Secrets of the Wee Free Men etc
Doug Urquhart
book called 'Secrets of the Wee Free Men and Discworld.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0312372434/ref=pe_606_8896940_pe_ar_t6
It's the first I've heard of it. The attached blurb doesn't inspire
confidence:
" Before J. K. Rowling became the best-selling author in Britain,
Terry Pratchett wore that hat. With over 45 million books sold,
Pratchett is an international phenomenon. His brainchild is the
Discworld series novels he began as parodies of other works like
Macbeth, Faust, and The Arabian Nights. The Wee Free Men, one of
Pratchett's most popular novels, will be made into a movie by
Spider-Man director Sam Raimi. It's the story of 9-year-old wannabe
witch Tiffany Aching, who unites with the Nac Mac Feegle (6-inch-tall
blue men who like to fight and love to drink) to free her brother from
an evil fairy queen."
Sam Raimi is going to direct 'Wee Free Men'!
Oh waily waily waily.... Ochone ochone...
Regards
Doug Urquhart
Reader in Invisible Writings
And news which is two years old!
IMDB had a 2008 date - now 2010 'Hollywood Production Hell" - "Hey can
we loose the girl/blue men/elves?" Waily waily waily :-(
>
> Regards
>
> Doug Urquhart
>
>
>
--
Reader in Invisible Writings.. Something to Ponder upon!
Cindy Hamilton
Honestly, it might not be so bad. His baseball movie was quite well
regarded. He treated Spiderman respectfully (as far as I can recall;
I haven't read a comic book in almost 40 years). I think he might
have
it in him to do Wee Free Men as much justice as Hollywood allows.
I'm more worried about the studio, actually.
Cindy Hamilton
Baba Yaga
>
>>On Mon, 07 Apr 2008 02:40:25 GMT,
>>dou...@sbcglobal.net (Doug Urquhart) wrote:
>>
>>>I just received a 'recommendations' email from Amazon, referring to a
>>>book called 'Secrets of the Wee Free Men and Discworld.
>>>
>>>http://www.amazon.com/dp/0312372434/ref=pe_606_8896940_pe_ar_t6
>>>
>>>It's the first I've heard of it. The attached blurb doesn't inspire
>>>confidence:
>>>
>>>" Before J. K. Rowling became the best-selling author in Britain,
>>>Terry Pratchett wore that hat.
>
>As far as *I* am concerned, he STILL wears that hat. JKR, like
>Jean Auel in the US, is a "publishing phenomenon", not a writer.
>Someone who goes downhill after book 3 and struggles to finish 7
For many years, I was convinced that serieseses inevitably went
downhill after book 3. Substitute 'generally' for 'inevitably', and
grant that a few make it so far as book 4 before coming unglued, and
that view still holds up pretty well, particularly where fantasy is
concerned. I don't think JKR is entirely to be blamed for conforming
to the pattern. Or that a good editor couldn't have made of her a
much better writer!
T.P., so far, *hasn't conformed to the three books rule, or anything
like - but then, he doesn't appear to feel it incumbent on him to
write what other people think he should (saving once), or to sign
contracts binding him to churn the stuff out ad nauseam. Moreover,
the Tiffany Aching and Johnny books are the nearest thing I can think
of to series in Harry Potter/ Dune/ other over-long series of your
choice style (and although I really can't conceive that either would
fall apart at the seams if he continued them, there *are only three
apiece, so far). ISTM that the remaining Discworld ouevre (cough)
doesn't so much constitute a series as a collection of linked but
various stories, and that that must help to keep him fresh.
>books to a useful standard is not a writer. A writer improves
>with each book. Pterry is a writer. "Elizabeth Peters" is a
>writer. Donald Westlake is a writer. Joe Gores is. Ross Thomas
>was. Gavin Lyall was. Jean Auel isn't. JKR isn't.
>
>Just imagine if Pterry's books had had the same level of massive
>international publicity JKR's did. Imagine if they had anything
>near that level even now!!
Right enough.
Baba Yaga
--
Never, ever do something /for/ them if they want to do something
themselves, like handing you a cup of tea; however awkward and
terrible, you don't do it for them.
- Helen Bamber
Emma Anne
> I don't think JKR is entirely to be blamed for conforming
> to the pattern. Or that a good editor couldn't have made of her a
> much better writer!
It's nearly always a shame when writers get too big for editors. The
Honor Harrington series is another.
Sabremeister Brian
A.Reader <anony...@example.com> said:
>> On Mon, 07 Apr 2008 02:40:25 GMT,
>> dou...@sbcglobal.net (Doug Urquhart) wrote:
>>
>>> referring to a book called 'Secrets of the Wee Free Men and
>>> Discworld.
>>>
>>> http://www.amazon.com/dp/0312372434/ref=pe_606_8896940_pe_ar_t6
>>>
>>> It's the first I've heard of it. The attached blurb doesn't
>>> inspire confidence:
>>>
>>> " Before J. K. Rowling became the best-selling author in
>>> Britain, Terry Pratchett wore that hat.
>
> Jean Auel in the US, is a "publishing phenomenon", not a writer.
> Someone who goes downhill after book 3 and struggles to finish 7
> with each book. Pterry is a writer. "Elizabeth Peters" is a
> writer. Donald Westlake is a writer. Joe Gores is. Ross
> Thomas was. Gavin Lyall was. Jean Auel isn't. JKR isn't.
>
> Just imagine if Pterry's books had had the same level of massive
> international publicity JKR's did. Imagine if they had anything
> near that level even now!!
Arguably, he does. Just think about it - the movies, the extensive
press coverage, the ancilliary products (maps, figures, etc), the
tied product releases (stamps etc), the vast displays in
Waterstones with every new book. There's no hype, no dedicated
marketing team saying "you must buy this book or your life will be
forever deficient", but the amount of actual publicity is not all
that different.
Personally, I'm going to get the HP encyclopaedia that's in the
pipeline, then wait and see what sort of sales JKR's next book
(which has already been declared to be "not children's/teen's/YA"
and definitely seperate from the Potterverse) gets, and what the
book itself is like, before passing judgement on what JKR is like
as a sustainable author. I found the HP books an enjoyable,
diverting, and engaging read. Not very deep, perhaps, but so what?
If JKR's first non-HP book sells well based on "from the author of
HP" hype, that won't mean anything. If it sells because people
think it's yet another HP book, that also doesn't mean anything.
If it sells well because it's actually a good book, that means JKR
is a sustainable author.
--
www.sabremeister.me.uk
www.livejournal.com/users/sabremeister/
Use brian at sabremeister dot me dot uk to reply
"I always take blushing for a sign of guilt, or of ill breeding."
- William Congreve
Tomes
> A.Reader :
>>> Doug Urquhart:
>> .....Just imagine if Pterry's books had had the same level of massive
>> international publicity JKR's did. Imagine if they had anything
>> near that level even now!!
>
> Arguably, he does. Just think about it - the movies, the extensive press
> coverage, the ancilliary products (maps, figures, etc), the tied product
> releases (stamps etc), the vast displays in Waterstones with every new
> book. There's no hype, no dedicated marketing team saying "you must buy
> this book or your life will be forever deficient", but the amount of
> actual publicity is not all that different.
>
Not so in the USA. No one I ever talk to about Terry Pratchett has ever
heard of him (and I talk to many folks about his works). JKR is ubiquitous.
Tomes
Daniel Orner
I found the HP books to be some of the most immersive I've ever read,
by which I mean that I completely submerged myself in them and poked my
head out four hours later astounded I was still there and having to get
used to the real world again. They're certainly not all that deep and
JKR isn't that talented a wordsmith, but she's a great storyteller and
has crafted a world that many people would honestly like to live in. As
brilliant as the Discworld is, I think a lot of us are relieved that
we'll never have to step foot in it.
Daniel Orner
Yes, JKR has far more appeal on this side of the pond, definitely.
Pratchett is well known among critics, but less so among actual readers.
Which isn't to say I haven't seen people reading Discworld here and
there, but it's not in the same league as HP. It can barely be called
the same sport.
ncw...@hotmail.com
> A.Reader <anonymou...@example.com> wrote, in alt.books.pratchett:
I think that it depends upon what the word "Series" means. In the
fantasy genre, it tends to mean a set of novels that all form part of
one long story arc. The books have to be read in a particular order.
OTOH, in the mystery genre, series tend to be a set of books that
share locations and characters but are more-or-less stand-alone. For
example, it doesn't make a great deal of difference which order one
reads the Poirot or Nero Wolfe books.
The DW books fall somewhere between these two types of series. They
share common characters and locations but don't form a single story
arc. Instead there are a number of arcs perceptible in the ouevre
(the Watch , the Witches etc). But not all books have to be part of
an arc, and arguably some books can belong to more than one arc (RM is
a good example of this).
Cheers,
Nigel.
Daibhid Ceanaideach
> In a speech called bsqkv3h99tvekid8v...@4ax.com,
> A.Reader <anony...@example.com> said:
>> Just imagine if Pterry's books had had the same level of massive
>> international publicity JKR's did. Imagine if they had anything
>> near that level even now!!
>
> Arguably, he does. Just think about it - the movies, the extensive
> press coverage, the ancilliary products (maps, figures, etc), the
> tied product releases (stamps etc), the vast displays in
> Waterstones with every new book. There's no hype, no dedicated
> marketing team saying "you must buy this book or your life will be
> forever deficient", but the amount of actual publicity is not all
> that different.
