Pratchett, Terry - Mort (reread)

[oyceter]

(Apologies for spamming! Um, yes, I am trying to catch up with my backlog, so there may be a few more...)

I actually haven't read very much Terry Pratchett at all. The first time I read this, I was mildly amused but not too impressed. I suspect for most things intended to be funny, I have to read them a few times. Otherwise, the prose strikes me as too twee or too contrived.

Mort is all elbows and thinks entirely too much for his small village, which is how he ends up at a fair for people trying to find apprentices. Fortunately (?) for Mort, Death of Discworld is looking for an apprentice.

Mort gets himself into a giant scrape involving the very fabric of reality, and antics ensue.

I enjoyed this the second time around, now that I had a better feel for Pratchett's sense of humor. I love the long footnotes, though I got sick of a few of them closer to the end of the book. I also like the characters a lot more; the first time I read it, I couldn't quite figure out how sympathetic I was supposed to feel and how much Pratchett was making fun of them. I think I rather like the gentle fun he pokes; I had originally read them with the vague idea that he wrote satire and not good story (this was pre-LJ).

My favorite character was Ysabell, even though she didn't get many pages; I am a sucker for overlooked girls who prove to be useful and down-to-earth.

I could tell from vague knowledge collected from LJ that Pratchett was bringing Mort to meet several established Discworld characters, but since I don't know any of them outside of Granny Weatherwax, it had very little impression on me.

So: I think I am going to try and read up on Pratchett, just to keep up with LJ, if nothing else. Also, he won me over in another book with SQUEAK! from the Death of rats.

I definitely like the Death books, so I think that is Soul Music and Hogsfather. Mely and Rachel both say to avoid Rincewind and to read the Guards books. Rec me! Also, let me know if I should read in any particular order!

Of the Discworld books, I have read: this book, The Amazing Maurice and The Color of Magic (was not terribly impressed by the last, but Mely says it is because it sucks).

Comments

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

The Color of Magic is terrible. The first few Discworld books are pretty bad, and anything with Rincewind (whom he seems to have dropped as a character) is highly skippable.

The thing with Pratchett is that he gets better as he goes along, so the beginnings of some arcs are a bit weak. The Vimes/Guards books do benefit from being read in order, though. Um. I forget which one is the first.

My favorites are the Vimes/Guards books, the YA books (Maurice and Tiffany Aching), the Granny Weatherwax books, the Death books, and some of the stand-alones... which is everything but the Rincewind books, some of the early stand-alones, and some of the Susan books, I realize.

Soul Music is entertaining but slight. I love Hogfather, and that would be a good choice to read next because it's a Death book. The Unseen University cracks me up, but I forget which ones it features.

Of the stand-alones, Going Postal and The Truth are both excellent but thematically and narratively similar, so I wouldn't read them in close succession. Small Gods is excellent but more predictable.

Pratchett has quite a few practical girls and women. They're most featured in the Granny Weatherwax, Tiffany Aching, and Susan books, and in Monstrous Regiment. There's several in the Guards, too.

[cofax7]

Monstrous Regiment was the only one of the recent Pratchetts that I really didn't like. IIRC, I found it preachy and predictable. (I suspect gender issues are not Pratchett's forte, although he does wonderfully with the Granny books.)

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

It was still way better than Equal Rites, his awful first try at the same subject. I give it points for the hilarious early bit about the insane God who kept banning random items, like pants and the color blue.

Note to Oyce: It's not that Pratchett is anti-feminist, but that when he writes about feminist issues head-on, he can get overly enthusiastic in a way which isn't well-integrated with the story-telling.

Jingo also seemed preachy (and too long), though the bit with Vimes' future-predicting dayplanner was genius. And I just didn't like The Thief of Time.

With those exceptions, I've really liked most of his recent books.

[oyceter]

Ahhh, got it. B/c so far I have liked his women (ok, Ysabell and the princess who's name I forgot).

[telophase.livejournal.com]

The monk Brother Soto in Thief of Time? puppleball's husband. :) Pratchett let us auction off a character in one of his books for a charity auction I ran at Aggiecon the year he was a guest there, and puppleball's husband won it. (And he only spent half the money he'd set aside for it - I know how much he'd budgeted. XD)

The hair? REAL.

[oyceter]

Really? That is awesome! I will have to remember that when I read it!

[telophase.livejournal.com]

And remember that I picked Terry Pratchett up from the Houston airport that convention. :D

[minim_calibre]

I loved it, but it hit EVERY one of my Girls Rule buttons and made me wax nostalgic for my favorite children's tales of the sort.

[oyceter]

Oooh, ok, thanks!