Some Discworld novels are deep and insightful; this is one of the other ones, an unabashedly fun roller-coaster ride that doesn’t try to do anything more than to induce a smile on your face. That tends to be true for most of the Rincewind novels, with the exceptions of Sourcery.
This is one of the novels I re-read on a regular basis when I want something that’s not very challenging or thought-provoking. Like all good comedies, there are lots of memorable moments, and usually mentioning a few key words is enough to get fellow fans to say “Yeah, I remember that!” To wit:
[ul]
[li]Cohen and the Silver Horde[/li][li]The Red Army (complete with slogans)[/li][li]Cohen and the Horde vs. the Emperor’s ninjas :D[/li][li]Agatean mispronounciation[/li][li]Truckle’s list of civilized swear words[/li][li]Sumo wrestlers[/li][li]Spreading camp gossip about the invisible hungry foreign ghosts[/li][li]Terracotta Lemmings :D[/li][/ul]
My only disappointments with the novel were:
Lord Hong, despite being the obligatory villain, comes across as a bit more one-dimensional than most Discworld villains. He shows up, he plans treachery, he gets his just desserts. Nothing wrong with that, but the guy just can’t hold a candle to someone like Lord Vetinari (despite his thoughts otherwise).
The fate of Twoflower’s wife seems to come out of left field, and is glossed over too quickly. I get the vague sense that she died before the events of The Colour of Magic, which would make his behavior in that novel seem a bit more out-of-place. Is it just me?
I think the appearance of the Silver Horde probably redeemed this book from being fairly blah.
Putting the Horde in, however, made it one of my favorites. Any of the scenes with Cohen’s boys was always hilarious.
I do think, though I can’t put my finger on it, that this is the one where Pratchett makes it obvious how much he really despises the character of Rincewind.
Maybe this is what you meant, but Hong’s problem is not that he’s dealt with simply, it’s just that he has a fairly elaborate plan for taking control of the Empire. When Rincewind, the Silver Horde, and the Red Army keep screwing that up, he gradually begins to lose control of himself. His death is due to an object that he himself caused to be created; it’s not as if our noble heroes sacrifice themselves to end his menace. I think Pratchett is trying to make the point that many of our actions have unintended consequences, and that other people can influence our lives drastically even when they’re not particularly important and we don’t personally know them. If the wizards at UU hadn’t been trying to get Rincewind back, if Twoflower hadn’t challenged Hong to a duel and kept him in the proper place, if Hong hadn’t been obsessed with getting revenge on Rincewind for doing the most to derail his plans, Lord Hong would not have had the same fate at all.
I liked this one. Of course, I generally enjoy the Rincewind books which I know most people don’t.
You know sometimes I wish my life was as simple as a yak holder’s. You get up, you stand in the field all day holding a string attacked to a yak. You go to bed.
I just read this one about a week ago. I really liked it, perhaps largely because I’m a huge nerd for Japanese stuff, and love the send-up of that sort of super-regimented honor-based society. I like Rincewind a lot; he’s just not at all a hero, just the world’s best coward
I’m reading The Last Continent right now, and I will be reading Sourcery soon (I know, out of order…) cause I like Rincewind so much
Huh? Can you back this up? I’ve always liked Rincewind, and imagined Pterry did too, because he’s one of the very few truly sane characters on Discworld. He’s certainly the only one who reacts realistically to the situations he finds himself in (i.e. by running away). I’ve always liked how he’s a unabashed coward and yet still a sympathetic character.
As for IT - I liked it, but as oriental (or auriental) pastiche it doesn’t quite live up to Barry Hughart. Still, it isn’t all nice and light fluff, either. There’s quite a bit of playing around with humanism in the treatment of the revolution, IMO. I can see this as the start of the inclusion of real-world political references and though that will come to full fruition in e.g. Jingo, Night Watch and Thud!.
I, for one, don’t treat the Rincewind books as purely comic interjections in an otherwise literature-like exercise. Not unless you consider Waiting for Godot pure senseless comedy too.
Haven’t read it in a few years. The only thing that really still stands out in my mind is Teacher’s death & aftermath. Gave me a sniffle and was a nice foreshadow of the end of “The Last Hero”.
I find that some of the Discworld books I don’t care for much first time around improve vastly on a second reading. Time to try this one again, I think.
IIRC, in The Art of Discworld, Terry notes that the problem with writing Rincewind in a starring role is that the character is a coward and isn’t afraid to admit it – which limits his storytelling potential. I don’t think Terry dislikes the guy, but simply has a hard time finding stories where he can be used (and thus appease the legions of Discworld fans).
True, though in IT it feels incomplete; it gets mentioned in passing, then gets dropped for the next set piece. I never got the sense, for instance, that Pretty Butterfly really got the gist of what Rincewind was preaching.
Well, that’d resonate with the book’s theme of chaos theory, at least.
Ya gotta love a character with that as his battle cry.
I’d rate IT a solid 85 or so. Not the best, but far from the worst. Cohen and the Silver Horde are the best bits, of course. The yak holder and the yak are #2, as it were. We get Hex, the wizards, Lord Hong, the return of Twoflower, even a mention of Cripple Mr. Onion. I’ve read worse. A not-unpleasant way to spend an afternoon.
This book holds a special place in my heart as the book where I caught up with the series. For me, any book before IT has always been “old pratchett” and those after it have been “new pratchett”.
I liked this book - not my very favorite, but I do like Rincewind. I like the comments out pork whisker soup, makes you wonder who’s got the pork, and makes you think a little. I also like Cohen’s comments about how the people here have something worse than whips, they have (mild spoiler)
Whips in the soul - obedience.
I also like his usual sarcasm and wit…the comment about how the barbarians would just turn back around and leave at the prospect of a twenty-foot wall and not looka t the inherent ladder-making capabilities of the pine trees all around. Paraphrased heavily, of course.
Three, two, one - we have achieved synchronisation
Steps out of his TARDIS
Hi all, great to finally be here in the present with the rest of you. This is my second favourite discworld book and nearly was my first, but L&L just had that bit more depth to it in the end.
IT has everything I love about the series - biting sarcasm, Rincewind (yay!), exploration of a new part of the Disc (the trip to the Agatean empire was long overdue), some nice lampooning of roundworld history and culture (“What do you call those things used to grind corn?” “Peasants”), an appearance of the gods in the form of the Lady and her favourite playing piece and a relative lack of preaching (comparatively, anyway).
I would definitely agree that this is the marker between the “old” and “new” novels, as the emergence of the modern-day allegory really starts to become more and more prevalent from here onwards (to the detriment of the series, in my mind). I can still remember reading this at xmas about 11 years ago, old enough to enjoy it as an adult but still young enough to be completely captivated by PT and the stories he tells. Oh, and it was around this time that I started working in a book shop and met lots of other hard-core PT fans so my appreciation of the series started to widen a bit too as well as get a bit more contextualised (no-one else I knew at the time liked them).
I haven’t read this book yet, but now from the lukewarm thread I’m guessing I shouldn’t…