I think it is. The people I know can be divided into two groups:
Pratchett fans and people who've vaguely heard of him (or indeed who
*haven't* heard of him)[1]. But *everybody* knows not just who JKR is,
but what the books are about, even if they don't like them.
The movies may change this. The ancillery products don't; if you don't
buy the books, sign onto afp and visit the Cunning Artificer's website,
you'll never hear of them.
Yes, there's press coverage (extensive? I must be buying the wrong
papers). I'm not sure that makes any difference. Last week, I read an
interview in the paper with an author I've never heard of. Since I can't
recall either his name or that of the book he was plugging, for all
practical purposes I've *still* never heard of him.
Pterry's well known. JKR is *famous*. Personally, I think he made the
right choice.
[1]Well, that's not strictly true. Since I only have a limited number of
topics of conversation, everyone I know has heard of him by now. But
that's how they start out.
--
Dave
"I thought Billie Piper was an oil rig."
-Sandi Toksvig, The News Quiz
Richard Eney
Daniel Orner <webm...@ffcompendium.com> wrote:
>Tomes wrote:
>> "Sabremeister Brian" ...
>>> A.Reader :
>>>>> Doug Urquhart:
>>>> .....Just imagine if Pterry's books had had the same level of massive
>>>> international publicity JKR's did. Imagine if they had anything
>>>> near that level even now!!
>>>
>>> Arguably, he does. Just think about it - the movies, the extensive
>>> press coverage, the ancilliary products (maps, figures, etc), the tied
>>> product releases (stamps etc), the vast displays in Waterstones with
>>> every new book. There's no hype, no dedicated marketing team saying
>>> "you must buy this book or your life will be forever deficient", but
>>> the amount of actual publicity is not all that different.
>>
>> Not so in the USA. No one I ever talk to about Terry Pratchett has
>> ever heard of him (and I talk to many folks about his works). JKR is
>> ubiquitous.
>
>Pratchett is well known among critics, but less so among actual readers.
>Which isn't to say I haven't seen people reading Discworld here and
>there, but it's not in the same league as HP. It can barely be called
>the same sport.
Agreed. There's still a large difference in the effectiveness of the
publicity machine. The whole HP thing is a textbook on how to work hype.
Imagine if, to invent a scenario, Mort were to come out as a
new book by a new author, with a promise of several more tales in the
new children's/YA series about Death's Apprentice, with some hype about
the writer who spent his childhood in a house without indoor running
water. If the hype took the imagination of the "human interest"
columnists, it would be hailed as the new HP and people would be
surprised that Mort doesn't wear glasses and ride a broomstick.
If it then got the amount of push that HP got, with news releases
about how many millions of copies were being printed worldwide, how
many languages it was being translated into, etc., I would bet the
sales would jump. There would be new attempts to buy the rights
for a movie - after all, it has a flying horse, a princess who is
unseen by most people for a while, comic wizards, and tons of CGI.
They can cut most of the skeleton's scenes... <ahem>
A few years ago I attend a Pterry signing here (in Washington,
D.C., actually) and IIRC there were just over 200 people present,
which apparently was a rousing success by comparison with some
previous experiences here.
I was at a non-Pterry bookstore signing last night. There were
close to 200 people present. While waiting in line we were discussing
books (and going past the SF section). There were several people
(including some librarians) who recognized Pratchett's name and
were obviously familiar with the books, there were others who
had never heard of him. I recommended The Wee Free Men (for a
ten year old girl) and one librarian said they don't have that
in the children's section. Her library considered it a YA book.
She didn't say why. (I guess it was because of the Pictsies
drinking too much, but I don't know.)*
The big chain bookstores are doing well at keeping Pterry on
the shelves, but they don't seem to do the promotional things
that I've seen for other major authors. It seems to me that
the new hardbacks rarely show up on the "new releases" shelves.
*Thinking about the books that _I_ grew up reading, I think
modern librarians are being awfully conservative. Before
I was ten I'd read the original Hopalong Cassidy stories,
the Halfaday Creek books, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre,
the Tommy Hambledon adventure stories, and Animal Farm
(which is a very weird book when you are eight years old).
=Tamar
Daniel Orner
<snip>
> The big chain bookstores are doing well at keeping Pterry on
> the shelves, but they don't seem to do the promotional things
> that I've seen for other major authors. It seems to me that
> the new hardbacks rarely show up on the "new releases" shelves.
Maybe he's bigger in Canada. In Chapters/Indigo, the bookstore
monoliths, they don't really seem to have carousels with "latest and
greatest releases", but they do spotlight books they think will sell
well by having them facing outward on their own little pedestal in the
fiction section (there are four or five of these in the fairly large one
at Yorkdale Mall here in Toronto). I've seen Pterry's newly released
hardbacks given that position since Night Watch.
Dave F.
>write what other people think he should (saving once)
Excuse my ignorance, but which one was that?
Ta
Dave F.
Dave F.
>
> Not so in the USA. No one I ever talk to about Terry Pratchett has ever
> heard of him (and I talk to many folks about his works). JKR is
> ubiquitous.
> Tomes
Would you say that's based on a higher awareness of the books or films?
Dave F.
Emma Anne
(jumping in)
I believe he wrote Sourcery because people wanted another Rincewind
book.
Emma Anne
> Imagine if, to invent a scenario, Mort were to come out as a
> new book by a new author, with a promise of several more tales in the
> new children's/YA series about Death's Apprentice, with some hype about
> the writer who spent his childhood in a house without indoor running
> water. If the hype took the imagination of the "human interest"
> columnists, it would be hailed as the new HP and people would be
> surprised that Mort doesn't wear glasses and ride a broomstick.
> If it then got the amount of push that HP got, with news releases
> about how many millions of copies were being printed worldwide, how
> many languages it was being translated into, etc., I would bet the
> sales would jump. There would be new attempts to buy the rights
> for a movie - after all, it has a flying horse, a princess who is
> unseen by most people for a while, comic wizards, and tons of CGI.
> They can cut most of the skeleton's scenes... <ahem>
To be fair, I don't think the first few HP books *did* get that kind of
hype. Certainly not in the U.S. They took off because kids loved
reading them.
Emma Anne
The adults I know who have read Pterry were initially bullied into it by
me (though several are now fans). The kids do know about the Tiffany
books though.
Daniel Orner
The films only started getting made because of the high visibility of
the books. Most children's books at that time weren't being made into
films, though once it got started apparently the ball keeps rolling[1],
similar to the superhero genre with Spider-Man[2].
Certainly the excitement reached fever pitch after the movies came out,
but they only existed because of the unprecedented demand for the books.
[1] Eragon, Spiderwick, Road to Terabithia, Narnia, etc.
[2] Superman Returns, Batman Begins, Daredevil, Ghost Rider, Iron Man, etc.
Alec Cawley
Sorcery, I think. People said they wanted "another Rincewind book", and
he did what they said and, I believe, has subsequently regretted it,
Emma Anne
> In message <1if32i7.nozcua2ju6boN%emma...@mac.com>
> Emma <emma...@mac.com> wrote:
>
> > The adults I know who have read Pterry were initially bullied into it by
> > me (though several are now fans). The kids do know about the Tiffany
> > books though.
>
> I have to say, I thought the Tiffany books were the best of all the books.
> Wintersmith is just brilliant, but they are all pretty amazing.
>
They are *very* good.
> I loved Granny Weatherwax describing herself as a fulcrum for magic, though I
> don't think she ever used the word.
Yes, I love the indirectness and subtlety of witch magic. Headology
being only one aspect.
Richard Eney
We have had different experiences, clearly.
The first book took off in the UK because it was fascinating and the
kids recommended it to each other, and the sales (and reprinting
schedule) got it the international sale. That brought it to the US.
I heard about it here in the US because of a newspaper article
about the single mother who got herself off welfare by writing a
book - hype, sentimental human interest, whatever.
The book then grabbed me and further purchases were not because
of the hype. However, I did notice the carefully done publicity
that was going on, right through the release of the last book.
I know Pterry's books don't need the hype, but I can't help wondering
sometimes how many more would sell if a similar 'machine' were put
into operation, just to get the attention of a wider audience who
could then choose whether or not to continue reading.
=Tamar
Richard Corfield
>
>> I loved Granny Weatherwax describing herself as a fulcrum for magic, though I
>> don't think she ever used the word.
>
> Yes, I love the indirectness and subtlety of witch magic. Headology
> being only one aspect.
The Witches books are excellent, as are the Guards books though I wonder
whether Vimes is going to become as powerful as a top witch/wizard soon.
I'd say these two plus the Death ones are my favourite series in
Diskworld.
- Richard
--
_/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ Richard Corfield <Richard....@gmail.com>
_/ _/ _/ _/
_/_/ _/ _/ Time is a one way street,
_/ _/ _/_/ _/_/_/ except in the Twilight Zone
Emma Anne
> On 2008-04-09, Emma Anne <emma...@mac.com> wrote:
> >
> >> I loved Granny Weatherwax describing herself as a fulcrum for magic,
> >> though I don't think she ever used the word.
> >
> > Yes, I love the indirectness and subtlety of witch magic. Headology
> > being only one aspect.
>
> The Witches books are excellent, as are the Guards books though I wonder
> whether Vimes is going to become as powerful as a top witch/wizard soon.
> I'd say these two plus the Death ones are my favourite series in
> Diskworld.
