Please, Mr. Pratchett, ditch the fucking Igors already

The BBQ Pit
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Discworld books. They’re great, great books of course. Personally, I believe that the best period of Discworld books is roughly between Moving Pictures and Feet of Clay. It’s got perhaps the best Discworld book, ever (Men at Arms), many of the other great ones (Lords and Ladies, Interesting Times, Feet of Clay) and is generally great, apart from few clunkers like Witches Abroad and Maskerade. Before this period, books were good too, but generally not as good - after this period, books have been good, but not as good. I’m going to focus on this later period.

Like I said - good, but not as good. Now, I’ve set this period to begin at Hogfather, so I can’t blame the fucking Igors for everything. However, I can rant about the fucking Igors all I want, here. The fucking Igors slithered in like a plague somewhere around Carpe Jugulum, if my memory serves correctly. Ever since, they’ve tainted EVERY SINGLE BOOK.

Take the newest one, Night Watch. I don’t think it takes a spoiler tag to tell the premise - Vimes, in pursuit of a criminal, happens to be sent back in time to earlier times, when Vetinari wasn’t a patrician yet and the city and the Watch were different places in many ways. That premise doesn’t leave too much room for fucking Igors, now does it? And yet, since The Fifth Elephant added a fucking Igor in the watch, the fucking Igordom just has to make a cameo appearance in the beginning. NNNNRGHNGH.

Let me elaborate on what I find wrong with the fucking Igors. For starters, the whole premise - a group of people based on the stereotype of mad scientists’ helpers - rubs me the wrong way in the first place. It’s like taking an one-joke premise and then stretching it and stretching it and streeeeeetching it further and further. Then there’s that stupid accent. I generally hate accents that make the text more unreadable, and fucking Igors’ lisping is particularily egregious. Oh, and let’s not forget the idiotic, obvious jokes that have to do with the fucking Igors’ tendency for body modification. Puns, or plays on the word, have never sat correctly on my sense of humor, and oh, if the sections with fucking Igors don’t have them aplenty.

Oh, I can’t forget this. From Carpe Jugulum. Imagine me reading Carpe Jugulum, if you will. I was on a trip to Russia, I believe. To Viipuri, or Vyborg as it’s now more commonly known. I had brought Carpe to read while travelling. I didn’t like it too much. I’m generally not a big fan of the Witches books, and the fucking Igor annoyed me already. But then. The line that forever cause me to hate the fucking Igors and everything they stood for. The line I can’t forgive Terry for writing.

AAAARrraraAARRGHhorrggHHOORHGH. My brain winced like a horsewhipped kitten. No. NO. Did I just read that? I couldn’t have read that. It’s not the South Park reference, you see. IT’S THAT IT’S THE WORST SOUTH PARK REFERENCE MADE IN THE WORLD, EVER. AND IT’S MADE BY THE FIRST MEMBER OF THE WORST GROUP OF CHARACTERS IN THE PRATCHETT BOOKS, EVER. And I’m in pain while typing this, believe you me.

Please, Mr. Pratchett. For all that is good and holy in the world. For the smiles on babies, for the pretty flowers, for thousands angry sword-waving barbarians beautifully ravaging an ancient city on the plains. Ditch the Igors, forget them, don’t even write a scene where they all get killed, as it would be a scene with fucking Igors in it. Just… let. them. go.

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Ith that the betht you can do?

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Lithen up Kantalooppi and lithen up good-one more word against Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Og and the headology starts right now.
(I suppose you’re a fan of that all time looser-Rincewind.)

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I haven’t read Night Watch yet, but I can’t see the Igors being more overdone than the trolls and the dwarves and the witches have been. Sure, the lithping may be a bit overthone, but that seems to be toned down, especially after the Watch got their own modern-day, less-spittle-spewing Igor.

You want overdone? Death has been overdone, to the point where Terry sticks him in every single book, for whatever excuse he can conceive of. Death’s “uncertainty principle” visit in Carpe Jugulum was the low point of the book, IMO.

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I’m sorry, but no one who dislikes puns has any business reading Pratchett.

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I like Death. He’s much better than Rincewind. (I’m sorry, but that’s what I think. There it is.) I agree about the Igors, though. It was funny for one book, but enough is enough.

