Not alone, my dude(tte). I even read it a second time because people here kept splooshing about it and I figured I must have missed something but nope. Still a snoozefest.
Vorbis is one of the scariest antagonists and I find Brutha to be an admirable protagonist. So much to hate about Vorbis. So much to like and admire about Brutha.
I don’t think that I would call The Truth my favorite, but it is certainly one of the better ones, good enough that I don’t think anyone else is crazy for calling it their favorite.
Today my Top 5 would be:
- Night Watch
- Soul Music
- Reaper Man
- Lords & Ladies
- Going Postal
Jingo and Feet of Clay flirt with the Top 5 on any given day. Unseen Academicals has never budged from the absolute bottom of my list.
Small Gods is far and away my favorite, but number two, above anything else, is The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents
[quote=“silenus, post:264, topic:776979”]
Today my Top 5 would be:
- Night Watch
- Soul Music
- Reaper Man
- Lords & Ladies
- Going Postal
/QUOTE]
My thoughts
- Night Watch - yes, very good book
- Soul Music - yes, good, but I don’t think of it often
- Reaper Man - love the ending, liked the book
- Lords & Ladies - one of the best
- Going Postal - not read yet
I see that Mahaloth hasn’t read it yet, so I’ll say no more about any details of it, but is there any love here for Making Money? I found it to be very good.
I’ve found that it improves on re-reading. I wasn’t very impressed the first time through. After re-reading it several times over the years, it has grown on me.
Pineapple cream pie.
Yeah, I’ll just say this: it’s a great combination of serious bits and some really funny bits.
I positively *love *the first two Moist books. Raising Steam… not so much.
I like it well enough, but I’m not a huge Moist von Lipwig fan. I felt like I was being forced to accept him as the lead protagonist of his book series by author fiat, if you know what I mean. I didn’t feel he earned my sympathy or admiration, the way say Vimes or Granny or Susan or even Rincewind had. “Cocky bugger who always somehow gets away with everything” is *not *my favourite archetype at all. I guess I like the Moist books in spite of Moist, rather than because of.
Whereas I’m an absolute sucker for panache, bullshit artistry and giant brass balls :). Reinforced, in Moist’s specific case, by his crisis of conscience upon being made aware of the real impact of his “victimless” cons. He’s not just a magnificent bastard, but a *moral *magnificent bastard.
It’s not the trickery (I mean, that’s all headology is, after all). It’s the inevitability of it all. I don’t like Lucky as a prime character trait. It’s boring.
And *all *Pratchett’s leads are moral, that’s nothing special.
My main problem with Making Money is that it was just a re-tread of Going Postal. Very much the Soul Music to GP’s Moving Pictures. I know that you could make the same argument about e.g. the Guard’s books. all of which tend to involve them solving crimes in AM, but each book of those built on the last whereas MM felt like more of a reset.
Also: the whole plot with the doggie heir never really went anywhere - a couple of false alarms, but no actual serious threat to be dealt with. And the final confrontation with Moist’s old con rival was just empty - Moist doesn’t talk his way out of it, or use his new-found responsibility to dredge up the inner strength to deal with the threat: the guy’s dentures just blow up in his face. And in the end, the hard-won resolution Moist and Spike have worked so hard for is undercut when all the money magically just reappears anyhow.
So in the end, it felt a bit pointless.
I meant that within the context of literary magnificent bastards in general. The archetype lends itself too easily to cynical or downright unpleasant characters.
Have to disagree here - Soul Music is *so *much better than Moving Pictures, it doesn’t feel like a retread at all. Especially since it incorporates Death and Susan to such an extent, whereas *MP *is, I suppose, more a wizards arc book.
Fair enough. I’m not a fan of the underlying type, though, just making this one moral isn’t going to override the rest of it for me.
I had the same feeling about Making Money, so I actaully liked Raising Steam a lot more that Making Money.
That said, since I am active in several local fan communities, The Moist books give me multiple chuckles as Pterry pokes fun at the various kinds of people you find in any fandom.
Soul Music, I thought, was a sort of mash-up of Moving Pictures and Mort. Viewed each on its own merits, it was probably better than either of its ingredients, but there still wasn’t really a point in the book where I was saying “This is new”. And it also still suffers from the magic reset button common to all the first half of the series.
Making Money vs. Going Postal was more in the vein of “here’s another adventure from this character I’ve now established”. It probably wasn’t quite as good, because Moist’s floor was higher, so to speak: Even if he fails as the minter, he’s still the postmaster. But it was still pretty good.
Raising Steam was one of the worst Discworld books, and a real disappointment.
I really like the throwaway bits that Pratchett put into the stories.
In Thud! (okay story, but pretty deus ex machina) there’s the bit at the end where Carrot shows Vetinari the device they found in the caves, two cubes that simply spin next to each other. With no apparent energy source, and with no apparent limit on energy output. Magical, in brief, and kind of ‘so what’ for Discworld. Vetinari asks what it’s good for, and Carrot answers a little uncertainly, “Everything?”
Um, a true perpetual motion device. Yup, that really would change the rules of the game.