>
Yes, me too, but then that's most of the books. :-)
Emma Anne
> On Thu, 10 Apr 2008 01:52:45 -0500, Richard Eney wrote:
> >I know Pterry's books don't need the hype, but I can't help wondering
> >sometimes how many more would sell if a similar 'machine' were put
> >into operation, just to get the attention of a wider audience who
>
> I think they would not get the hype response that HP got. PTerry's books
> need a more discerning kind of audience that understands the parody and
> many of the clever puns as well as many other memes used in them.
>
True. And I can't believe how much stuff I miss from not being British.
That didn't happen much with the HP books.
Emma Anne
Ah, I heard about them from a friend (about when Chamber of Secrets came
out) and not from hype. But I believe it was out there and I just
missed it. But *no one* could have missed the hype by about the fourth
book.
Daibhid Ceanaideach
> Aleks A.-Lessmann <XaXlX...@lessmann-consulting.com> wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 10 Apr 2008 01:52:45 -0500, Richard Eney wrote:
>> >I know Pterry's books don't need the hype, but I can't help
>> >wondering sometimes how many more would sell if a similar 'machine'
>> >were put into operation, just to get the attention of a wider
>> >audience who
>>
>> I think they would not get the hype response that HP got. PTerry's
>> books need a more discerning kind of audience that understands the
>> parody and many of the clever puns as well as many other memes used
>> in them.
Do they? If *I* can manage it, I think anyone except people who Don't
Read can.
> True. And I can't believe how much stuff I miss from not being
> British. That didn't happen much with the HP books.
Although I suspect the person who "translates" the books for the American
market may be more enthusiastic than his/her Discworld counterpart[1][2].
After all, the first book got a new name because Americans wouldn't know
what a philosopher was...
[1]Or perhaps Rowling isn't as good at hitting him/her with a mallet as
Pterry.
[2]I recall reading somewhere that, while changing every "holiday" to
"vacation" and abandoning the "Spellotape" pun altogether in favour of
ordinary "Scotch tape", (s)he left "mint humbugs", under the impression
they were a complete invention of Rowling's.
Richard Corfield
>>
>> The Witches books are excellent, as are the Guards books though I wonder
>> whether Vimes is going to become as powerful as a top witch/wizard soon.
>> I'd say these two plus the Death ones are my favourite series in
>> Diskworld.
>>
>
> Yes, me too, but then that's most of the books. :-)
I wasn't such a fan of the early Wizarding ones. Still, my list is most
of the books.
Emma Anne
> On 10 Apr 2008, emma...@mac.com (Emma Anne) wrote:
>
> > Aleks A.-Lessmann <XaXlX...@lessmann-consulting.com> wrote:
> >
> >> On Thu, 10 Apr 2008 01:52:45 -0500, Richard Eney wrote:
> >> >I know Pterry's books don't need the hype, but I can't help
> >> >wondering sometimes how many more would sell if a similar 'machine'
> >> >were put into operation, just to get the attention of a wider
> >> >audience who
> >>
> >> I think they would not get the hype response that HP got. PTerry's
> >> books need a more discerning kind of audience that understands the
> >> parody and many of the clever puns as well as many other memes used
> >> in them.
>
> Do they? If *I* can manage it, I think anyone except people who Don't
> Read can.
Well, I catch things on rereading, so yeah. I've even caught things
listening to the audiobook which I never figured out after several
rereadings. Now, I could just be extra dense. :-)
>
> > True. And I can't believe how much stuff I miss from not being
> > British. That didn't happen much with the HP books.
>
> Although I suspect the person who "translates" the books for the American
> market may be more enthusiastic than his/her Discworld counterpart[1][2].
> After all, the first book got a new name because Americans wouldn't know
> what a philosopher was...
I've read the British versions, though. After you learn what a lemon
sherbet is and that revising means studying there's not much difficulty.
Daniel Orner
I actually enjoy reading the British versions more than the American
ones, despite the fact that there's things I don't understand. I
generally get it from context, and what I don't get I can find out and
hence learn more than I would have otherwise.
Tomes
"Dave F." <d...@maas.cu.uk> wrote in message
news:2audnVM9B_aIT2ba...@brightview.com...
along just fine here in the US and then the movies just accelerated the
whole momentum.
That's the thing here with the Pratchett stuff, no one here knows of the
books (& by extension everything else TP) and then when I talked up
Hogswatch I really had to twist arms to get interest.
Tomes
Richard Eney
Daniel Orner <webm...@ffcompendium.com> wrote:
>Emma Anne wrote:
>> Daibhid Ceanaideach <daibhidc...@aol.com> wrote:
>>> On 10 Apr 2008, emma...@mac.com (Emma Anne) wrote:
>>>> Aleks A.-Lessmann <XaXlX...@lessmann-consulting.com> wrote:
>>>>> I think they would not get the hype response that HP got. PTerry's
>>>>> books need a more discerning kind of audience that understands the
>>>>> parody and many of the clever puns as well as many other memes used
>>>>> in them.
>>> Do they? If *I* can manage it, I think anyone except people who Don't
>>> Read can.
<snip>
>>>> True. And I can't believe how much stuff I miss from not being
>>>> British. That didn't happen much with the HP books.
<snip>
>> I've read the British versions, though. After you learn what a lemon
>> sherbet is and that revising means studying there's not much difficulty.
<snip>
> I actually enjoy reading the British versions more than the American
>ones, despite the fact that there's things I don't understand. I
>generally get it from context, and what I don't get I can find out and
>hence learn more than I would have otherwise.
I get both versions of Pterry's books. I get the US hardcover
because I'm impatient and the UK hardcover to get the other version
for comparison (and often a paperback to be easier to carry around).
Often there are changes that seem to have been made just to prove the
editor had a pencil handy.
(And yet I recently bought (as in "paid good money for") a
non-Discworld book, second in a series, that didn't seem
to have been edited at all. Where are the overeager editors when
you really need them?)
=Tamar
Richard Eney
>>>
>>> Not so in the USA. No one I ever talk to about Terry Pratchett has
>>> ever heard of him (and I talk to many folks about his works). JKR is
>>> ubiquitous.
>>
>
>I would say both, but the books first, then the movies. HP was rolling
>along just fine here in the US and then the movies just accelerated the
>whole momentum.
>
>That's the thing here with the Pratchett stuff, no one here knows of the
>books (& by extension everything else TP) and then when I talked up
>Hogswatch I really had to twist arms to get interest.
I've been twisting arms since the 1980s and doggone, some of those
people are stubborn. I've even had people who _did_ start reading
and buying Pratchett books keep it secret from me - I only found
out when I found the stash. It seems to depend on finding the one
"right" book that'll hook them - for one person it was Nanny Ogg's
Cookbook.
It took years - even decades - before Terry managed to get proper
support from an American publisher. There's a lot of catching up
to do, and now, of course, they can't pull the "brand new author"
stuff, they have to go with "consistent best-seller". But I still
don't see the kind of store displays that _I_ think would be appropriate
when a new book comes out. I can only hope that it's because the
books sell so well that the stores save the hype for the weaker lines.
=Tamar
Stacie
>
> > I heard about it here in the US because of a newspaper article
> > about the single mother who got herself off welfare by writing a
> > book - hype, sentimental human interest, whatever.
>
> Ah, I heard about them from a friend (about when Chamber of Secrets came
> out) and not from hype. But I believe it was out there and I just
> missed it. But *no one* could have missed the hype by about the fourth
> book.
First I recall hearing of Rowling/Potter was back in 1999, when she
appeared on the Rosie O'Donnell show. That was, if my dusty memory and
Googling can be trusted, several months/less than a year after
Scholastic published the first book in the States. (Publication was
about September 1998, the first appearance on O'Donnell's show was
evidently sometime between that and October 1999, which Accio Quote
claims was her second appearance, around the release of Prisoner of
Azkaban...) At the time, O'Donnell pretty much had the "Oprah Golden
Touch", in that any commercial product she pushed on the show or had
as an audience giveaway was swiped off the shelves faster than they
could stock it, especially if it was for kids. I remember the "single
mother formerly on public assistance" angle being pushed heavily
there, too. I think it's stood out in my mind simply because it's
rather unusual for me to see a fiction author[1] interviewed on
television in the States.
But, somehow, I managed to avoid reading any Potter until well after
book four was published. Maybe it was partially disappointment on the
heels of all that hype, or just being somewhat turned off by all the
hype and merchandising, but I didn't enjoy the subsequent books nearly
as much as the first four.
I swarmed through the entire Discworld series as fast as I could
afford to buy them and zip through them. Now, I'm busy indoctrinating
others. There was one advantage to being a Jenny Come Lately to
Pratchett. It was nice to have the instant gratification of not having
to wait months for a release. I only had to wait on the release of
Making Money.
I've managed to hook a nearly thirteen-year-old back at Christmas who
is begging me for more Death and Vimes books ASAP. I had started him
out with TAMAHER and the Tiffany books the last couple of years to
soften him up. He blows through them as fast as possible then we
giggle about them next time we see each other. In turn, he's
recommended the Redwall books, which I'm about to taste test. His
younger brother sort of inadvertently introduced me to the Spiderwick
Chronicles (which I had never heard of prior to hearing about the
movie) when I purchased those as a gift for him.
