest book. And along with Small Gods and Nation, as one of TP's three most anti-religion novels to date.

To me, anyone who doesn't like Pyramids simply just doesn't get it. Maybe the humour is too British, too erudite, or simply too oblique? Maybe references to British confectionery, the British Driving Test, Tom Brown's Schooldays and an old British kids TV programme are lost on non-Brits? Maybe people just don't understand the jokes about Oedipus, the Old Testament, Greek philosophers, Egyptian Gods, the founding of Rome, the evolution of stars, or Einstein's theory of relativity? Maybe it's because the humour isn't slapstick and actually needs some thought?

Warning
Anyone who gets off on violent, in-your-face, slapstick "humour" which involves the use of zero brain cells probably won't enjoy, let alone understand this book.

First Word Nothing...
Last Word ...forth

Prizes won The 1989 British Bestest SF/Fantasy novel ever written by anyone ever in the whole history of time.

Pooh Rating :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


MAKING MONEY

An unoriginal Going Postal rip-off featuring a crap bad guy, a cheap gag about a sex toy, some custard pies and an illogical ending.

Warning
Don't ever recommend this book as an introduction to Discworld.

First Word I really can't be bothered to check.
Last Word Whatever. Is it really important?

Prizes Won Well, what do you think?

Pooh Rating :rolleyes:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm going to take a short break now because my muse has buggered off. :laugh:
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
#5
#5
poohcarrot said:
Well I'm pretty sure I finished reading it, so it must have had. o_O
Click to expand...
Reminds me: Was the plotthread about the cook solved? Any note WHY he hates garlic?
 
M

meerkat

Sergeant-at-Arms
#8
Jan 16, 2010
9,413
2,800
68
Pocklington East Riding Yorkshire
#8
LilMaibe said:
MM has an actual ending? :eek:
Click to expand...
Sort of I think with Sir pT leaving a nice story should he fancy it. The history of the cook could be useful.

Nothing is 'right' in discworld, it sucks up 'happeneings' from other universes and takes what they want from them. Anything can happen, and usually does, and this is what makes the stories, no matter what book, so occassionaly hilariously ludicrous. It's a life, but not as we know it.

Pyramids is, ok, but not my favourite, and you Do need a good British up bringing or you don't get half of it.
As someoone who had to study Egypt for thier Archaeological 'O' level, I give Pyramids :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

Apologies for any spelling mistakes as I spilt some Cider over the keys and they gone a bit stifky. (I know I know, a dreadful waste, but the glass tipped over as I reached for a pen. Fortunately I didn't spill much!)
 
Quatermass

Quatermass

Sergeant-at-Arms
#12
Dec 7, 2010
7,892
2,950
#12
Pooh...you know what happened last time, don't you? Why, oh, why, do you keep provoking me? Why, oh, why, do you insist on trying to piss me off? It clearly can't be for the entertainment value, so clearly you're a hardcore masochist who would cut his own arm off if he could deal with using only one hand.

I don't just like slapstick humour. I appreciate clever humour to do with astrophysics and other subjects (biology especially). But they also need to make me laugh and/or smile, and not make me groan. Pyramids doesn't do it well. But there are other examples, like, say, Freeman's Mind ("Do you know who ate all the donuts?" "NO! Do you know whether leptons are compound particles?! Friggin' donuts...").

I didn't like Pyramids the first time around, but I gave it another chance by reading it a second time. The words 'epic fail' come to mind.

There are two major and crippling faults in Pyramids. The first is a storyline that tries to be too many things at once without accomplishing anything, and has high concepts that don't mesh as well as they should.

The second is that the characters don't quite work, especially Dios. Dios is simply not interesting enough to be a real villain. He's less a character than an immovable object with no personality whatsoever. Rather like an Egyptian Richard Owen, then. Teppic and the pyramid builders are perhaps the most interesting of the lot, and even then, it doesn't quite work. Teppic would have been better as the protagonist of another book, perhaps one that concentrated on his career as an Assassin. An Assassin who doesn't want to kill, and dealing with the politics of a boarding school ramped up to eleven. Now that's a plot I would have loved to read.

However, I have to say that my re-reading of other Discworld books changed my estimation of them for the better, especially Equal Rites, Wyrd Sisters, Guards! Guards!, Small Gods, Hogfather and The Last Continent.
 
P

poohcarrot

Sergeant-at-Arms
#13
Sep 13, 2009
8,317
2,300
NOT The land of the risen Son!!
#13
Lighten up Q. :laugh: It was you who gave me the idea for this when you attacked Pyramids for the second time in two weeks.
Where's your sense of humour? :rolleyes:

All I'm doing is highlighting that you and I have a different sense of humour, therefore what either of us says regarding any TP book should be taken with a huge pinch of salt, because we're both talking complete pants. :laugh:

I got angry last time because I was suffering from a severe attack of earthquakes. I'm not going to get angry this time. 8)

Peace and love bro.
 
Quatermass

Quatermass

Sergeant-at-Arms
#14
Dec 7, 2010
7,892
2,950
#14
Okay, okay. We'll agree to disagree.

And I'll say, "Live and let die."

Which is the movie whose special features I'll be watching while I do my exercise on the exercise bike today, funnily enough. I get to watch Roger Moore forcefeed Yaphet Kotto a compressed-air bullet. :rolleyes:

As for where my sense of humour is, well, we're currently undergoing a period of separation. It claims that I keep feeding it the same jokes over and over again. It'll probably end in divorce, and I'll have to get a new one. It'll probably get custody of my first name, Bernard.
 
Quatermass

Quatermass

Sergeant-at-Arms
#18
Dec 7, 2010
7,892
2,950
#18
Sjoerd3000 said:
poohcarrot said:
Sjoerd3000 said:
Very good Pooh but
And the parody of Zeno's Hercules/tortoise paradox is nothing short of genius.
Click to expand...
didn't Zeno use Achilles in his paradox? :p
Click to expand...
:rolleyes: :oops:
Well...! All these dead Greek blokes sound the same to me. :laugh:
Click to expand...
And to the Greeks it was Heracles. The Romans knew him as Hercules :laugh:
Click to expand...
Why wasn't it Junocules? I mean, wasn't Juno the Roman equivalent of Hera? And 'Heracles' means 'Hera's glory'.

Oh well, that's the Romans for you. What have the Romans ever done for us?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Latest posts

User Menu

login

Newsletter

Forum software by XenForo™ © 2010-2018 XenForo Ltd. | Add-Ons by xenMade.com | Style and add-ons by ThemeHouse
Top Bottom