I combed through several other threads and got a count, but I want to get a current State of the Dope re: opinions on Pterry’s writing. Please pick your favorite and least favorite of the novels of the Disc.
I will collate the answers after a month or so and publish the results along with my analysis of earlier threads. Each “best” will get +3 points. If you can’t pick one, each “really like it” will get +1. Each “worst” will get -3, each “didn’t like it” gets -1. Limit yourself to 4 or 5 picks, if you would.
Feel free to comment as much as you like, but put your likes & dislikes at the top of your post, please.
Here’s a list so you don’t have to guess (numbers are publishing order, not rating):
Really, though, they’re all great. Or at least good. The City Watch books in particular. Sam Vimes may well be my all time favorite fictional character.
You might want to include the Science of Discworld books in the list, too.
I classify Soul Music as an absolute masterpiece. All of the humor works perfectly, but more importantly it’s the book where Pratchett’s style is the perfect fit for the material. The idea of dropping rock-and-roll music into a fantasy world with dwarves and trolls would seem extremely risky, but he pulls it off magnificently. And for some reason that I can’t quite figure out, the subplot about Death joining the Klatchian Foreign Legion is the perfect addition to the main plot.
Eric, on the other hand, is a single joke extended to two-hundred pages, and the joke is that teenage boys are horny.
Best: Night Watch, with Small Gods a very close second.
Worst: Moving Pictures
PerditaX, I like, and sympathise with, Rincewind, he’s my favourite regular Discworld character. He’s the only reason MP is listed as worse than [del]Faust[/del]Eric by me.
As someone up thread said,even the bad ones are excellent but my favourites are the Watch ones(surprise suprise) plus the Von lipwigs,and stand alones Pyramids and Maurice AHARs.
Best: Soul Music, or maybe Going Postal (sometimes Feet of Clay). Tough call.
Worst: Thud
I’ve heard again and again how fans just don’t like Moving Pictures. While it’s not my favorite, I’ve always held it in high esteem. If it’s not hijacking, why the hate for Victor Maraschino and Delores DeSyn?
To me, they’re completely unrememberable (I really wouldn’t even remember their names if I saw them out of this thread), and the story is sort of messy. Plus the “big bad” is not interesting.
I’ve only read through half the list so far, so I won’t place official votes. But I’m a bit puzzled by the number of people who picked Soul Music as best. It certainly wasn’t the worst thus far, but it seemed to me like a rehash of Moving Pictures (art form from 20th-century Earth ends up on Discworld and wreaks havok) combined with Mort (DEATH takes a vacation and a mortal has to cover for him). Yes, he does lampshade that a bit (the wizards talking about “remember last time with the moving pictures”), and the outcome is different, but the bulk of the book was still those old ideas.