I've also managed to hook my dealer... I mean, local independent
bookshop owner, who probably wondered what was up with me coming in
and ordering at least two Pratchett books every few weeks. He tends to
talk to you about what you're reading/what you've bought in the past
and share what he's reading. He had heard nothing but good things
about Pratchett, but hadn't actually read any. At my last visit, he
assured me that he had started Equal Rites about four seconds after I
walked in and said there would soon be a little Pterry shrine
springing up in the shop quite soon, devoted to his books.
Score! I am in your bookshops, viral marketing your Pratchett...
[1] I'm not counting pre-existing celebrities who are usually singers/
actresses/actors/models that decide to dabble in writing a children's
book as a side gig/charitable venture in that number.
Emma Anne
> But, somehow, I managed to avoid reading any Potter until well after
> book four was published. Maybe it was partially disappointment on the
> heels of all that hype, or just being somewhat turned off by all the
> hype and merchandising, but I didn't enjoy the subsequent books nearly
> as much as the first four.
I think they just weren't as good. Perhaps because she got too big to
edit. I think the third was the best, myself.
Stacie
You're not alone in thinking they just weren't as good. I think that
was a major source of my disappointment, but probably not all of it. I
thought GOF was a nice balance between the earlier funny/innocent
moments and the starker side of having to fight Voldemort as Harry
grew up. And it contained some of my favorite characters, but after
that the books seemed to go off on long tangents just for the sake of
going on long tangents and there seemed to be a lot of wasted
opportunities to make something of all those promising side stories. I
was kind of hoping for some actual political/international intrigue
with something of a foreign alliance thing coming out of the Triwizard
Tournament. I was hoping for some Foreign Resistance. And the giants
subplot seems to have accomplished little besides establishing that
giants were big, ignorant brutes. I felt like she needlessly padded
things out to fill 7 years/a full school year when some editing would
have done wonders. We often joke about the endless camping in DH in my
circles.
I felt awfully cheated in the end, I think, because of the endless
hype and media manipulation. Or at least it didn't help. If I hadn't
felt like I was being ordered by rabid Rowling fans and the media to
like it as the bestest book series ever with absolutely no flaws at
all, and less like Rowling milked pre-release hints of character
deaths for all they were worth, it might have gone down easier.
I like the twisty political thinking and jockeying and real gray area
that often comes about on Discworld far more. Nothing there is nearly
as straightforward and merit-based and "right" often changes based on
who the protagonist of that particular book might be.
This kind of summed it up for me.
http://jesidres.deviantart.com/art/Fandom-experiences-40889408
And it also has the benefit of being a terribly cute drawing.
Richard Eney
Stacie <sta...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Apr 11, 12:04 pm, emma_a...@mac.com (Emma Anne) wrote:
>> Stacie <stac...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > But, somehow, I managed to avoid reading any Potter until well after
>> > book four was published. Maybe it was partially disappointment on the
>> > heels of all that hype, or just being somewhat turned off by all the
>> > hype and merchandising, but I didn't enjoy the subsequent books nearly
>> > as much as the first four.
>>
>> I think they just weren't as good. Perhaps because she got too big to
>> edit. I think the third was the best, myself.
>
>You're not alone in thinking they just weren't as good.
Me three...
>I think that was a major source of my disappointment, but probably
>not all of it. I thought GOF was a nice balance between the earlier
>funny/innocent moments and the starker side of having to fight
>Voldemort as Harry grew up. And it contained some of my favorite
>characters, but after that the books seemed to go off on long
>tangents just for the sake of going on long tangents
It seems as though the editors refused to edit lest some
terribly secret clue got left out.
>and there seemed to be a lot of wasted opportunities to
>make something of all those promising side stories.
There were so _many_ wasted opportunities. Chekhov's gun, no,
it was Chekhov's full-scale arsenal of unused setups.
>I was kind of hoping for some actual political/international intrigue
>with something of a foreign alliance thing coming out of the Triwizard
>Tournament. I was hoping for some Foreign Resistance.
After all that with the Mediterranean water-breathing weed, I was
hoping for at least one trip outside the UK to visit the traditional
undersea school of dark wizardry off the coast of North Africa.
>And the giants subplot seems to have accomplished little besides
>establishing that giants were big, ignorant brutes.
Having mentioned giants as existing at all, it would have been another
Chekhov's gun to leave them out after that, especially as they were
the reason for Hagrid's size.
>I felt like she needlessly padded things out to fill 7 years/a full
>school year when some editing would have done wonders. We often joke
>about the endless camping in DH in my circles.
There's the "deteriorating situation" element, but I feel that could
have been done in fewer pages.
>I felt awfully cheated in the end, I think, because of the endless
>hype and media manipulation. Or at least it didn't help. If I hadn't
>felt like I was being ordered by rabid Rowling fans and the media to
>like it as the bestest book series ever with absolutely no flaws at
>all, and less like Rowling milked pre-release hints of character
>deaths for all they were worth, it might have gone down easier.
What really felt bad was the way she dropped hints about "plot
changes" as though they were recent decisions, when in fact
they had been made before book one was published. The careful
seeding of extra bits of information and misleading hints on her
website was on a strict timetable, too.
>I like the twisty political thinking and jockeying and real gray area
>that often comes about on Discworld far more. Nothing there is nearly
>as straightforward and merit-based and "right" often changes based on
>who the protagonist of that particular book might be.
J, T5E, TT, MR makes an interesting sequence that way even if you leave
out NW.
=Tamar
Len Oil
> When the third came out, I bought all three of them, and bought each one
> at release since.
I came to it later than you, I think, as I have the first four books in
a matching cover scheme. I think it was in response to a "if you
haven't read them, you can't criticise[1] them". I was generally put
off by the hype and though I must admit they were not _unreadable_, /per
se/ I never did get the same kind of rush.
When number five came out, in hardback, there wasn't any temptation to
grab it straight away, and I more or less resolved to pick up the
paperback that matched my previous four editions. It never (to my
knowledge) came out in that form.
Where some ill-defined and sub-OCD obsession to get a matching set might
have carried me further into the series, without such an imperative I've
felt no such urge, I'm sorry to say. Which might be /just/ as
arbitrarily dismissive of me as before I dipped my toe into the series
in the first place.
I've been watching the films as they come on TV. Only the first two
have been available to me by that method, IIRC. Decent films in their
own right, but I'm sometimes a sucker for effects over content (and
hadn't read the books recently enough to appreciate what accuracy of
conversion had been undertaken) so I can't qualify that statement further.
> I would very much like to have UK editions of them all as I find some
> of the changes (most) in the American ones to be simply stupid changes
> that make no sense at all.
As I said, I have the first four books. Not sure if it's worth offering
them to you. (It is perhaps a measure of my tendency towards apathy for
the series. I may /lose/ Discworld books by loaning, but it is rare
indeed that I purposefully destock my bookshelves.)
[1] Darn, every now and then, I realise[1] that something (probably a
recent Thunderbird update) means that the British English dictionaries
need reinstalling.
Emma Anne
> http://jesidres.deviantart.com/art/Fandom-experiences-40889408
LOL at that picture of Harry. So mean and yet so funny.
Emma Anne
> (If you haven't already discovered them and you want a *fine*
> fantasy quadrilogy that bears reading more than once, try Tamora
> Pierce's "Protector of the Small"
I like her a lot too.
Reader in Invisible Writings
Too late to comment there, but I will here.
I am a re-reader of books, I know some people can't.
I have read HHGTTG several times.
I have read the Dirk Gently books (too few) more than several times.
I have read LOTR 3 or 4 times and will re-read it again.
I have read the Silmarillion twice - and maybe once more? (1)
I have read Asimov's Foundation Trilogy a couple of times.
I have read Tess of the D'Urbervilles (2) twice.
I have read most of the Discworld books about 4 times and I am now going
though them making notes - but still enjoying them.
I thought - I'll re-read HP and gave up after 5 pages because I was
waiting for the next thing to happen. The latter books are worse at
this than the first ones. Generally, I enjoyed reading them (DH was a
bit of a martyr's trip) but there is nothing there to be revealed on a
second reading that was not there the first time. The other books
mentioned above have yielded more on repeat readings, even if it is
because later books have shown that a casual few words were not a stone
on the path, but an acorn ready to grow into a marvellous tree!
(1) I have (if you exclude and the gumph about when and where they were
written and revised) even read Unfinished Tales, but until I decided to
just read the Tales the book was nearly prophetically titled ;-)
(2)not going to check if that is right.
Currently in GG and Pondering writing the IWs for P!
--
Reader in Invisible Writings.. Something to Ponder upon!
Stacie
> In article <f1009648-eaf3-434a-8de3-520a89d41...@l64g2000hse.googlegroups.com>,
>
> >And the giants subplot seems to have accomplished little besides
> >establishing that giants were big, ignorant brutes.
>
> Having mentioned giants as existing at all, it would have been another
> Chekhov's gun to leave them out after that, especially as they were
> the reason for Hagrid's size.
Leaving them out would have felt equally odd, but a little less "black
and white" would have been nice. Grawp was the only recruit to the
"right" side, and that was pretty much because he was a "runt" and
something of an overgrown toddler that could be manipulated and told
what to do.
It felt a bit... to steal a DW concept, species-ist, I guess? The
implication seemed to be that if it wasn't tempered down by being a
"half breed" or an "outcast", being a giant was to be Bad.
I was hoping for a more even-handed treatment a bit more like the
trolls in Discworld.
> >I like the twisty political thinking and jockeying and real gray area
> >that often comes about on Discworld far more. Nothing there is nearly
> >as straightforward and merit-based and "right" often changes based on
> >who the protagonist of that particular book might be.
