thediscworldexperiment

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“Moist couldn’t have stopped himself now for hard money. This was where his soul lived: dancing on an avalanche, making up the world as he went along, reaching into people’s ears and changing their minds.”

— Going Postal, Terry Pratchett

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The world really did go to shit and got in way of my reading experiment.

Well, there is always 2022. Wish me luck as i continue my journey.

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From Men at Arms:

"The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socioeconomic unfairness."

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I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are good people and bad people. You're wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides.

- Lord Vetinari, Guards! Guards!

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Tragic heroes always moan when the gods taken an interest in them, but it's the people the gods ignore who get the really tough deals.

- Mort, Terry Pratchett

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But you know what they say: never trust an honest man.

Equal Rites

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A person ignorant of the possibility of failure can be a halfbrick in the path of the bicycle of history.

Equal Rites, Terry Pratchett

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Book Two!

Better than the first one where we were left on a cliffhanger of sorts. We meet Twoflower, Rincewind, and the Luggage again. Hilarity ensues. We learn more about the mysterious Red Star that is threatening life on Discworld. We learn about Great A’tuin and why he is swimming across space and time. We learn about wizards and the Octavo. There is just too much in this book and while it goes haywire at times, it wraps up nicely as most Discworld books do. The book will make you laugh, you will emphasize with the characters, share in their frustrations and their positive attitude. You will be mystified by the Luggage and the nature of the great spells. 

The wordplay in the book is top-notch, the jokes are abundant, and it’s a book that leave you with a good feeling once you have finished it.

Highly recommended if you are starting into Discworld. This is Sir Terry at his raw and unpolished best and reading this book is essential if you want to see what a juggernaut the author will become as year go by. 

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Book 3 -- Equal Rites

And I've finished reading the second book of Discworld. It is a good book, but then, as the common knowledge goes, the first few books aren't that great because Pratchett hits his stride later on. Now to the third book, Equal Rites which i last read sometime in 2007. Yes. It's been that long and as the old sentences and words and characters appear on the pages, it's like coming back home.

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He always held that panic was the best means of survival; back in the olden days, his theory went, people faced with hungry saber-toothed tigers could be divided very simply into those who panicked and those who stood there saying “What a magnificent brute!” and “Here, pussy.

The Light Fantastic, Terry Pratchett

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The point is that descriptive writing is very rarely entirely accurate and during the reign of Olaf Quimby II as Patrician of Ankh some legislation was passed in a determined attempt to put a stop to this sort of thing and introduce some honesty into reporting. Thus, if a legend said of a notable hero that “all men spoke of his prowess” any bard who valued his life would add hastily “except for a couple of people in his home village who thought he was a liar, and quite a lot of other people who had never really heard of him.” Poetic simile was strictly limited to statements like “his mighty steed was as fleet as the wind on a fairly calm day, say about Force Three,” and any loose talk about a beloved having a face that launched a thousand ships would have to be backed by evidence that the object of desire did indeed look like a bottle of champagne. Quimby was eventually killed by a disgruntled poet during an experiment conducted in the palace grounds to prove the disputed accuracy of the proverb “The pen is mightier than the sword,” and in his memory it was amended to include the phrase “only if the sword is very small and the pen is very sharp.

The Light Fantastic, Sir Terry Pratchett

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Commencing reading book 2! The Octavo Cometh!

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Book 1 - The Colour of Magic

The first Discworld book. Not one of the strongest contenders for starting this series, but i say if you do something you do it properly. So, it was great seeing the familiar characters of Rincewind, Twoflower, and the Luggage again after some 12 years of reading this book for the first time. Many of the jokes and word-wizardary that I did not get the first time over, was amazing on this read. Such delightful phrases that 'you don't drink the beer at Broken Drum, you merely borrow it." and many many others.

I loved this one and it was like coming back home to an old friend with fire crackling in a hearth and tea in a big mug.

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"At least one cause of their distress."

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The Published Order of Discworld Books

1. The Colour of Magic 2. The Light Fantastic 3. Equal Rites 4. Mort 5. Sourcery 6. Wyrd Sisters 7. Pyramids 8. Guards! Guards! 9. Faust Eric 10. Moving Pictures 11. Reaper Man 12. Witches Abroad 13. Small Gods 14. Lords and Ladies

15. Men at Arms

16. Soul Music 17. Interesting times 18. Maskerade 19. Feet of Clay 20. Hogfather 21. Jingo 22. The Last Continent 23. Carpe Jugulum 24. The Fifth Elephant 25. The Truth 26. Thief of Time 27. The Last Hero 28. The Amazing Maurice And His Educated Rodents

29. Night Watch 30. The Wee Free Men 31. Monstrous Regiment 32. A Hat Full of Sky 33. Going Postal 34. Thud! 35. Wintersmith 36. Making Money 37. Unseen Academicals 38. I Shall Wear Midnight 39. Snuff 40. Raising Steam 41. The Shepherd's Crown