Terry Pratchett - your thoughts?

[sexdrugsmoney]

I've never read a Terry Pratchett novel but he seems extremely popular in the sci-fi/fantasy circles.

Are you a fan, if so why are his books so appealing?

I don't know how popular he is in sci-fi/fantasy circles. He is popular becuase he is one of the few people on earth who can write a funny book. I got a little tired after reading about 20 of them. There are a lot in in-jokes and British jokes so http://www.co.uk.lspace.org/books/apf/ may help you out a bit.

[MelchyBeau]

If you like Douglas Adams, You will like Terry Pratchett.

Melch

Its dry british humor at its best. The earlier poster put it best about the series, though. I loved his books, but stopped reading them around the 8th or 9th book, because as funny as they are, they're also "the same old thing" after a while.

Start with The Colour of Magic (Discworld book 1). No reason really to start anywhere else.

[jb9]

[ QUOTE ]
If you like Douglas Adams, You will like Terry Pratchett.

[/ QUOTE ]

What he said.

Pratchett is a good humorist/satirist and a good story teller (an uncommon combination in my experience).

And he has written so many books that if you like his style, you will have a lot of good reads.

[rory]

his books are fun to read, funny, inexpensive and short-- you can get through one in a couple hours. they are highly character driven, and if you get enamored with the characters you won't be able to put the series down. they are perfect waste-a-rainy-afternoon books. buy 'the colour of magic', which is the first one, and read it. you will know pretty quickly whether or not you like his writing.

his characters are so well developed that at this point i think he just thinks of some wacko thing to happen in their world, picks which characters are going to get involved in the mess and just let them write the book for him.

[Georgia Avenue]

I'm not sure SDM should start there. I'm an utter NERD, but I don't know if someone who hasn't read a ton of fantasy would find any of his early books funny. I would recommend that someone new to Terry P. start with something like: Equal Rites or The Fifth Elephant ... one of his purely satirical novels and skip the whole fantasy parody. That's the key: his early books are funny, but dramatically uninteresting (particularly if you're not a big fat sci-fi dork), but the later ones are actually thoughtful and even like edifying.

[rory]

My votes are for Feet of Clay which has a lot of the Watch in it and some interesting artificial intelligence and morality bits in it or Reaper Man because it basically covers the entirety of Discworld and features one of the most lovable characters.. Death.

[darkcore]

talking about nerd, all the books i bought the last two years had either poker- or pratchett-content...

the newer books are definatly better written then the first discworld-novels (which were already pretty good). problem is you have to read alot of those to get all the jokes and it's hard to give direction which is the right order to read 'em.

imo start with "thief of time" or "the truth" or... well, simply one of the last ten books. /images/graemlins/tongue.gif
see how you like it and if you do get the older ones.

[daveymck]

I have all Pratchetts stuff is very british humour so might not translate well. I really like the books with the witches best and dont really like the first couple of rincewind ones.

The appeal is his writing style, the humour and parody of modern life and also probably cos I read a lot of fantast generally a bit of a piss take is always good.

He did a book with Neil Gaimen which I liked and might be a better way into reading him particulary if you are not into fantasy type stuff.