>
> J, T5E, TT, MR makes an interesting sequence that way even if you leave
> out NW.
>
> =Tamar
I think that's one reason I love Vimes so much. All that business
about him being a "little picture" man being forced to examine the
"bigger picture" now and again. There's something wonderful in T5E
with him being forced out of his comfort zone of more clear cut right,
wrong and good guys versus bad guys.
Pratchett characters just seem so much more complex and realistic
and... human. Even the non-human ones. And I definitely prefer his
take on romance. Heaven knows Terry can turn me into a complete puddle
of goo with about two lines involving Sam and Sybil having a moment.
Rowling's romance skills... er... not so much.
Emma Anne
> I have read Asimov's Foundation Trilogy a couple of times.
I just reread those! LOL at how the later ones work in robots.
I am contemplated the Dune series on my shelf, but IIRC, I only really
liked the first one.
Daniel Orner
I recently had some thoughts about the difference in how Terry deals
with love and romance with how, say, Tom Holt does. It seems like Holt
explores love far more often and in more detail than Terry does[1].
Which isn't to say Terry never ever deals with love - Carrot and Angua,
Vimes and Sybil, Mort and Ysabell, Magrat and Verence, even Teppic and
Ptraci in a weird way - but the people in his books rarely think about
love or relationships, and when it's even mentioned it's in a very
subtle, blink-and-you'll-miss-it way, or mined for humor (as in Nobby's
misguided adventures in romance in Thud!).
I wonder if it's because the Discworld is (ironically) so much more of
a "practical" place than our current world; people seem to be much more
interested in getting things done and the bottom line than the rather
flighty attitudes of the modern world towards love and romance.
Thoughts?
[1] Although admittedly Holt seems to be enormously cynical towards the
whole thing, for the most part. Then again, that more or less describes
his attitude towards anything at all.
Richard Eney
Lewis <g.k...@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> wrote:
>In message <nrqdnShJcPzYop3VnZ2dnUVZ_smnnZ2d@radix>
>> J, T5E, TT, MR makes an interesting sequence that way even if you leave
>> out NW.
>
The Truth.
=Tamar
Richard Eney
Stacie <sta...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Apr 12, 12:49 am, dicc...@radix.net (Richard Eney) wrote:
>>
>> >And the giants subplot seems to have accomplished little besides
>> >establishing that giants were big, ignorant brutes.
>>
>> Having mentioned giants as existing at all, it would have been another
>> Chekhov's gun to leave them out after that, especially as they were
>> the reason for Hagrid's size.
>
>Leaving them out would have felt equally odd, but a little less "black
>and white" would have been nice. Grawp was the only recruit to the
>"right" side, and that was pretty much because he was a "runt" and
>something of an overgrown toddler that could be manipulated and told
>what to do.
True. Also, since she kept the story pretty tightly confined to the
UK, the general audience might never have noticed if she had left
out all the full-blooded giants and simply had it be that they weren't
interested in traveling and V didn't bother to recruit them.
>It felt a bit... to steal a DW concept, species-ist, I guess? The
>implication seemed to be that if it wasn't tempered down by being
>a "half breed" or an "outcast", being a giant was to be Bad.
They _were_ designed as a traditional "ugly brute" sort of giant,
and still it was - for them - a political decision to align with
the villains.
>I was hoping for a more even-handed treatment a bit more like the
>trolls in Discworld.
I'm kind of in the middle on the topic of fantasy giants.
Traditionally they are the large and stupid being who is there to
be defeated by the small and clever being - that goes right back to
Odysseus and probably to earlier stories I don't know about.
It's a 20th-century idea to have a positive example for every being.
I get different images when I think of fantasy giants as large
humans and when I think of fantasy giants as a different species
with its own traits. Even if they are conceived of as an
evolutionary offshoot, related though not quite homo sap., I can
see them having very different priorities and responses.
There are variant genetic tendencies even among different strains
of the same animal - look at dogs. Some breeds are just not hunters,
while others have been bred to respond strongly to hunting stimuli.
They will have different reactions to, for instance, a group of
excitable small dogs racing around and barking at them. The
placid ones will ignore or simply bark back, the wolfhounds are
likely to do what they were bred to do and destroy the pack.
So I could see the HP giants being quite naturally belligerent,
and less intellectual because they simply haven't needed intelligence
that much. They're too big for most animals to attack, and they're
naturally impervious to most magic - so what do they need brains for?
Yet the traditional lack of hygiene associated with giants seems
poorly-thought-out; being big and magic-proof doesn't insulate them
from bacterial infection, and social creatures (or unusually bright
herd animals?) should have some fellow-feeling even if it's stunted.
>>> I like the twisty political thinking and jockeying and real gray area
>>> that often comes about on Discworld far more. Nothing there is nearly
>>> as straightforward and merit-based and "right" often changes based on
>>> who the protagonist of that particular book might be.
>>
>> J, T5E, TT, MR makes an interesting sequence that way even
>> even if you leave out NW.
>>
>> =Tamar
>
>I think that's one reason I love Vimes so much. All that business
>about him being a "little picture" man being forced to examine the
>"bigger picture" now and again. There's something wonderful in T5E
>with him being forced out of his comfort zone of more clear cut right,
>wrong and good guys versus bad guys.
And then in The Truth Vimes becomes one of Them from the non-Watch
point of view. Which forces the reader to readjust what he - I -
was accepting right along as correct behavior for Vimes because
I was reading it all from Vimes's point of view. (JKR did do a
little of that, with the wizard-dursley incidents, but it wasn't
spelled out so most of her readers seem to have missed it.)
>Pratchett characters just seem so much more complex and realistic
>and... human. Even the non-human ones. And I definitely prefer his
>take on romance. Heaven knows Terry can turn me into a complete puddle
>of goo with about two lines involving Sam and Sybil having a moment.
>
>Rowling's romance skills... er... not so much.
Agree 100%.
=Tamar
Richard Eney
>I am a re-reader of books, I know some people can't.
<snip impressive credentials>
>I have read the Silmarillion twice - and maybe once more?
Wow. I got bogged down about halfway through so badly that I don't
remember whether I finished flipping the pages.
>I thought - I'll re-read HP and gave up after 5 pages because I was
>waiting for the next thing to happen. The latter books are worse at
>this than the first ones. Generally, I enjoyed reading them (DH was a
>bit of a martyr's trip) but there is nothing there to be revealed on
>a second reading that was not there the first time. The other books
>mentioned above have yielded more on repeat readings, even if it is
>because later books have shown that a casual few words were not a stone
>on the path, but an acorn ready to grow into a marvellous tree!
For those who are obsessed enough to dig for it, there's a fairly
strong case to be made for Evil Dumbledore, but I don't think JKR
intended it. For one thing, it's too subtle.
I've lost count of how many times I've reread Discworld books. I think
my least re-read are Hf, NW, and MR, but it isn't because of any flaws
in the books, it's because they affect me strongly.
=Tamar
Richard Eney
Lewis <g.k...@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> wrote:
<snip - subject is still HP>
>I would very much like to have UK editions of them all as I find some of
>the changes (most) in the American ones to be simply stupid changes that
>make no sense at all.
Get the Canadian editions. They're the UK content but cheaper because you
don't pay for the overseas shipping. This is probably generally true, though
I guess not all UK books are released in Canada. They got the UK version of
the first movie, too - the one with a Philosopher's Stone - and Canada gets
the NTSC type of video (and for DVD I think they may be Region 1).
=Tamar
Daniel Orner
> In article <ftqp3r$rm4$1...@aioe.org>,
> Reader in Invisible Writings <markfo...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> <snip>
>
>> I am a re-reader of books, I know some people can't.
> <snip impressive credentials>
>> I have read the Silmarillion twice - and maybe once more?
>
> Wow. I got bogged down about halfway through so badly that I don't
> remember whether I finished flipping the pages.
Seconded. It's more of a bible than a book.
>
>> I thought - I'll re-read HP and gave up after 5 pages because I was
>> waiting for the next thing to happen. The latter books are worse at
>> this than the first ones. Generally, I enjoyed reading them (DH was a
>> bit of a martyr's trip) but there is nothing there to be revealed on
>> a second reading that was not there the first time. The other books
>> mentioned above have yielded more on repeat readings, even if it is
>> because later books have shown that a casual few words were not a stone
>> on the path, but an acorn ready to grow into a marvellous tree!
>
> For those who are obsessed enough to dig for it, there's a fairly
> strong case to be made for Evil Dumbledore, but I don't think JKR
> intended it. For one thing, it's too subtle.
Even if he's not evil, he's certainly not the perfect being he's made
out to be... even though he has a good reason for a lot of the
frustrations he makes Harry go through, he sometimes seems blinded to
the effects his good-natured actions would cause.
Daniel Orner
David and Goliath.
Richard Eney
Richard Eney <dic...@radix.net> wrote:
>Lewis <g.k...@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> wrote:
>
>>I would very much like to have UK editions of them all as I find some of
>>the changes (most) in the American ones to be simply stupid changes that
>>make no sense at all.
>
>Get the Canadian editions. They're the UK content but cheaper because you
>don't pay for the overseas shipping. This is probably generally true, though
>I guess not all UK books are released in Canada. They got the UK version of
>the first movie, too - the one with a Philosopher's Stone - and Canada gets
>the NTSC type of video (and for DVD I think they may be Region 1).
