The Discworld novels

[Betsy Speicher 0]

The Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett.

Book suggested for rating by Alon Tsin.

[Alon Tsin 0]

Actually, there are over 25 books in the Discworld series, and they keep growing as the author publishes even more every year...Here is a list

In short, The Discworld books are humorous fantasy, set in a world shaped as a disc , resting on the backs of 4 elephants standing on the shell of a giant turtle. It is a world with bored gods who play with human lives, Wizards who try not to do magic, With Death as an anthropomorphic personification who tries to understand humans (and occasionally becomes one) , Withces who use Headology to fight the bad guys and the great city of Ankh-Morpork that is being dragged to modern times by it's powerful ruler, the Patrician.

The books are extremely funny, with lots of puns and funny conversations. But Pratchett's main strength is his satirical sense as he parodies the real world. I highly recommend those books as they are very enjoyable, funny and have unexpected endings.

Here are some funny quotes from the books:

"I' m not going to ride on a magic carpet!" he hissed. "I' m afraid of grounds." "You mean heights," said Conina. "And stop being silly."

"I know what I mean! It' s the grounds that kill you!"

(Terry Pratchett, Sourcery)

Most people in Lancre, as the saying goes, went to bed with the chickens and got up with the cows. [footnote: Er. That is to say, they went to bed at the same time as the chickens went to bed, and got up at the same time as the cows got up. Loosely worded sayings can really cause misunderstandings.]

(Terry Pratchett, Maskerade)

Mustrum Ridcully did a lot for rare species. For one thing, he kept them rare.

(Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)

In the second scroll of Wen the Eternally Surprised a story is written concerning one day when the apprentice Clodpool, in a rebellious mood, approached Wen and spake thusly: "Master, what is the difference between a humanistic, monastic system of belief in which wisdom is sought by means of an apparently nonsensical system of questions and answers, and a lot of mystic gibberish made up on the spur of the moment?" Wen considered this for some time, and at last said: "A fish!" And Clodpool went away, satisfied.

(Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time)

The only things known to go faster than ordinary light is monarchy, according to the philosopher Ly Tin Weedle. He reasoned like this: you can' t have more than one king, and tradition demands that there is no gap between kings, so when a king dies the succession must therefore pass to the heir *instantaneously*. Presumably, he said, there must be some elementary particles - kingons, or possibly queons - that do this job, but of course succession sometimes fails if, in mid-flight, they strike an anti-particle, or republicon. His ambitious plans to use his discovery to send messages, involving the careful torturing of a small king in order to modulate the signal, were never fully expanded because, at that point, the bar closed.

(Terry Pratchett, Mort)

[Scott A. 0]

Tonight I listened to the first two discs of the audio-book version of The Wee Free Men, which is part of this series. It is very delightful and engaging! I look forward to listening to the rest and moving on to the other books.

[Thoyd Loki 0]

I third the recommendation of Pratchett's Discworld novels. They are lite, fun, fast, and extremely witty reads through a bizarre fantasy world that has strings of parallel to our own. One of my favorites is Hogfather (who is Santa in this world) , I think he gets kidnapped or something so Death takes over as Santa - I mean Hogfather. The Reaper taking over Santa's job - a great, loaded idea that Pratchett makes full use of.

I love his use of footnotes that are usually elaborations, examples or exceptions to the topic. The dialogue is usually packed with subtle wit.

If you read it out of focus, you'll miss half the fun. Reading him is like letting your mind go out and play.