Terry Pratchett's Thud

[Chinahand]

I’ve been reading Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books for something like 20 years. I can still remember reading the blurb on the back of his first book, the Colour of Magic, which told me Pratchett’s style was a cross between Douglas Adams and Jerome K Jerome. As a typical teenage Hitchhikers’ fan I thought this was a good enough recommendation and as I’d loved the Lord of the Rings and every single Conan the Barbarian book I thought humour and fantasy looked like a good mix.

 

A few days later I woke my family up laughing wildly out loud at three in the morning at the antics of Rincewind the Wizard, Twoflower, the Luggage and Death.

 

Since then every six to nine months I’ve abandoned what ever other book I’ve been reading for a few days, or more rarely a week, to devour his latest offering. I converted friends at university to Pratchett’s writings by standing giggling to myself in the dinner queue and I’ve developed a happy familiarity with such characters as Granny Weatherwax, Mort, and Commandant Vimes of the City Watch.

 

I think outsiders must now have trouble starting reading Pratchett, I think he would claim that his books are self contained, but this isn’t really true. His characters develop over time and to understand why one character acts in a certain way in one story you have to be aware of things that occurred in an earlier one. Also his humour has also mellowed and become more character based, rather than the laugh out loud gags and situations of his earlier books. With 31 or so Discworld Novels to choose from it must be quite a difficult to know where to start. Some books come in groups with common characters and a certain continuity in plot: the Witches series, the City Watch series, the Mort Series etc while others are more stand alone. I’m lucky I just started at the beginning and have stayed in chronological order; for someone wanting to cherry pick his books I’d have trouble trying to recommend where to start.

 

His latest offering is Thud and I thoroughly enjoyed it! The dwarfs and trolls are using their respective religions to stir up tensions and Vimes of the City Watch has to keep the peace and not stir up racial tensions between the humans, dwarfs, trolls, vampires, werewolves, golems, gnolls, etc all trying to get on with living in the huge chaos that is the city of Ankh Morpork.

 

The parallels with multicultural society are obvious and a lot of Pratchett’s art comes from putting a fantasy slant on modern society. Vimes’ imp powered “Gooseberry” dis-organizer is a typical example, but there are deeper views on society with people using and distorting religious beliefs or ethnic tensions for their own ends.

 

I respect Pratchett’s humanity. He acknowledges that ordinary people can be cruel or indifferent, or generous and self-sacrificing depending upon the situation and exploits these foibles in his comedy. He is a master of the farcical situations that develop due to misunderstandings, but I do feel that there is something deeper than just slap stick in his writing; he regularly writes about beliefs and the complexities of life. I would recommend his books to anyone; start at the beginning or just choose one and drive in. My favourites? Pyramids, Small Gods, Jingo, Night Watch. Enjoy them; they’re fun.

 

Dios … high pries among high priests wasn’t a naturally religious man. It wasn’t a desirable quality in a high priest, it affected your judgement, made you unsound. Start believing in things and the whole business became a farce.

 

Not that he had anything against belief. People needed to believe in gods, if only because it was so hard to believe in people. The gods were necessary. He just required that they stayed out of his way and let him get on with things. Pyramids

 

… the stars were out. They were huge balls of hydrogen heated to millions of degrees, so hot that they could not even burn. Many of them would swell enormously before they died, and then shrink to tiny resentful dwarfs remembered only by sentimental astronomers. In the meantime, they glowed because of metamorphoses beyond the reach of alchemists, and turned mere boring elements into pure light. Moving Pictures

 

Inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened. Moving Pictures

 

A human mind is a great sullen lightning filled cloud of thoughts all of them occupying a finite amount of brain processing time. Finding whatever the owner thinks they’re thinking in the middle of the smog of prejudices, memories, worries, hopes and fears is almost impossible. Witches Abroad

 

Humans! They lived in a world where the grass continued to be green and the sun rose every day and flowers regularly turned into fruit, and what impressed them? Weeping statues. And wine made out of water. A mere quantum-mechanistic tunnel effect, that’d happen anywhere if you were prepared to wait zillions of years. As if the turning of sunlight into wine, by means of vines and grapes and time and enzymes wasn’t a thousand times more impressive and happened all the time. Small Gods

 

Certain things have to happen before other things. Gods play games with the fates of men, but first they have to get all the pieces on the board and look all over the place for the dice. Soul Music

 

Life wasn’t simple … There was the simple life of living things, but that was well … simple.