And to drag this back on topic briefly, unfortunately the Canadian release
of DVDs isn't always the UK release. I'm told the Canadian release of
the SkyOne Hogfather on DVD was the same as the US one - without the captions
and other extras, just the one interview.
=Tamar
Esmeraldus
> Richard Eney wrote:
>> I'm kind of in the middle on the topic of fantasy giants.
>> Traditionally they are the large and stupid being who is there to
>> be defeated by the small and clever being - that goes right back to
>> Odysseus and probably to earlier stories I don't know about.
>
> David and Goliath.
It's customary to snip when you add three words to a long post.
ncw...@hotmail.com
> In article <1if32fs.qphceg3tpypaN%emma_a...@mac.com>,
>
>
>
>
>
> Emma Anne <emma_a...@mac.com> wrote:
> >Richard Eney <dicc...@radix.net> wrote:
>
> >> Imagine if, to invent a scenario, Mort were to come out as a
> >> new book by a new author, with a promise of several more tales in the
> >> new children's/YA series about Death's Apprentice, with some hype about
> >> the writer who spent his childhood in a house without indoor running
> >> water. If the hype took the imagination of the "human interest"
> >> columnists, it would be hailed as the new HP and people would be
> >> surprised that Mort doesn't wear glasses and ride a broomstick.
> >> If it then got the amount of push that HP got, with news releases
> >> about how many millions of copies were being printed worldwide, how
> >> many languages it was being translated into, etc., I would bet the
> >> sales would jump. There would be new attempts to buy the rights
> >> for a movie - after all, it has a flying horse, a princess who is
> >> unseen by most people for a while, comic wizards, and tons of CGI.
> >> They can cut most of the skeleton's scenes... <ahem>
>
> >To be fair, I don't think the first few HP books *did* get that kind
> >of hype. Certainly not in the U.S. They took off because kids loved
> >reading them.
>
> We have had different experiences, clearly.
> The first book took off in the UK because it was fascinating and the
> kids recommended it to each other, and the sales (and reprinting
> schedule) got it the international sale. That brought it to the US.
>
> I heard about it here in the US because of a newspaper article
> about the single mother who got herself off welfare by writing a
> book - hype, sentimental human interest, whatever.
>
> The book then grabbed me and further purchases were not because
> of the hype. However, I did notice the carefully done publicity
> that was going on, right through the release of the last book.
>
> I know Pterry's books don't need the hype, but I can't help wondering
> sometimes how many more would sell if a similar 'machine' were put
> into operation, just to get the attention of a wider audience who
> could then choose whether or not to continue reading.
>
I've sometimes wondered whether Pterry's success was the cause for
some of the HP hype. Pterry's books were very slow to take off in the
US, mainly due to the lack-luster marketing of his US publisher. In
the early nineties there was even something of a flourishing export
trade of DW books from the UK.
After Pterry finally caught on in the US, perhaps some US publishers
were kicking themselves for missing out on this potential goldmine.
This sensitised them to the appearance of the next big UK fantasy
success, which happened to be Harry Potter. The US publishers were
therfore more willing to push the marketing of HP.
Cheers,
Nigel.
Daniel Orner
Len Oil
> Staying on the fantasy genre... is the David vs. Goliath story before or
> after Odysseus? I'd say before, so there you go.
Going by the concept of Troy (assuming the 'real' Odysseus was involved
in the 'real' fall of Troy) the Greek legend may have been around 1200s
or 1100s BC, according to various estimations.
I think estimations of Goliath's era generally varies between 900 and
500 BC, i.e. later, but I wouldn't deign to know how accurate that might
be. Or indeed if I've gotten my figures wrong.
Stacie
> I wonder if it's because the Discworld is (ironically) so much more of
> a "practical" place than our current world; people seem to be much more
> interested in getting things done and the bottom line than the rather
> flighty attitudes of the modern world towards love and romance.
> Thoughts?
I've always thought the more "practical" approach was more realistic.
And honestly, it seems more romantic to me. I mean, it's not often you
see the big, sweeping, super-sensitive romantic gestures that most
"romance" movies and books thrive on and some people squee over. In
the real world, we're far more likely to express our love with little
things. Someone telling me to be careful when I leave for work or
going out to warm up the car for me on a cold morning or, say, picking
up a book they know I would like, those things would mean a heck of a
lot more to me love-wise than a dozen bouquets of roses. I keep
whipping this phrase out, and I'm not sure if I'm remembering it from
elsewhere or not. Real love is the little things writ large.
The little, subtle things in the DW novels, like husbands and wives
picking up on small things about the other gradually, or small,
practical gestures (Like Sam willingly wearing Sybil's attempt at
knitting, or just the fact that Sybil feels she ought to darn his
socks in the first place.) usually resonate more with me than highly
unrealistic things you typically see in movies, like buying out the
entire florist and then taking your new girlfriend hot air ballooning
on the third date. But I'm a practical girl. Practical appeals to me.
I find it really attractive that with Terry's longstanding fictional
couples that there's something of a rock solid nature to their
relationships, a real constancy. They might not constantly be wining
and dining one another and having candlelit evenings at home every
night, but they would be there for one another when the chips are
down. The fact that Sam and Sybil (and Magrat and Verence, and...
well, most of his couples, really) aren't the conventional lovely
wispy female and the tanned hero whose teeth go *ting* in the sunlight
appeals to me, too. Gives a bit of hope to those of us who aren't
perfect physical specimens and all that. I'm just not much of a fan of
your typical "date movie" or "chick flick" where unrealistically
people meet cute and woo unrealistically and so on.
And heaven knows fidelity and loyalty seem to be in rather too-short
supply. I guess that's why it's refreshing to get a good dose of it in
a book. It's not glamorous, as such, but it certainly strikes me as
romantic enough.
Stacie
> and still it was - for them - a political decision to align with
> the villains.
That reminds me of something else I felt was a minor oddity about the
giants storyline. With them being so far removed from wizard affairs,
supposedly distrustful of wizards/magic and more impervious to magic,
they felt a bit too isolationist to truly need to worry about aligning
with either side politically. There didn't seem to be a lot of value
for them to join up with Voldemort a second time just to be wand-
fodder and brute force for a second war. Total indifference or
avoidance might have been more understandable than joining either side
wholesale. The centaurs in the Forbidden Forest tried to stay
uninvolved, but couldn't due to proximity. It seemed more like the
giants could actually have gotten away with sitting the thing out on
the sidelines.
Mind, that's my impressions based on just the one reading when the
book first came out. The usual disclaimers about there being a few
years and a lot of other books since then and not yet having been
taken by the notion to reread the series apply. Maybe after I've
finished rereading the DW novels, the last third of His Dark Materials
and tucked away a few Redwall novels, I'll be in the mood to revisit
Hogwarts again and see what I've missed the first time around.
Stacie
> But I am not joining in the 'bash Harry' brigade. I think the HP books
> are top-notch in their own right. I think what JKR was able to do with
> the books was quite remarkable. I think the fantasy world she created
> was clever and fun and especially so since it really was unlike anything
> else, while still feeling like it sort of fit in with everything else.
> I've read each of the books at least three times, including one full
> re-read of all seven books.
I quite like them for what they are, rather good books set in an
interesting and detailed fantasy world, with some bits that strike me
as better written than others. I've enjoyed them and I'm sure I'll
enjoy them again sooner or later, whenever I get bitten by the second
read bug. I've read GOF a couple of times, but only skimmed sections
of the others a second time at this point. They're just not without
their nits to pick. But that's half the fun of complex fantasy worlds
and plots. Finding nits or teasing out the "not vital to the main
plot, but still fun to ponder" threads.
>
> The fact is, kids are far smarter than most people give them credit for.
> If the books were not good the first people to say so would not be the
> disillusioned adults or the whiney critics, or even the jaded and
> cynical. It would be the 12yo kids.
>
I've always maintained that it takes far more writing genius to
produce a satisfactory young reader's book than any adult book. There
must be a lot of temptation to talk down to the audience, and if
there's one thing most of the kids I know won't tolerate, it's being
talked down to. Or just talked at. To produce a truly great young
reader's book that can also be enjoyed by adults, and on multiple
levels, is a pretty huge feat. Any book or series that allows me to
sit down and have a conversation I wouldn't be ashamed to call a
"literary analysis" with someone of that age group is pretty amazing.
> > And then in The Truth Vimes becomes one of Them from the non-Watch
> > point of view. Which forces the reader to readjust what he - I -
> > was accepting right along as correct behavior for Vimes because
> > I was reading it all from Vimes's point of view.
That was one of the more impressive "right depends on who you are"
changes based on point of view. Especially since Vimes seems like one
of the author (and reader) favorites, the temptation to write him as
"always right, always on the right side, always sympathetic" must be
huge. And there was the protagonist of the novel, going up against
Vimes's agenda. Not a lot of authors would even attempt that, much
less pull it off.
> I think if you want to compare JKR to something, you compare her to
> Philip Pullman. There you have ostensibly the same target audience.
>
> I think we can agree that PP was writing for a rather different class of
> 12yo than JKR, can't we?
I think I would have a hard time comparing the two directly, just
because of the big differences in tone, approach and settings. But
I've only read the first 2/3 of His Dark Materials, so it's not a full
assessment just yet.
