@FuriousMachine that's great, I hope you enjoy it. Also if like andriod/robot stories, Martha Wells Murderbot series is the best scifi series I have read.
Terry Pratchet's The Colour Of Magic is what I've been reading.
... I honestly haven't read a book in a good long while (Books 1 & 2 of A Song of Fire and Ice being the last books I read which was well over a few years ago) and so I decided to change that.
I'd never read any of the Discworld books before though I do recall playing the point & click PS1 game a bit... Soooo I was surprised to read about the Trunk/Luggage so quickly and have memories flood back about that.
I finished the first... Arc? Or is that a chapter? Either way I've found out how the fire in Ankh Morpork truly started Two Flower telling Broadman about and selling him "In-Sewer-Ants" and then the first case of In-sewer-ants fraud??
So it's already been rather amusing and I already find Rincewind a hoot.
... Thanks to the knowledge of that PS1 game now rattling around in my skull again all I can hear is Eric Idle whenever Rincewind speaks however
Previously known as Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy
.
.
.
"You don't have to save the world to find meaning in life. Sometimes all you need is something simple, like someone to take care of"
@HallowMoonshadow I love the Discworld books, and I too hear Eric Idle whenever Rincewind speaks
You've got tons of great books (and a few less great) ahead of you, should you decide to continue. The next novel in the series, Light Fantastic, is nothing short of brilliant. Cohen the Barbarian and his horde are priceless!
I expect to get to the last two books in series some time this year, so it will be weird not having a new Discworld novel to look forward to when those two are done.
The copy I have mentions that I could read the books in certain arcs (so to speak) (Wizards, Witches, The Guards) but... That seems like I'd miss out on some references and the likes no?
Previously known as Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy
.
.
.
"You don't have to save the world to find meaning in life. Sometimes all you need is something simple, like someone to take care of"
@HallowMoonshadow Yeah, you can absolutely read the arcs separately, and I don't recall there being tons of cross references, but there are certain characters that pop up all over the place, so I think I'd recommend reading all of them in publication order. Some people prefer the witches books, some the Watch, others the wizards, but I really enjoyed them all
@Kidfried I don't really remember much of the second game, and while I kept hearing that the third, Discworld Noir, was the best one, I never got around to trying it. Come to think of it, my memory is foggy about the first game as well, but I do have warm, fuzzy feelings
@HallowMoonshadow The Pratchett books are wonderful fun and I love the whole world they’re in. The first two books are Rincewind’s story but after that he becomes a very peripheral character but that’s what makes the series so much fun.
There are a few one off stories but also lots of different groups of characters who different books focus on but not overly written as specific sequels (but obviously with story elements that carry over).
I’ve just slowly been working through the books in chronological order of release as you can see Pratchett hitting his stride as you get into them. Death is such a great character, The Witches are wonderful fun, and The Watch are awesome too. Gaspode the Wonder Dog is one of my favourite side characters though!
Pratchett such an under appreciated writer though as people see him almost as a kid’s writer or are turned off by the fantasy setting but he’s an immensely clever writer and very socially aware.
The “Vimes boot theory” is one that made the news a while ago as the cook and campaigner Jack Monroe used the idea to highlight how lowest priced foods are normally jacked up more than the higher priced ones;
The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes "Boots" theory of socioeconomic unfairness.
@Kidfried Yeah, I can imagine. I'd probably give it a go if it showed up on GOG or something, but I guess there are rights issues or they would have picked it up a long time ago.
@HallowMoonshadow I hope you enjoy!! I've read the first couple of discworld books and then a lot of the guards series and a couple of miscellaneous ones (including one about a discworld post office that was pretty good) . RIP your spare time if you read them all, pratchett might be one of the most prodigious popular writers out there! As a proud Scotsman, his line about "you can take our lives, but you will never take our freedom", being one of the worst conceived battle cries of all time when you really think about it, still makes me chuckle to this day.