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rjung: Well, basically, Igors annoy me in a way the trolls, te dwarves, the witches and Death don’t. And there generally doesn’t need to be a excuse to stick Death in, besides someone dying. I agree, though, the “uncertainty principle” stuff is not good.

ENugent: Why? He’s got puns, but it’s not like the books depend on them.

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Oh, come on. The UP scene was one of the funniest lines of the book! And it wasn’t even that long! Anyway, 5th Elephant was one of his more dramatic, less comic books anyway.

I thought it was funny, anyway.

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Hey, I have a professor whose name was Igor!

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Hey, I had a professor whose name is Igor!

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Is the Luggage still making making appearances? It’s been too long since I read a Discworld novel but I remember that luggage being the greatest character.

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See, that’s what I’m thinking. I got as far as “Puns, or plays on the word, have never sat correctly on my sense of humor” and thought , What the HELL are you doing reading Discworld then?!

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I like Igors.

But has anyone else noticed that Pratchett does great setup but can’t finish things?

I’m beginning to notice that the early parts of his books where he is setting the scene and introduce the characters and the places and the background just plain fizz with ideas and jokes and characters and asides, but then the latter parts drag, as Pratchett has to get through the tedious business of writing a story?

I’m honestly beginning to wonder if I should just read the first half of each book and then drop them.

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Sheesh. Just read something else if you don’t like puns, ferchrissakes. Maybe you shoud try something from the Xanth series …

I personally thought Pratchett began to regain his form with Carpe Jugulum and Fifth Element, missed a little on Thief of Time, but was all-out excellent in The Truth and Night Watch. But, then, I’m not a whiner who’d rather complain about perfectly good books than just read something more to my taste. Sheesh.

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Heh. Myrr21 beat me to the Piers Anthony bit; if Terry Pratchett gives you hives, Piers Anthony’ll damn well kill you. :stuck_out_tongue:

Perhaps I haven’t reached my Igor overdose level yet (haven’t read all his books), but put me down for liking Igor. The quality of throwaway lines he generates still does it for me. :smiley:

Try leaving some time between books. I notice he spends a bunch of time re-explaining stuff that is patently clear, simple, and possibly tedious to previous readers, just in case he’s caught a new one.

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I think there is always a place for an Igor. Next thing we know, someone’s gonna start complaining about Corporal Nobby Nobbs. Hells teeth, folks – t’is merely satire, puns, and social comment!

Signed – Still Hooked in EnZed.

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I love Maskerade. I don’t know why so many people call it a low point, it’s my absolute favourite.

At first I hated the Igors too - especially since they are all called Igor, that just seemed too silly to carp on about. But after reading the past few books again I’ve gotten used to them, and they aren’t near as bad as I first thought.

I also hate the Vampires in Carpe Jugulum (I even hated the pseudo-vampires in Reaper Man) but the Vampire in The Truth redeemed them too.

Pratchett has a way, with me at least, of making an impact. I used to think of Small Gods as my least favourite, but that also has changed after re-reading - because there’s more to his tales than just what’s on the surface. And when you see that aspect in each story, the superficial layer of character is forgivable for the richness of character beneath.

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Personally, I read each one within a couple of weeks of him releasing them. I have done since… ooh… Equal Rites? About then anyway. This forces large gaps (about 6 months each) between reading his books, during which time I read plenty of others. I find this more than enough time to be able to fully enjoy each and every one. Some of the best books ever, IMO, for so many reasons. And Witches Abroad was amazing.

I will say that - in common with just about every author I’ve ever come across - if you read too many on the trot you start to notice too many similarities and feel like you need some fresh characters. But that just means you shouldn’t read too many at once. If you read one or two every six months those same old characters just feel like old friends.

pan

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I love the Igors in theory. They are kind of one-note characters though. First book they were great, second book more of the same, add’l books merely okay.

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Hey, Terry Pratchett on a bad day still beats 98% of the authors out there. :wink:

And how come nobody is listing The Last Hero among his recent works? I know I’m not the only person to have bought it – you can even buy it here in the States, fer cryin’ out loud…