Me and Discworld - I'm annoyingly fickle.

Cafe Society
1

First book I read I chose my dopername from.

Two books later I had a new favourite character and regretted my name choice.

I have kept that character (and the books of his profession - the City Watch) as my favourite for a while and limited myself more or less to Watch books.

Now that I’ve ran out of watch books I have started ‘Pyramids’ And now I am loving the assasins guild. Especially the 'harry potter’ishness of being in an ‘interesting’ school.
It is because I am so fickle that I am not going to change my username. I know that if I change it I will be sick of the new one eventually.

2

I’d like to have a Discworld name for a username, but none of the female characters are really “me”. Mightily Oats is me, but I don’t want to use a guy’s name for my handle.

Lobsang, I like your username. What were you thinking of changing it to?

3

I want it to be some version of Sam Vimes. I can’t think of a cool and original version (‘Sam Vimes’ ‘Mr Vimes’ ‘Captain Vimes’ or just ‘Vimes’)

I think they called him ‘Stoneface’ in some of the books. That would be cool. Although I think vimes’ boss was also called ‘Stoneface’.

Failing that. Almost any character would be preferable to Lobsang. I have just grown right off it. For a long time now.

4

NITPICK ENGAGE

Actually that was his great-great-etc. grandfather, Suffer-Not-Injustice Vimes. The guy who lopped off the last king’s head (blatant analogies with Oliver Cromwell).

I feel such a nerd now :slight_smile: But a cool one, cuz Pterry rox

5

You can always put Vimes in your sig :wink:

6

I loved the description of the Assassins school (I just read Pyramids a couple weeks ago).

Tonight I checked the college library - not a SINGLE Pterry book. In the whole freaking thing. Disgusting.

7

Discworld? I think I read one of those several years back, something about a golem (that thing made of mud, from Jewish folklore.) I found it amusing, but had so many series I was reading at the time (and still do, though by now I’ve finished the entire published canon of some of them). Is there one or two titles to look for if I’m ever at the library, for a good casual read?

Anyways, whatever the source, you don’t wanna get in the habit of changing user names, because once you start down that road you will always second-guess yourself. Best to stick to one handle across the whole internet, IMHO. The name doesn’t make the user, the user makes the name.

8

RexDart, here’s a thread where the question of which is the best Discworld novel* is discussed. Lots of good starting places for the series. The one you read was Feet of Clay.

*Answer = Small Gods

9

Nah, stick with it. I just finished reading Thief of Time and the first time he was introduced I said, “Oh yeah, that guy! From the SDMB!” If you had chosen Vimes I would’ve recognized it four books ago and wouldn’t have thought you were nearly as hip. For what that’s worth.

10

Forgot to preview, but I think I actually have something to offer here.

I tried reading a couple of Discworld books a while back (IIRC, Reaper Man and Lords and Ladies) and I wasn’t that impressed. They were fine, but were pretty forgettable. More “clever” than anything else. Now, a couple of years later, after seeing thread after thread here on the SDMB going on about how great Pratchett and the Discworld books are, I decided to give them another try. I checked out one of the reading-order guides online and went to the bookstore with the list in hand. They didn’t have any of the recommended starter books in stock, so I picked up the only one I recognized from the message board: Night Watch. I finished it in about three days (which is remarkable for me, because I’m a very slow an easily-distracted reader) and was hooked almost instantly. I’ve been working somewhat backwards from there, and haven’t felt like I’m missing out on anything reading them out of order. I’m in the middle of my fourth one (Carpe Jugulum) right now.

So in short: Night Watch.