Daniel Orner
I guess what I'm getting at is that we pretty much see Sam and Sybil in
that phase from the get-go. There usually is *some* point where a couple
falls in blinding love before they get comfortable with one another, but
from the end of Guards! Guards! till the beginning of Men At Arms, it's
pretty much a fait accompli.
I agree that the best and most lovely relationships are the sort that
Sam and Sybil share, but love, romance, and healthy relationships are
not necessarily all cut from the same cloth.
Richard Eney
Lewis <g.k...@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> wrote:
> Richard <dic...@radix.net> wrote:
>> Stacie <sta...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>On Apr 12, 12:49 am, dicc...@radix.net (Richard Eney) wrote:
>
>> They _were_ designed as a traditional "ugly brute" sort of giant,
>> and still it was - for them - a political decision to align with
>> the villains.
>
>because he treated them better than the wizards did.
He didn't hunt them out of the UK, but that was about it, and
anyway, the European giants didn't seem to have much sense of
longterm gratitude. He gave one of them a magical gift that
was snazzier than the magical gift sent by Dumbledore, and the
one Dumbledore bought was killed. Strictly mercenary.
>> It's a 20th-century idea to have a positive example for every being.
>
>It's a LATE 20th century idea to have a positive example for every being.
Started in the first third of the 20th C, I think, with Doc Smith's
admittedly ground-breaking introduction of positive aliens in the Lensman
series. When he introduced Nadrek, who physiologically resembled the
evil slimy villainous aliens but was on "our" side, it was a real
breakthrough against stereotyping. (Hollywood is as usual about eighty
years behind the times.)
<snip>
Back to Discworld:
>>>I think that's one reason I love Vimes so much. All that business
>>>about him being a "little picture" man being forced to examine the
>>>"bigger picture" now and again. There's something wonderful in T5E
>>>with him being forced out of his comfort zone of more clear cut right,
>>>wrong and good guys versus bad guys.
>
>The other thing is, despite the length of the latter HP books, there is
>still a *lot* more Discworld. Yes, it's deeper and more complex and has
>a lot more to offer, but a lot of that has to do with the sheer volume
The deeper/more complex/better written elements are there from
Strata onward, IMO.
>and also that he is a better writer. That is not to say there is
>anything wrong with JKR, she's a different writer, at least that we've
>seen.
I've said before that it's a seven-volume first novel.
>But Terry Pratchett is something very special, and there are very few,
>if any, writers who can match his humor, insight, and plain story
>telling ability. He's a master of the /bon mot/, perhaps THE master.
<snip the rest of the OT discussion>
This would apply also to Pratchett books:
>The fact is, kids are far smarter than most people give them credit for.
>If the books were not good the first people to say so would not be the
>disillusioned adults or the whiney critics, or even the jaded and
>cynical. It would be the 12yo kids.
>>>Pratchett characters just seem so much more complex and realistic
>>>and... human. Even the non-human ones. And I definitely prefer his
>>>take on romance. Heaven knows Terry can turn me into a complete puddle
>>>of goo with about two lines involving Sam and Sybil having a moment.
>>>
>>>Rowling's romance skills... er... not so much.
>
>> Agree 100%.
>JKR was still writing at a 12yo audience.
I think she was aiming at a 14yo audience at the end, or maybe
we have a different image of an average 12yo kid.
When Terry writes for a younger audience he still includes complex
characterization and all the other elements that make his work
so great. I think the closest he has come to writing a whiny kid
was in Eric, and Eric wasn't really whiny, he just needed some
misconceptions cleared away.
=Tamar
Richard Eney
Stacie <sta...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> They _were_ designed as a traditional "ugly brute" sort of giant,
>> and still it was - for them - a political decision to align with
>> the villains.
>
>That reminds me of something else I felt was a minor oddity about the
>giants storyline. With them being so far removed from wizard affairs,
>supposedly distrustful of wizards/magic and more impervious to magic,
>they felt a bit too isolationist to truly need to worry about aligning
>with either side politically. There didn't seem to be a lot of value
>for them to join up with Voldemort a second time just to be wand-
>fodder and brute force for a second war. Total indifference or
>avoidance might have been more understandable than joining either side
>wholesale. The centaurs in the Forbidden Forest tried to stay
>uninvolved, but couldn't due to proximity. It seemed more like the
>giants could actually have gotten away with sitting the thing out on
>the sidelines.
Yes, I think they could have. But if you going to have a rip-roaring
traditional brawl at the end with every possible faction involved,
you sort of have to bring the giants once they've been mentioned.
I don't recall whether trolls were involved; I have the impression
that they were too dim to be useful, though some seem to have been
brighter than others - more inconsistency, really, that most trolls
were dim dangerous near-beasts while some were trainable as guards.
=Tamar
Reader in Invisible Writings
To me TP's books for 'Younger Readers'[1] are TP books written to be
accessible to younger readers without loosing the elements which make
them in his style (undercurrents - cross and off references - resonances
with things in other media and times - etc). Thus older readers have a
full experience.
JKR had some of these in her earlier books (up to about GOF) but after
that relied on her own universe for all background. Still can't manage
to re-read them.
--
Reader in Invisible Writings.. Something to Ponder upon!
Hans Liss
> Reader in Invisible Writings <markfo...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I have read Asimov's Foundation Trilogy a couple of times.
>
> I just reread those! LOL at how the later ones work in robots.
I tried to read the sequels to the trilogy, but had to give up when I
started to notice all the contrived and pointless mentions of computers
and robots. If he didn't need to mention them before, why start after
the main trilogy?
It felt a lot like a he was kid with a new toy or someone who'd learnt a
new word-of-the-day and wanted to use it all the time. He should
probably have started on a whole new universe instead of re-using his
Foundation one with added - incessant - mention of these concepts.
I think I still have all those books, either standing unread in the
bookcase or packed away somewhere. I have felt no great need to read
them. The actual trilogy, on the other hand, I do re-read now and then.
/Hans
--
----- you'll guess what to do to the email address -----
Reader in Invisible Writings
of. I felt that what he was trying to do was to tie up his most famous
works - The Robot Series with the Foundation. I have not re-read those
and don't know where I have put them!
NiceOrc
> On Fri, 11 Apr 2008 10:04:11 -0600,
>
> emma_a...@mac.com (Emma Anne) wrote:
> >Stacie <stac...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> But, somehow, I managed to avoid reading any Potter until well after
> >> book four was published. Maybe it was partially disappointment on the
> >> heels of all that hype, or just being somewhat turned off by all the
> >> hype and merchandising, but I didn't enjoy the subsequent books nearly
> >> as much as the first four.
>
> >I think they just weren't as good. Perhaps because she got too big to
> >edit. I think the third was the best, myself.
>
> I agree. The third was definitely the best.
>
> I found the fourth a letdown because of the totally implausible
> revelation about Mad Eye at the end. Someone so demented could
> never have pulled off the year's masquerade that well, behaving
> exactly as the real Mad Eye would have done.
>
> The fifth was patched together, the sixth was empty (similar to
> Auel's fifth book about which even her most committed fans could
> find nothing good to say), and the seventh seemed to have been
> written in a rush and not edited at all.
>
> Yet I can't think of a single book of Pterry's that's left me
> with any feeling that he's become tired, bored, rushed, out of
> ideas, or formulaic. Not one.
>
> (If you haven't already discovered them and you want a *fine*
> fantasy quadrilogy that bears reading more than once, try Tamora
> Pierce's "Protector of the Small" [Book names are "First Test",
> "Page", "Squire", and "Lady Knight"]. Nominally they're for kids
> and YA, but like Pterry's they're very readable by adults, too.
> They take Keladry of Mindelan from new-minted probationary page
> -probationary because she's the first girl in 100 years to enroll
> for knight training, and the conservative training master doesn't
> want her there- through the fallout of her first assignment as an
> 18yo knight in wartime. The group title comes from Kel being
> unlike many of her aristo peers: to her, commoners and non-humans
> are people too.
>
> Apart from it being about a girl training for knighthood in a
> mediaeval world where magic works rather than a boy training as a
> wizard in an otherwise mundane world, I think the quadrilogy is
> quite like what JKR tried for but didn't succeed in creating. I
> found it infinitely more believeable than HP - I never had to
> struggle to re-suspend disbelief as I did whenever JKR threw in
> one of her unmotivated gobbets of disconnected event.)
I agree. I am also looking forward to seeing how the "Terrier" series
turns out.
Daibhid Ceanaideach
> Emma Anne wrote:
>> Reader in Invisible Writings <markfo...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I have read Asimov's Foundation Trilogy a couple of times.
>>
>> I just reread those! LOL at how the later ones work in robots.
>
> I tried to read the sequels to the trilogy, but had to give up when I
> started to notice all the contrived and pointless mentions of
> computers and robots. If he didn't need to mention them before, why
> start after the main trilogy?
>
> It felt a lot like a he was kid with a new toy or someone who'd learnt
> a new word-of-the-day and wanted to use it all the time. He should
> probably have started on a whole new universe instead of re-using his
> Foundation one with added - incessant - mention of these concepts.
Would I be right in guessing you never read anything by Asimov *except*
the Foundation series?
--
Dave
"I thought Billie Piper was an oil rig."
-Sandi Toksvig, The News Quiz
Hans Liss
You would be, yes. I haven't read anything else by him - though not for
lack of intention or anything.
Asimov was an excellent author and I don't imagine that his other works
aren't worth reading. It was just this particular tiny detail that put me
off reading the later additions to the Foundation series.
