/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.660858]

discworld thread

gooooo

[Anonymous No.660868]

Haven't read any past Making Money. There's a couple new ones, aren't there?

[Anonymous No.660866]

I quite like discworld.

[Anonymous No.660873]

yes
Unseen Academicals and I Shall Wear Midnight

[Anonymous No.660872]

I need to read it.

[Anonymous No.660885]

Jingo is where it's at

[Anonymous No.660894]

I save the discworld novels for when i'm having a very bad day. I have making money and unseen academicals set aside for the next time I need some major cheering up :)

[Anonymous No.660908]

Humor and fantasy?

[Anonymous No.660933]

I Shall Wear Midnight is the tiffany aching series ? never really got into that one, maybe too girly/childish ?
unseen achademicals sounds great though, i'm waiting for it to come out in paperback... or has it yet ?

[Anonymous No.660968]

>>660855
Ｒ E Ｍ ｏ ｖ ｅ Ｙ Ｏ u R Ｉ L l e ｇ a l C l o Ｎ E Ｏ Ｆ A t Ｃ ｈ R i ｓ ｔ Ｏ ｐ ｈ E r P o O l ｅ Ｈ t Ｔ ｐ : / / 8 ➇ . ➇ 0 . ❷ ➀ . ➀ ❷ / ｉ S t ｈ E O r ｉ g Ｉ N A l ｆ ａ ｇ Ｇ o ｔ

[Anonymous No.660991]

i liked it when i was a kid, but then i moved onto real literature and i'm kinda snooty about adults who read it

[Anonymous No.661054]

>>660991
How dare you suggest that the Discworld series is not literature.
Any of the books of the series is better than most of what is widely regarded as "literature." For instance, a random Discworld book will be a million times better than Catcher in the Rye or The Scarlet Letter. Sure, you say, they're good fun, but there's no underlying themes, so it can't be literature.
Who cares? The point of books, of literature, is (overall) to entertain. And you only find themes if you look for them. Anyone who casually read The Scarlet Letter was not constantly saying to themselves, "Oh, yes, look! There's that theme of hypocrisy in the church again!"
And on that point, I daresay that you could find themes and underlying messages in Pratchett's work, but it kind of defeats the purpose. Books are meant to be enjoyed, not analyzed and stripped apart.

[Anonymous No.661059]

>>661054
what are you even doing on this board when you have such contempt for anything apart from children's humour?

[Anonymous No.661072]

>>661059
Implying that because one defends these books and doesn't like Catcher in the Rye, it means they don't like anything but what you define as "children's humour"? Catcher in the Rye is not a good book, it's simply a whiny character bitching for the entirety the novel. It's certainly more juvenile and immature than what you define as childish. Furthermore, how can you assume someone only appreciates "children's humour" based on what information you know? If you honestly read books in order to look for themes and motifs, as opposed to reading them out of enjoyment, shouldn't the question be, why are you on this board? Is it to suck the e-cocks of similarly-minded pseudo-intellectuals who read, not out of the love of reading, but to sound smart?

How very, very pretentious.

[Anonymous No.661075]

>>661059
First of all, the Discworld series is not "children's humor." Yes, there are some books in the series intended for younger readers, but the vast majority are fairly mature. I doubt most children (or you) could catch many of the subtle references to philosophical texts and worldly affairs in the books. Luckily, finding such gems is not required to enjoy the book, it's just a nice bonus.
Secondly, I have contempt for overly-hyped "literature." My view is that people tend to over-analyze many of these books. And The Scarlet Letter and Catcher in the Rye are examples of this. They are mediocre books at best, that have been elevated to the status of divine truth in some people's eyes, and for what? The Scarlet Letter has practically nothing to do with today's society, and Catcher in the Rye is basically an angsty teenager's bitching journal.
Pratchett is extremely entertaining, under-appreciated (at least in the US), and manages some links to reality.

[Croaker !!DDgOIlOdqYI No.661097]

Shit, I know I didn't get Discworld's humour until I was older.

They had those covers with good artwork and as a young teen I thought they looked pretty cool. God, they boring when I read them though.

Came back to them about almost ten years later to if I hadn't missed something. Lo and behold! I realised I hadn't understood quite a lot.

[Anonymous No.661099]

>>661097
Are you in the Black Company?

[Anonymous No.661101]

>>661054
>>661072
>>661075

[Croaker !!DDgOIlOdqYI No.661109]

>>661099

Sure.

[Anonymous No.661130]

>>661075
you know, why can't discworld and the scarlet letter and The Catcher in the Rye, all be good?

i liked Good Omens better then any of the discworld books though.

[Anonymous No.661143]

>>660855
S T Ｅ Ａ l i Ｎ g I S W Ｒ O Ｎ g m R . C H r I s t ｏ ｐ ｈ e r Ｐ Ｏ ｏ l E h ｔ t Ｐ : / / 8 ➇ . ❽ Ｏ . ❷ 1 . 1 2 /

[Anonymous No.661171]

>>661130

Different content and theme. Can't really group them together.

Good Omens is good though, that much I agree.

[Anonymous No.661348]

>>661054
As someone who reads for entertainment, themes do enrich a narrative.

[Anonymous No.661467]

>>661097
>They had those covers with good artwork and as a young teen I thought they looked pretty cool
They had those covers with good artwork
>covers with good artwork
> Discworld books. Good covers.

What the flying fuck? Do you even have eyes?
Implying that those diarrhea stained shit pictures are "art", let alone "good".
Holy fuck, if I hadn't heard good things about Discworld more than once on different boards on 4chan I wouldn't have even touched those horrible abominations.
I have bought and read pretty much all of the books since April last year but the covers still make me barf a bit.

