# Discworld Book 2 - The Light Fantastic \[Spoilers\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 21, 2005, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-book-2-the-light-fantastic-spoilers/309213 "2005-06-21T16:12:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2005, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-book-2-the-light-fantastic-spoilers/309213/21 "2005-06-24T01:18:15Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Oh, I wasn’t refering to that. The Patrician also makes specific reference to _Moving Pictures_ & mentions the Dungeon Dimensions by name. > > And I knew Dagon as the fish-clad god long befor I read Lovecraft, and I suspect it’s possible Pterry learned it the same way I did - it was in one of those Reader’s Digest Amazing Facts & Strange Stories books about the _Dogon_ of Mali and their knowledge of the binary stars in Alph Centauri. No, be sirius. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2005, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-book-2-the-light-fantastic-spoilers/309213/22 "2005-06-24T16:25:09Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > No, be sirius. Ha! - Ha! Thanks for the correction - it’s been a while… :o ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2005, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-book-2-the-light-fantastic-spoilers/309213/23 "2005-06-24T17:10:59Z")
DARK IN HERE, ISN’T IT? ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2005, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-book-2-the-light-fantastic-spoilers/309213/24 "2005-06-24T17:12:42Z")
:d :d :d ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2005, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-book-2-the-light-fantastic-spoilers/309213/25 "2005-06-24T22:22:23Z")
I wonder how the first two books would feel were they printed as a single unit. I’d probably have ended up happier with the first, forgetting that things were a leeetle rough there in the middle. I love the Luggage. Things definitely smooth out in this book. The read is longer, but I didn’t feel a sort of mental fatigue after finishing that I did after the first book. After a while, for me, humor that’s sort of overlaid on material rather than springing from it organically can start to tax my brain. It’s rather like sitting at a table next to someone who will randomly turn and poke you in the arm. One of the things that I generally like about British humor as opposed to American is often that organic development, the inevitability of the detail from the first act paying off in a gag in the third–which is something that Douglas Adams and PG Wodehouse really excelled at. American humor seems to lack some of that circularity, depending on a more linear progression of gags. In that way, these first two books have an “American” feel. Less “Fawlty Towers.” More “Airplane!” ---
**Author:** ![Elysian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c77e96/32.png) [@Elysian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elysian)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2005, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-book-2-the-light-fantastic-spoilers/309213/26 "2005-06-25T19:22:57Z")
I didn’t like the first two books because there were too many plot threads intoduced and discarded without a second mention. Nothing seemed coherent, and characters mainly went willy-nilly along without much thought. Here are a few things from this book that didn’t go anywhere: The wizard that cursed the moving shop owner, where is he now? The witch’s house made of candy that was going to be a tourist attraction The turtle arrives to see the birth of her babies, where’s the father? Why doesn’t she lay the eggs? What’s going on? Twoflower leaving is very anti-climactic Why do the spells have to be said to make the eggs hatch? What happened to Weatherwax? I like the book, mainly the stuff about Cohen. I’ve never really enjoyed Rincewind, but the luggage is supercool and I want one. I’m looking forward to reading Equal Rites again, but I have to admit that I don’t think the Discworld series is coherent until Wyrd Sisters. ---
**Author:** ![Small\_Clanger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@Small\_Clanger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Small_Clanger)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2005, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-book-2-the-light-fantastic-spoilers/309213/27 "2005-06-26T13:47:48Z")
I got finally round to (re)reading TLF. I like the density of ideas\*\*\*\*\* and don’t have a problem with the various loose ends. I’d forgotten how vicious the luggage is. I’d completely forgotten about the star people and Dahoney’s speech: > [@](#): > > ‘Come to gloat?’ whispered Rincewind. Death shrugged. > I HAVE COME TO SEE THE FUTURE, he said. > ‘Is this the future?’ > A FUTURE, said Death. > ‘It’s horrible’ > I’M INCLINED TO AGREE > . . . > I DO NOT UNDERSTAND THIS DEATH OF THE MIND. I like it that it’s not all just gags _ **Though I’m probably missing loads of gags since I loath fantasy fiction** _\* and would miss any references. \*\*\*\*\*\*Except Discword, obviously. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2005, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-book-2-the-light-fantastic-spoilers/309213/28 "2005-06-27T20:22:41Z")
> [@Elysian](#): > > Here are a few things from this book that didn’t go anywhere: > > The wizard that cursed the moving shop owner, where is he now? > The witch’s house made of candy that was going to be a tourist attraction > The turtle arrives to see the birth of her babies, where’s the father? Why doesn’t she lay the eggs? What’s going on? > Twoflower leaving is very anti-climactic > Why do the spells have to be said to make the eggs hatch? > What happened to Weatherwax? I’ll take the opposite tack; disrupting the story to take time to spell out all these plot details would have ruined the book, IMO. The first two entries, for instance, are nothing more than background fodder – they don’t play any critical role to the plot, and diving into great detail about them would have just wasted time (and pages). > [@Elysian](#): > > I’m looking forward to reading Equal Rites again, but I have to admit that I don’t think the Discworld series is coherent until Wyrd Sisters. I’m currently 2/3rds of the way through **Equal Rites** myself, and it’s pretty hard reconciling the Granny Weatherwax there with the Granny who shows up in later novels… ---
**Author:** ![marque\_elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71c47a/32.png) [@marque\_elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marque_elf)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2005, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-book-2-the-light-fantastic-spoilers/309213/29 "2005-06-27T21:15:29Z")
I just finished the most recent edition of the Discworld companion. There is a short interview with Pratchett at the end of the book. He resolutely refuses to discuss what happens to the water that goes over the rimfall. I think the narrativium that the disc abounds in makes the question moot. The water is there because it needs to be there in order to be an ocean. The how it gets there or never runs out doesn’t matter. The disc has an edge therefore there must be a rimfall. An ocean has water in it therefore the ocean never runs dry. The rest is just detail for the bean-counters that Pratchett do despises. ---
**Author:** ![thwartme](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@thwartme](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thwartme)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2005, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-book-2-the-light-fantastic-spoilers/309213/30 "2005-08-17T19:19:10Z")
I know, I’m way late on joning these threads, but I just had to chime in. I’m revisiting these via audiobook, having read them in regular book form a couple of times each in the past, but this is the first time I’ve ever gone through them in actual order. Looking forward to seeing how things evolve. Pterry’s style does seem a bit uneven in this and TCoM. In fact, there are times at the beginning of TLF that he sounds rather Douglas-Adams-ish. Not that I think that’s particularly bad in and of itself, it’s just that his style is so much more distinctive later on. Great puns and jokes and, unlike the first one, a single narative thread throughout. Wondeful stuff. Oh, and as for the phot of Death’s place… > [@](#): > > Very slowly, the box extruded the last picture that the imp had taken. > Rincewind snatched at it. > What it showed would have been quite horrible even in broad daylight. By freezing starlight, tinted red with the fires of the evil new star, it was a lot worse. > ‘No,’ said Rincewind softly. ‘No, it wasn’t like that, there was a house, and this girl, and . . .’ > ‘You see what you see and I paint what I see,’ said the imp from its hatch. ‘What I see is real. I was bred for it. I only see what’s really there.’ So it’s Rincwind that checks the picture, not Twoflower. And “things too horrible to say” doesn’t come up specifically. It’s funny, actually, because the description of Death’s place stays relatively consistant in later books, IIRC. Odd that one of the few things that doesn’t change as the series progresses is something that isn’t what we think it is, anyway. thwartme [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-book-2-the-light-fantastic-spoilers/309213.md?page=1)