Down with Discworld

It took 14.25 books to fully realize this, but I don’t like the Discworld novels. Sure, the Death books aren’t bad, but as a whole, Discworld bores the hell out of me. Pratchett is really popular and has legions of fans. Legion. Like, the demons from the Bible.

I don’t mind so much the lack of chapters or the rambling nature of how Pratchett presents the story, but as a whole, his storytelling doesn’t work for me. I kept reading, wanting to “get” it, wanting to figure out the humor and really be involved in the whole Discworld thing.

Reading Men at Arms I finally realized it just is not going to happen. 14.25 books in the novels all start to sound like each other with the same basic patterns of dialogue and narration. Sure, most authors will fall into their own patterns of “voice”, and I don’t fault Pratchett for doing so, but when the voice didn’t work for me from the start (those first two Discworld books with Rincewind just aren’t good).

I had to put down Men at Arms. Like most Discworld novels, the book was just barely mildly amusing and I just didn’t care what happened to any of the characters, to the world, or to anyone other than the reappearance of Gaspode the Wonder Dog (from Moving Pictures). See, there are aspects of the series I like, and seeing favorite characters slide in and out of books is fun, sort of, but it isn’t enough.

So, what this post is really about is the fact that I think I’m done with Discworld. I had set myself a goal to read 10 Discworld books this year and then I put off the first of the ten until July. I read 100 pages and I’m done with the series. 14 finished books and 100 pages into Men at Arms should be enough.

Quick Takes: John Scalzi, Terry Pratchett, Charles DeLint

The Sagan Diary, by John Scalzi: While I can’t get enough Old Man’s War and I thoroughly enjoyed the short story “Questions for a Soldier”, The Sagan Diary is a different animal all together. Set after The Ghost Brigades, Jane Sagan has been discharged from the Colonial Special Forces and intends to join John Perry in a quiet life together on a colony planet. The Sagan Diary is being used by the Colonial government to evaluate their soldiers, but it seems to be written to John Perry, though I do not remember if he is ever intended to read it. It is a deeply personal story and completely in Jane Sagan’s head and she thinks about different aspects of herself and explains herself in a level of detail that was unexpected, even poetic. The Sagan Diary is utterly unlike any of the OMW novels, and unlike even “Questions for a Soldier”, and this may be off putting for some readers. I’ll admit that it wasn’t what I expected, or perhaps hoped for, but it was well written for what it is. This shows a bit of range on John Scalzi’s part, but again, The Sagan Diary is not for all fans of Scalzi’s work as it is devoid of action and the humor which so marked his longer fiction. The novella is exactly what it advertises: Jane Sagan’s private diary, non military. The Sagan Diary is also available for free online.



Lords and Ladies, by Terry Pratchett: Why, oh, why is Discworld so hit or miss? I want to love (or like) these books, and Lords and Ladies is overall better than some of the previous books, but it was difficult to really get a feel for the story and how everything was piecing together. Pratchett’s storytelling style is a bit off-putting for me and the Witches generally are one of my less favorite of all characters (I don’t like Rincewind, either, but the Luggage more than makes up for it), and this somewhat telling of faerie and A Midsummer Night’s Dream does not all come together as perhaps it could or should. Terry Pratchett sells a ridiculous amount of books, and I don’t grudge him his success, but I expect more from him than what I get. Perhaps I shouldn’t since this is the 14th Discworld novel. I’m stubborn, though, and I’ll make it through all of the Discworld novels...I’m younger than Pratchett is. I’ll catch up.



