I won’t disagree and do really like that book, but my gut reaction is “Witches Abroad has moments of excellence within a goofy, fun book but L&L is top-notch cover-to-cover.” But it’s been a few years since I’ve read them.
This thread is reminding me that I’ve either read or reread every main Discworld novel in the past seven or eight years save one – Small Gods. It’s the only one I borrowed instead of bought to read, so it’s never been sitting around me. It’s one of the first ones I read, so…I’ll be damned if it hasn’t been nearly twenty years.
I officially rank the Witches as my second favorites series behind the City Watch. I love the Witches ever since Lords and Ladies and am glad there is another full book with them after this one. This one was highly enjoyable, though not on the level of Lords and Ladies.
It’s a joy to enter these books unspoiled. I had no idea this was a Phantom of the Opera parody in part and since I love the Phantom musical, this was a lot of fun.
And Tiffany herself is quite the witch, too, with all that that implies. Though just as Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, Magrat, and Perdita are all very different witches, so too is Tiffany herself.
Definitely do so. Tiffany’s books grow “older” as they go, with the last couple really being followups Discworld Witch books, albeit a little more self-contained and a little more serious.
Pratchett obviously wrote those books as a response to Harry Potter, and the morals that run through them really speak to me on a bone-deep level.
Well, there we go. One of the absolute beginning to end best Discworld books out there. Absolutely terrific and is now my #2 book overall. I loved it and recommend it to everyone.
I don’t even know how to talk about this one. It’s absolute top form from Pratchett. From Mr. Tulip(my new favorite antagonist) to Otto the vampire who dies every time he takes a picture, but who loves photography. This book was amazing and it will be hard to find a better book for me to read in all of 2019.
Because he was already writing books about young girls learning witchcraft before Harry Potter was even conceived. Tiffany is just a continuation of that. Sure, there’s a one-off joke in WFM about magic colleges and broomsticks, but this is a universe with Unseen University…
I don’t, and I assume it wouldn’t have suited him to be that explicit, but I would be shocked if it wasn’t at least partly conceived as a bit of a rebuttal.
Pratchett had been the UK’s best-selling author for years until Rowling’s books surpassed him. Young adult books about kids going to fun and thrilling wizard/witch school where the hero is celebrated and prophesied, magic is used casually and constantly, good and evil are in an explicit conflict, and the good guys always pull together.
He then wrote a young adult book about a witch-in-training with references to “going to witch school” about how learning magic ISN’T fun or thrilling, magic is treated as a deep responsibility and occasional burden, being a hero doesn’t always get you fame or recognition, prophecies and stories lie, morality can be grey and much harder to determine, and sometimes you’re going to on your own and still expected to do the right thing.
It’s not a beat-for-beat mirror, because Pratchett was way too talented for that and Tiffany’s story is much bigger and has a huge life of its own, but it’s always just felt clear as day to me that Pratchett was purposefully responding to some of the thinking that runs through HP.
Well, of course he’s going to be influenced by (and to some degree disagreeing with) the Harry Potter books. An artist is going to be influenced, to some degree, by everything in his culture. But I think his rebuttal to Disney is even stronger: “Just remember: If you dream big, and follow your heart, and wish upon stars… you’ll still get your butt kicked by someone who went out and worked hard for it.”
He had no problem giving his opinion about HP when it came out, and what you’re describing just doesn’t strike me as Pterry’s style. If he’d intended what you’re suggesting, he’d have been a lot more upfront about it. He didn’t need to write a response to Rowling - well, he didn’t need to write it again. He’d already written it - more than once.
It was hilarious. Stephen Briggs did this one and he did a full glottal-stop(I think) type thing and said “ing”. I entirely understood the joke and and got the reference to old-timey newspaper censoring without having to read it.
Find an audio clip of it if you can. He did a great job. In fact, probably his best read I’ve heard so far.
Like A Wizard Of Earthsea, you mean? And I’m not suggesting that Pratchett was responding to Le Guin, but deconstructing the idea of a “chosen one” isn’t new in YA fantasy fiction: Ged was a dick, and he had to learn not to be.