Bookish Thoughts

Considered by many to be the best book in the Discworld series, Small Gods stands up really well to a second reading. And probably will to a third or fourth as well. It's a ruthless take-down of organized religion, while managing to be respectful of faith itself. This book displays Pratchett at his peak, with a razor wit, a tight plot, and a most satisfying ending. It's no wonder that many people recommend this as an entry point to the series. Despite being the 13th book, it takes place nearly a century before the rest of the series, showing how one of the major Discworld religions, Omnianism, came to exist in it's present form. Other than the ripples the church sends out through the remainder of the series, and the brief reappearance of the history monks, this book doesn't really tie into the rest of the series. It helps with the world-building, but these characters are long dead by the time Esme Weatherwax and Sam Vimes show up on the scene. But for a...

Moving Pictures  has never been my favorite  Discworld  book. Far from it really. I tend to file this with the earlier books that never seem to live up to the later ones. This isn't fair.  Moving Pictures  is actually a really solid book. There's an intricate plot that brings together a wealth of characters, an incredible critique of Hollywood, tons of thematic meat, an excellent twist ending and final fight that both plays into and subverts a bunch of action movie tropes, and the beginnings of some threads and characters that will soon become part of the fabric of this world. It's just that I'm not terribly interested in the subject matter. I'm not sure why. I'm an avid consumer of pop culture, and I like everything this book has to say about exploitation and obsession. It just wasn't written for me. It was written for people who live and work in Hollywood. Who are interested in the whole business of making movies, as well as the history of cinematography...

I have very little memory of reading  Pyramids  the first time around. I assumed this meant it was just meh. Now that I've re-read it, I'm chalking up that reaction to all the other stuff that was going on in my life at the time. When I opened  Pyramids , an old plane ticket fell out. Checking the date, I realized it was from the first time I flew to DC to visit Kevin. Amongst all the uncertainty in my life at that point (job, relationship, life in general), it's no wonder this book didn't make a huge impression on me. I'm glad I revisited it, because I ended up liking it a lot this time through. I still think it gets somewhat overshadowed by some of the later books in the series (it's neither as good as  Guards! Guards!  nor as bad as  Eric , the next two books), but it stands on it's own pretty well. Especially for a book that actually stands alone. With the exception of Death, I don't think any of the characters in this book ever make an appearance ...

Unseen Academicals , the 37th book in Sir Terry Pratchett's sprawling Discworld series, is basically about the sport of football (the non-American kind). But that's really just the lens it uses to examine a wealth of topics, from class and traditions to identity and love. Although I suppose you could fold all of those under the topic of prejudice and be done with it. The lines here are arbitrary, and mostly drawn between which team each character happens to support. But those groups prove rather difficult to break free of. For the first 100 pages, the story followed the beats of Romeo and Juliet and I was fully prepared for a modernized look at that classic story. In this case the two star-crossed lovers support different teams, teams that happen to be two of the most intense rivals in the city. But then the Mercutio character failed to actually die and Juliet and her Romeo took a sharp left turn away from the source material. The love story kept going, but ...

It's another Discworld novel. Monstrous Regiment is the 31st book that Terry Pratchett wrote in this series. There are only 39 at the moment. I'm nearing the end of the printed books. And I think I'm beginning to leave behind some of my favorite characters. I know that I'm about to dive into Tiffany Aching's arc and meet Moist von Lipwig. There aren't any more Rincewind novels, and I don't think there are any more that prominently feature the Witches, the Wizards, or Death (though I expect all of them to show up somehow in the remaining books). In more ways than one, this felt like a transitional book. The cover art is of a different style than hat of the preceding books. Like the last book, this was less laugh-out-loud funny and more wryly amusing. Parts of it were downright sad. There were also a shocking number of typos. I'm not sure whether that's an effect of Pratchett's advancing Alzheimers (I think this fits the timeline f...

The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents is the 28th book in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, and the first YA novel. It's a twist on the classic tale of the Pied Piper in which the Piper is actually a con artist. Or rather, he's being manipulated by a con artist. I've put off this review for so long that I barely remember what I wanted to talk about. That's what I get for procrastinating. I do remember enjoying the book a lot. The pied piper, a young boy named Kyle, is pretty boring. But I think he's supposed to be. He's being conned by a talking cat named Maurice who is also stringing along a horde of talking rats. Together they travel from town to town. The rats go out and make themselves known. The kid shows up, demands $30 and plays his pipe. The rats leave. It's a good system, but the rats are getting restless. They're developing morals along with the ability to speak and are starting to think that maybe ripping off hu...

The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret Terry Pratchett writes excellent vacation books. The Discworld novels are fun, funny, and light. They're quick and easy to read, but don't require too much thought. And, since Pratchett puts breaks in the text every few pages instead of dividing the stories into chapters, they're easy to consume in any size chunk you want. So whether I have an hour to hang out on the hammock, or five minutes while we're waiting for everyone to gather in the kitchen, I can dive right into a Discworld novel and not worry too much about getting interrupted in the middle of the action. The Truth  deals with the invention of the newspaper in Ankh-Morpork. William De Worde has been sending out a weekly, handwritten newsletter to a few nobles around the city who are willing to pay $5 an issue to keep up to date on the goings on of Ankh-Morpork. But when the dwarfs invent a printing press, William quickly finds out that he can print his newsletter ...