Thursday, July 19, 2012

Summer reading

I've been on kind of a Terry Pratchett binge lately. I found a stack of Pratchett paperbacks (Wyrd Sisters, Witches Abroad, Sourcery, Pyramids, and a bunch more) in the storage shed and am discovering that reading Pratchett is akin to eating potato chips. The Discworld novels are addictive; after reading one, you end up reaching for another. And then another.

Pratchett's novels are definitely mind candy. He gets in some good satirical digs at contemporary society, but basically the novels are just plain fun to read: lots of word play and general goofiness, good humored mocking of various sword-and-sorcery and/or fantasy cliches -- one of his characters is Cohen the Barbarian, a geriatric hero who answers a question none of us ever thought to ask (What happens if heroes survive to AARP age?). In the real world, they go into politics and become governor of California; in Discworld, they drink a lot of soup because their teeth are gone.

Slight digression. I love the illustration of Discworld and wish I knew who to credit, but it was an anonymous image found through Google.

6 comments:

  1. Cohen the Barbarian. Love it. The only Sci-Fi I ever read was Conan. I even have the two movies starring Ah-nold.

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  2. Or they go out with a kid named Wiglaf and kill one last dragon.

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  3. I tried to like Pratchett and I made it through a couple of his novels. But over all, meh. He's not for me.

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  4. Never heard of Terry Pratchett. Read a lot of Dana Fuller Ross though.

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  5. Love the illustration.
    the Ol'Buzzard

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  6. The Hichhiker books are the only Sci-Fi I have ead - eacept for some of the old classics. I must check out this guy...

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