By the way, he seems to have written a few of the books set in this
universe in the early 1950's, including the actual Foundation trilogy, with
its roots in the 1940's. Then he added on the rest of the books during
1980, so the "later additions" were in fact *much* later ones.
/Hans
--
(you know what to do to the email address)
Daibhid Ceanaideach
> On 16 Apr 2008 16:12:15 GMT, Daibhid Ceanaideach wrote:
>
>> On 16 Apr 2008, Hans Liss <Ha...@Lisp.pp.se> wrote:
>>
>>> Emma Anne wrote:
>>>> Reader in Invisible Writings <markfo...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I have read Asimov's Foundation Trilogy a couple of times.
>>>>
>>>> I just reread those! LOL at how the later ones work in robots.
>>>
>>> I tried to read the sequels to the trilogy, but had to give up when
>>> I started to notice all the contrived and pointless mentions of
>>> computers and robots. If he didn't need to mention them before, why
>>> start after the main trilogy?
>>>
>>> It felt a lot like a he was kid with a new toy or someone who'd
>>> learnt a new word-of-the-day and wanted to use it all the time. He
>>> should probably have started on a whole new universe instead of
>>> re-using his Foundation one with added - incessant - mention of
>>> these concepts.
>>
>> Would I be right in guessing you never read anything by Asimov
>> *except* the Foundation series?
>
> You would be, yes. I haven't read anything else by him - though not
> for lack of intention or anything.
>
> Asimov was an excellent author and I don't imagine that his other
> works aren't worth reading. It was just this particular tiny detail
> that put me off reading the later additions to the Foundation series.
The reason I asked is that if you'd read his other works, you'd realise
that this wasn't him suddenly deciding he wanted to write about robots
and putting them in the Foundation books rather than ceate a seperate
series. It was him writing a seperate series about robots for decades and
then suddenly deciding he wanted it all to be set in the same universe.
Whether that's an improvement is, of course, another question. But I
would imagine that if you'd been aware of him as "the Robots writer" as
well as "the Foundation writer" you wouldn't have found the "crossover"
volumes quite so jarring.
Reader in Invisible Writings
the issues of an philosophical electronic donkey, the odd size buttons
which were the secret mark of religious believers, which everyone but
the secret police knew and the odd 'I realised you were from a backwater
planet because the letter E changed round 1000 years ago' (What the heck
- imagining letters would change with time was something I thought was
credible back in secondary school as a plot idea!). Mind you, I'm not a
successful author, so what do I know! ;-)
Stacie
> I guess what I'm getting at is that we pretty much see Sam and Sybil in
> that phase from the get-go. There usually is *some* point where a couple
> falls in blinding love before they get comfortable with one another, but
> from the end of Guards! Guards! till the beginning of Men At Arms, it's
> pretty much a fait accompli.
I've always thought Sam's "the woman was the city" monologue is fairly
heady stuff, at least.
That whole first dinner scene rather slays me more ways than one.
Though, some women might have a slightly mixed reaction to being
compared to Ankh-Morpork...
Maybe Verence had the right idea. Compare her to a summer's day. I
hear June 12th was quite nice.
Hans Liss
I see your point, but in my case it was just *because* I was aware of his
other works that I reacted so strongly about it - my immediate impression
was that he was merging his various themes unecessarily and rather
clumsily, after such a long time. This is highly subjective, of course, but
it did undeniably put me off.
I still most definitely want to read his original robot works, if I can
ever find the time.
Daibhid Ceanaideach
Okay, then I misread your initial post. Sorry. (And FWIW, I tend to
agree, as I vaguely alluded to with the "another question" comment.)
James Kuyper
> On 16 Apr 2008 19:20:55 GMT, Daibhid Ceanaideach wrote:
>> The reason I asked is that if you'd read his other works, you'd realise
>> that this wasn't him suddenly deciding he wanted to write about robots
>> and putting them in the Foundation books rather than ceate a seperate
>> series. It was him writing a seperate series about robots for decades and
>> then suddenly deciding he wanted it all to be set in the same universe.
>>
>> Whether that's an improvement is, of course, another question. But I
>> would imagine that if you'd been aware of him as "the Robots writer" as
>> well as "the Foundation writer" you wouldn't have found the "crossover"
>> volumes quite so jarring.
>
> I see your point, but in my case it was just *because* I was aware of his
> other works that I reacted so strongly about it - my immediate impression
> was that he was merging his various themes unecessarily and rather
> clumsily, after such a long time. This is highly subjective, of course, but
> it did undeniably put me off.
I agree. I thought it was done very clumsily.
Len Oil
[Robots -> Spacer -> Empire/Foundation era linkages from Asimov]
> I agree. I thought it was done very clumsily.
Personally, I found it not so much. In fact I liked[1] the tying in
that was done. Barring some discontinuities (how far ahead of "now" the
Empire/etc was based, which was more an internal inconsistency in the
far-future arc anyway) I found that it worked.
[1] I could have been at an easily impressed age[2]. It was back when
my avowed aim was to read /everything/ in the SF shelves at the local
library, which kept me quite engrossed in whatever works from Asimov
(and Aldiss and Anthony and the like) turned up on the shelves, even if
I didn't read much of Zelany's oeuvre. Such was the structured (yet
ultimately sub-optimal) methodology I employed. ;)
[2] I wasn't so impressed by the first official non-Asimov continuation
story I read, in that vein. It looks (from a bit of ferret-work) to
have been one of the Robot City novels[3], but I can't tell which one of
them from the info available to me.
[3] Which for some reason I had assumed was brought out after his death,
just now, despite the fact that I had definitely read at least one of
these before this event.
Hans Liss
> James Kuyper wrote:
> [Robots -> Spacer -> Empire/Foundation era linkages from Asimov]
>> I agree. I thought it was done very clumsily.
>
> Personally, I found it not so much. In fact I liked[1] the tying in
> that was done. Barring some discontinuities (how far ahead of "now" the
> Empire/etc was based, which was more an internal inconsistency in the
> far-future arc anyway) I found that it worked.
It's entirely possible that I overreacted in my first impression, and it
may certainly have been an effect of my not having read the _Robot_ books
before reading the Foundation continuations, since then I would have been
better prepared for the perceived deviation in style. If I ever try again,
at least I will know what to expect. However, before that happens I will
probably read some of the Robot series.
According to the Wikipedia article on the Foundation Trilogy, the primary
reason Asimov decided to continue the series in 1982 was pressure from
fans, which makes me somewhat suspicious of his mindset when writing them.
Another SF series with a long interval between sequels is Larry Niven's
Ringworld, and I did read The Ringworld Engineers and The Ringworld Throne
with a pervasive sense of doubt ("Did he really need to write these
books?"), but since my fascination with Ringworld was much more focused on
the Ringworld environment itself than on the book being a storytelling
masterpiece (which it is not, in my opinion), I didn't really mind them so
much.
It always comes down to subjective impressions, and there are far more
books to read than there is time for.
Richard Bos
> In message <nrqdnShJcPzYop3VnZ2dnUVZ_smnnZ2d@radix>
> Richard <dic...@radix.net> wrote:
> > J, T5E, TT, MR makes an interesting sequence that way even if you leave
> > out NW.
>
> Which TT is that?
The Truth, in which we see Vimes from someone else's POV, and discover
that he isn't quite as perfect the protagonist that he seems to be when
he calls the shots as main character.
Richard
April Goodwin-Smith
<snip>
> Maybe Verence had the right idea. Compare her to a
> summer's day. I hear June 12th was quite nice.
>
And not a summer's day at all.
:)
That Pratchett, eh?
April.
Emma Anne
> But then I re-read _A Wrinkle in
> Time_ and it was not nearly as good as I remembered it.
Heh. I got the audiobook for AWIT, and was very disappointed. There
are all these cloying parts that I glossed over when I read it, but had
to listen to on the audiobook. Discworld books, on the other hand, are
excellent to listen to.
Doug Weller
wrote:
>Richard Eney wrote:
><snip>
> > The big chain bookstores are doing well at keeping Pterry on
>> the shelves, but they don't seem to do the promotional things
>> that I've seen for other major authors. It seems to me that
>> the new hardbacks rarely show up on the "new releases" shelves.
>
> Maybe he's bigger in Canada. In Chapters/Indigo, the bookstore
>monoliths, they don't really seem to have carousels with "latest and
>greatest releases", but they do spotlight books they think will sell
>well by having them facing outward on their own little pedestal in the
>fiction section (there are four or five of these in the fairly large one
>at Yorkdale Mall here in Toronto). I've seen Pterry's newly released
>hardbacks given that position since Night Watch.
I thought I saw more or less the same at Borders in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Doug
--
Doug Weller --
A Director and Moderator of The Hall of Ma'at http://www.hallofmaat.com
Doug's Archaeology Site: http://www.ramtops.co.uk
Amun - co-owner/co-moderator http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Amun/
Lesley Weston
all their universes into one - Heinlein for one. But Asimov is surely
*The* Robots Writer; after all, the three (later four) laws are his.
Lesley.
Lesley Weston
> Daibhid Ceanaideach wrote:
<A contribution to a discussion long dead>
> Quite a few authors try to tie up loose ends as they get older and merge
> all their universes into one - Heinlein for one. But Asimov is surely
> *The* Robots Writer; after all, the three (later four) laws are his.
>
> Lesley.
Sorry about that. I'm using a new Newsreader and forgot to delete all
the old messages after downloading them.
Lesley.