Promises to Keep, by Charles de Lint: Promises to Keep is a novella about the Jilly Coppercorn’s earlier life, about just after she got herself clean. I imagine for long time reader of the Newford series of novels and stories, there would be some emotional resonance to the character they are well familiar with. But this was only my second Newford story, so I don’t have that same feeling of familiarity or belonging to the series. While I know that titles really don’t give a good sense of what kind of novel one is about to read, I’ve been hesitant to read the Newford stories because I expected something fluffy and light, like Newford should be a few miles away from Stars Hollow (not that Gilmore Girls is all fluffy and light, but what I want from a tv show is different than what I want from a book). There is an interesting breeziness to DeLint’s prose, like it is all coming easy to him and there is a comforting feeling to his narration. This is the only thing easy about Promises to Keep. Jilly’s history is a hard one and we see some of her abuses and her fight to kick her drug addiction. The content is certainly not easy, but everything flows together so that even as DeLint is drawing us down in darkness we aren’t overwhelmed by it, perhaps because Jilly is not overwhelmed and that she does recover. Being a novella, Promises to Keep is reasonably short, but it tells a story that I wanted to keep reading. In short, Promises to Keep whet my appetite for other Newford stories and put Charles DeLint on my list of authors I want to read more of.

Quick Takes: Pratchett, Denning, Sittenfeld

Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett: There are large gods and there are small gods. The small gods are the ones which have very few worshipers. Despite there being a nation built around the worship of the god Om, Om only has one worshiper, a rather simple young man named Brutha. Brutha is a Novice who will never get the opportunity to become a priest. When Om begins speaking to Brutha, everything will change. This Discworld novel, while it does not appear to connect much to the goings on in Ankh Morpork, is a quality read. Small Gods appears to have the best construction and most coherent story thus far in the Discworld series and contains the usual dose of humor and silliness one would expect from Terry Pratchett. While not as funny as Pratchett at his best, the story itself is perhaps stronger than those that have come before.

Star by Star, by Troy Denning: No Star Wars novel needs to run 600 pages, not even one written by Matthew Stover...which this one was not. Ye s, there are two rather large, significant events which occurred in this novel, but even building to those two events...400 pages, tops. The first half of Star by Star drags a bit, especially coming after two fast paced, pleasing entries by Greg Keyes. This was the ninth volume in the New Jedi Order series (of 19) and for all the darkness which has come before, Star by Star takes a turn for the worse (the two aforementioned events). By the end Denning picked up the pace of his storytelling and things improved, but the first half of Star by Star is rough going after the smooth sailing of Greg Keyes.

The Man of My Dreams, by Curtis Sittenfeld: Author Sittenfeld follows up her bestselling and acclaimed novel Prep with The Man of My Dreams, another quick reading novel about a girl growing up and the relationships she forms and fails at. This time the protagonist is Hannah Gavenor. Hannah is a bit of an outcast, never quite knowing the right thing to say and never quite fitting in with any crowd. In chapter long episodes (each taking place at a progressively later part of her life, from her teenaged years to her late twenties), Sittenfeld gives the reader sufficient glimpse into Hannah's life and we see her growth and in some cases, lack of growth. Hannah never really bemoans her lack of experience with men, but she notes it several times and in comparison we have her cousin Fig, who, to quote Renee Zellweger's character in Empire Records, is "a turbo slut". Still, Hannah tries very hard to fit in. She eventually finds men (or a man finds her) late in college years and while Hannah would potentially dispute this, she is ultimately defined by her relationships (or lack thereof) with men.

Some of the prep-school-charm of Prep is lost in The Man of My Dreams and while I am not sure where the line is, I think that The Man of My Dreams falls into the sub genre of "chick-lit" than it does in the category of "just a good book", which is where I'd place Prep. I read plenty of genre novels (SFF, not chick lit), so I know the danger of categorizing novels as just a genre novel, but there are those novels which are decent stories within the genre, and then there are the novels which rise above any genre label and are simply good, no matter where there are space ships, magic schools, or girls in prep schools. While Prep rose above the genre label it could have been slapped with, I am not so confident that The Man of My Dreams does. Curtis Sittenfeld is a talented writer and her novels have both been fast paced affairs which are enjoyable to read, so I expect further good things from Miss Sittenfeld. The Man of My Dreams is not a misfire, but neither did it connect on all four (or six) cylinders.