Mar 14 2017
Apparently quite a number of people thought that Terry Pratchett was jolly. Perhaps that was because he wrote books that are laugh-out-loud funny, occasionally overflowing with terrible puns, full of affection for most of their characters, and bursting with absurdities, most particularly the absurdity of living people rubbing up against each other. Perhaps people thought …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/03/14/jingo-by-terry-pratchett/
Mar 10 2017
Twenty-two novels into Discworld, Terry Pratchett delivered a surprise I didn’t think he could manage: a funny and engaging Rincewind novel. A wizard who can’t actually do any magic and always runs away was somewhat amusing as the protagonist in a one-off send-up of fantasy novels called The Colour of Magic. Then it turned out …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/03/10/the-last-continent-by-terry-pratchett/
Jan 02 2017
Twenty books into Discworld, Terry Pratchett has set up enough pieces of furniture in the various fictional rooms on the Disc that moving just a few of them around is bound to produce something interesting. In Hogfather, he has Death, Death’s granddaughter Susan, a member of the Assassins’ Guild who’s too good at what he …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/01/02/hogfather-by-terry-pratchett/
Oct 04 2016
The cover gives it away, I thought. And so does the text on the back cover! Readers are being set up for a murder mystery, but whodunit, or rather whatdunit, is clear from the very beginning, if not before. I was all set to be cross at having the mystery solved before it had even …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/10/04/feet-of-clay-by-terry-pratchett/
Aug 06 2016
Now this is how a Discworld story should be. After the uninteresting Interesting Times, Terry Pratchett came right back with the much stronger Maskerade. The Lancre witches take center stage, and stage is just right because most of the novel takes place in and around Ankh-Morpork’s opera house. Well, two of the witches do, which …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/08/06/maskerade-by-terry-pratchett/
Aug 02 2016
What’s good about Interesting Times, given that I don’t like its protagonist, Rincewind the hapless wizard? Cohen the Barbarian is back, ancient and sprightly and deadly as ever. Several other aged barbarian heroes join him for one last great caper. With this Silver Horde (of seven) is the Teacher, who has given up on the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/08/02/interesting-times-by-terry-pratchett/
Jul 24 2016
Death not only had a daughter, it turns out he had a granddaughter as well. In between, he had an apprentice and, as these things often happen, the daughter married the apprentice and in due course the daughter arrived. One unfortunate night, a carriage went too fast around Dead Man’s Curve, which earned its name …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/07/24/soul-music-by-terry-pratchett/
Jun 04 2016
The Night’s Watch that Terry Pratchett set up in Guards! Guards! comes into its own in Men at Arms, the fifteenth Discworld novel. The characters are already established, so Pratchett can start in media res although, as always, he includes enough background so that readers new to Discworld can start reading deep into the series …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/06/04/men-at-arms-by-terry-pratchett/
Apr 17 2016
Fourteen books into Discworld, Lords and Ladies is the first time Terry Pratchett deemed it necessary to put in a note connecting the event in the book at hand to a previous volume. It hasn’t hurt that I have been reading them in order of publication, but it hasn’t been particularly necessary either. And in …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/04/17/lords-and-ladies-by-terry-pratchett/
Feb 08 2016
After looking at the power of stories in Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett turns to some of the greatest stories ever told: religions, and, somewhat more incidentally, philosophy. Small Gods, the thirteenth Discworld novel, takes place in and around Omnia, an austere land on the edge of a great desert. The church of the Great God …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/02/08/small-gods-by-terry-pratchett/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire