The Carpet People
Terry Pratchett wrote this book when he was 17. Then, when he was 40, he did a massive edit and re-released it. That second version is the one I read (and probably the only one you can find these days). It was interesting to see his younger and older selves coming together in one book. Having read the entire Discworld and seeing him grow as an author made it easier to pick out the bits that he added later.
The story itself is fairly straightforward fantasy, with a fun twist. The entire civilization exists inside a carpet, and it was fun to pick out the things from our world. The people collect ash and wood from fallen matches, varnish from a chair leg, and mine bronze from a penny. They're impossibly small and live on a contracted scale. The occasional (and unpredictable) vacuuming throws everything into chaos, and becomes the main crisis that the current characters have to get through.
Unfortunately there are almost no women until the very end, where Pratchett tacks on a bunch of them in the final battle. It's a nice addition, but it's not quite enough to make me feel better about the bulk of the book being so dude-heavy. But that's what you get in a male teenager's first book. At least he got better over the course of his career.
This book was cute and didn't require too much brainpower, a major plus for my postpartum brain. It wasn't perfect, but it was a fun way to pass some time.
The story itself is fairly straightforward fantasy, with a fun twist. The entire civilization exists inside a carpet, and it was fun to pick out the things from our world. The people collect ash and wood from fallen matches, varnish from a chair leg, and mine bronze from a penny. They're impossibly small and live on a contracted scale. The occasional (and unpredictable) vacuuming throws everything into chaos, and becomes the main crisis that the current characters have to get through.
Unfortunately there are almost no women until the very end, where Pratchett tacks on a bunch of them in the final battle. It's a nice addition, but it's not quite enough to make me feel better about the bulk of the book being so dude-heavy. But that's what you get in a male teenager's first book. At least he got better over the course of his career.
This book was cute and didn't require too much brainpower, a major plus for my postpartum brain. It wasn't perfect, but it was a fun way to pass some time.
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