 

There were other kinds of life. Cities had life, ant hills and swarms of bees had life, a whole greter than the sum of the parts. Worlds had life. Gods had life, made up of the belief of their believers.

 

The universe danced towards life. Life was a remarkably common commodity. Anything sufficiently complicated seemed to get cut in for some, in the same way anything massive enough got a generous helping of gravity. The universe had a definite tendency towards awareness. This suggested a certain cruelty woven into the fabric of time. Soul Music.

 

Night poured over the desert. It came suddenly in purple. In the clear air, the stars drilled down out of the sky, reminding any thoughtful watcher that it is in deserts and high places that religions are born. When men see nothing but bottomless infinity over their heads they have always had a driving and desperate urge to find something to put in the way. Jingo

[Minxie]

I bought Thud a couple of months ago but haven't read it yet (which isn't like me as I usually read Terry Pratcehett's books as soon as I get them). I have however read the Wintersmith - if you like the Tiffany Aching series (The Wee Free Men and A Hatful of Sky) then you'll love this one as well, I really enjoyed it.

[Rhumsaa]

Couldn;t agree more China - I am a huge fan of Pratchett and Thud was read in 2 days quite happily

[Static]

Yep, I read Thud in two days, really enjoyed it.

 

My 13 year old daughter started on my collection a month or two back and is now on Pyramids. She's slowly going to work her way thrugh the lot, with a big grin on her face!

[matty]

I haven't read any Pratchett for a good 8 years or so, although I do remember them as being incredibly funny.

 

I must go out & buy Thud, and probably a few of the Discworld novels to get me back up to speed.

 

If you like Terry Pratchett, I'm sure you'll also like Robert Rankin - very similiar in lots of fantasy/occult ways, and very,very funny.

[K.os Theory]

how strange I was talking to my little sister ( she's 8 ) and we got to talking about what she was reading at the moment...off she trotted and came back with Thud in her hand and a huge grin on her face. She proceeded to tell me the majority of the story and said that in her opinion it was one of the best books he has written. I'm borrowing it off her when she finishes it, it's been a while since I've read TP and after her glowing report I can't wait.

[Miss Take]

I haven't read any Pratchett for a good 8 years or so, although I do remember them as being incredibly funny.

 

I must go out & buy Thud, and probably a few of the Discworld novels to get me back up to speed.

 

If you like Terry Pratchett, I'm sure you'll also like Robert Rankin - very similiar in lots of fantasy/occult ways, and very,very funny.

 

 

has a very worrying obsession with sprouts though....

[Miss Take]

Like Matty, I hadn't read any Pratchett for years though I used to be an avid reader. I did try and get into Jingo a month or two back though as it had been bought for me as a present a couple of years earlier!

 

I just couldn't get into it though. I found myself wanting rather to re-read the older stuff (Witches Abroad I think is my all time favourite).

 

I don't think I can have grown out of his humour, so don't know why I didn't just devour the book in a day or two as I normally would. Tres strange.

[mbx]

Omg, I feel like I'm a member of some fantastic inner sanctum, made up of people who understand and appreciate the works of Rankin and Pratchett.

I've got Toyminator awaiting my attention in the study, and am halfway through Thud at the moment.

 

I particular like Pratchett's play on words like the city of "llamedos" (Sod 'em all backwards) and the giuld of jesters motto of "Dico,Dico,Dico" (I say,I say,I say in Latin).

 

Pure Genius

[Manxman27]

I have read most of the disc world books, I'm looking forward to watching Hogfather on TV this christmas.

 

TP on TV