@R1spam Have you read the Tiffany Aching books with the Nac Mac Feegles? As a Norwegian I'm curious as to whether a Scotsman would find them hilarious or just trite (or something in between). I love them, personally, but they lean heavily into stereotypes.
@HallowMoonshadow Should you decide to forego reading the entire series, I would recommend you check out the Death books. I remember them being among my favourites way back when, Reaper Man and Soul Music in particular. https://www.goodreads.com/series/109516-death
Regarding Terry Pratchett and Discworld, I've been introducing my kids to it recently. We started by reading The Amazing Maurice and then watched the film adaptation. We've now also watched Going Postal and the first part of The Colour of Magic and it's reminded me just how good TP's sense of humour was. Can't wait to get into the rest of the books with them at some point. They do seem really fascinated with the idea of turtle flying through space
@FuriousMachine I haven't but might have to give them a look! You have to give people some latitude with the odd stereotype, especially with comedy but it depends how one note it gets. I confess to being completely fed up with the stereotypes that often surround Scotland in media, which typically degenerate into it being a hard bitten grim place (see some of my earlier comments around Shuggie Bain in this thread) or voicing dwarves in fantasy (I'm looking at you Witcher). Any Norwegian stereotypes get on your nerves?
@FuriousMachine I thought they did a good job with Maurice, although having watched it directly off the back of reading the book you can definitely see where they changed things. One of the main characters from the book wasn't even featured in the film and some of the other changes look like they were made for time reasons, which I can appreicate.
The kids said they enjoyed them both but probably enjoyed the film more because it bought the characters to life. That is probably more down to my ineptitude at giving them a voice when I've read them the book though.
It's actually quite enjoyable passing things on to them. They are actually amazingly receptive to a lot of stuff that I sometimes think will be above them in terms of ability to understand. I think it will be a while before I'll be able to read them some Ian Banks though 😂
@R1spam Yeah, and Pratchett was typically very good at leveraging stereotypes for good satire/comedy, which is why I'd be interested in hearing your take if/when you've checked them out.
As for Norwegian stereotypes, we're not really that heavily represented in media, so there's not much out there to tire of. Of course, the blonde/blue-eyed, naïve and linguistically challenged Scandinavian is somewhat annoying, but whenever such a type shows up (especially in Hollywood) it is more often than not our mortal enemies the Swedes that are portrayed rather than Norwegians.
I did enjoy Kristofer Hivju's nature-loving doofus in Cocaine Bear; probably one of the most accurate portrayals of a Norwegian I have ever seen
@render Kids today... give them one professionally acted animated adaptation and all of a sudden mom or dad's reading voice isn't good enough anymore
Will definitely check out Maurice, then. I'm not familiar with Banks, but having looked him up on Goodreads I think you're right in wanting to hold off a bit on that type of prose for the kids, yeah
I've now finished The Witcher - Time of Contempt. I liked the previous novel in the series, Blood of Elves, but I liked this one better. The first one had a couple of sections that really dragged on, but this one had better pace, I think. I gave it four stars (of five) in my Goodreads review.
Now I'm continuing my "World of Bosch" project with the Harry Bosch novel "Nine Dragons" by Michael Connelly. I'm about halfway through and I'm enjoying the change of scenery for this one. The Bosch novels are typically good, solid reads and this one seems no different
Finished "Nine Dragons", the Bosch novel by Michael Connelly and I really, really enjoyed it. A very fast read and one that shakes Harry's world to the core. I gave it five stars in my Goodreads review.
Now I've started "The Ferryman" by Justin Cronin. Cronin's "The Passage" series is one of my all-time favourites, a post-apocalyptic dystopian tale where vampires rule the world. Imagine my surprise, then, when "The Ferryman" opens in a utopia. A change of pace for Cronin? Well, maybe not, as the first part of the book is titled "The Last Beautiful Day"
Forums
Topic: Books You're Currently Reading?
Posts 561 to 580 of 1,587
Please login or sign up to reply to this topic