I'm sorry, the books are amazing but I can't help but wonder why the fuck Terry didn't opposed getting those covers (or what he did to get his books stained like that). I know fantasy genre has bad art but Discworld covers are pretty much the worst.

[Anonymous No.661473]

>>661467

U mad? The old artwork fits the books perfectly - they're unashamedly, exaggeratedly pulpy and gnarled to fuckery, all the people are knobbly and screwy and everything has this incredible texture and character. Look at this grinning, gurning chaos on my left and tell me it isn't awesome.

[Anonymous No.661479]

ITT people who distrust ''literature'' because the education system failed. feels badman

[Anonymous No.661484]

>>661473
No it's not.
It's clusterfuck of shit. Horribly ugly drawing, I would be shamed to suggest reading these books based on that kind of cover alone since I live in the part of the world where Terry is not a known author .

Most of the time they are horribly wrong too and give some of the ugliest impressions for the main characters.

[Anonymous No.661492]

>>660933

The Tiffany books are pretty much the continuation of the Witches storylines. Carpe Jugulum kind of implied that all the witches were getting too old for that kind of thing.

[Anonymous No.661503]

Also, I shall wear midnight is supposed to bring up eskarina from equal rites again. Some shit is gonna go down.

[Croaker !!DDgOIlOdqYI No.661505]

>>661484

Each to their own but I love the old artwork. It's better than the new artist's and MUCH better than the adult / mature black covers they've started publishing here.

It's a very distinctive style and obviously it's not your sort of thing. But it stands out, seems oddly fitting for the chaotic nature of the Discworld and is waaaaaayyyy better than most of the shit that gets put on the cover of fantasy novels.

[Anonymous No.661506]

>>661473
>>661484

Now look at this cover from russian (republished) edition, I don't know if the russian company commissioned these covers or have the ripped of from somewhere else (like audiobook covers) but they are so fucking sweet.

Look at it, it doesn't have shitload of things happening all the time, it's short, stylish, simple and has all the essence from the book.

Now, whole series of these kind of books I would proudly put on a shelf where everyone can see them. Sadly russian translation is.... well it's a translation lot's of stuff gets lost/wrong in translations. If you ever view translated material after seeing the original you'll know what I'm talking about. Besides Cyrillic is ugly.

[Croaker !!DDgOIlOdqYI No.661514]

>>661506

That looks like the "adult" covers they've started publishing in the UK.

Which are fine, it's true, but.... they're not Discworld. They're an attempt to neuter the series and turn it into something more acceptable to the mainstream reader. I find that pretty cynical and a corruption of the works and that's why I don't like them, subjectively.

[Anonymous No.661518]

>>661505
(How can you love that shit, I don't get it?)

>>661506
Look at this cover. LOOK AT IT! JUST FUCKING LOOK AT IT!

The "hurr durr" derpface on the left is Granny Weatherwax....
...
THAT IS WEATHERWAX? That literally retarded looking hag is Weatherwax? WHAT THE FUCK?

Have you read any of her books you will know how wrong that fucking cover is.

Almost all of the covers make some of the worst mistakes. Like dwarfs ... dwarf without beards... In a setting where it is established that EVERY MOTHERFUCKING DWARF HAS A MIGHTY BEARDS. EVERY. FUCKING. DWARF. YES, EVEN FEMALES AND CHILDREN. Beards that are so SACRED to dwarfs that shaving them literally means to denounce your dwarfydom, you family, your clan and everything you stand for. And some fucker draws them clean shaved.

I remember looking at cover from Men at Arms and trying to determine the characters (a mighty hard task considering how bad it is drawn). Finally I managed to get a name on every dawnian face except for a short fucker with an axe charging the wrong way. Slowly it dawned to me that it is Cuddy. Blessed be his shorty soul.


And let's not forget Twoflower with 4 physical eyes. Whoever drew him like that must have been really dense retard.

[Anonymous No.661525]

>>661518
So, whatever happened to "Don't judge a book by it's cover"?

[Anonymous No.661526]

>>661518

I make no bones about accurate character representations on the cover and even if everyone was drawn correctly they still probably wouldn't be how I imagined them. That's not important to me.

It's just the style of art I like.

[Anonymous No.661529]

>>661514
I believe the original covers were the ones trying to neuter the series and corrupt them.


Ok, how about this one? Do you not like it either. Do you think it's also mature? It is defiantly not dark ,like the alternate cover for the same book where Moist stands in the spotlight. I like this one better.

But to tell you the truth, I like minimalism and icons more that bunch of characters on the covers (though alternate cove is also good)

[Anonymous No.661536]

>>661525

Like I said from the previous post, if I had never heard about Terry's work before I wouldn't give them a second glance. No matter what people say covers are IMPORTANT (literally and otherwise)

[Anonymous No.661541]

>>661529
Fuck, that is horrible.

Anyway I hope he's finished with the Lipwig arc now, Making Money was a bit of a chore to read for me. I'd love to see one last Watch novel before he goes totally Alzheimers, Thud was my favourite book of the entire Discworld canon.

[Anonymous No.661543]

>>661529

Yeah, I do dislike that cover. It's not trying to be dark or mature, that's fine. But, speaking as a Brit, it's so goddamn American, so bland.

>I believe the original covers were the ones trying to neuter the series and corrupt them.

I'm curious as to why you think this?

>I like minimalism and icons more

I'm all for that too, but it depends on the book. I think the Discworld's original covers were very fitting.

[Anonymous No.661542]

>>661529

Okay, now THAT is a pretty good cover. But mostly I don't think minimalist icoonography is the right approach for Pratchett. I know the individual characters of the old covers don't look like they should in the books. But I never even tried to match person to person. What they present is just the IMPRESSION of absolute chaos, as if all the book's events were compressed into one single frame - one knobbly, weird, twisted frame where EVERYBODY has a 'hurr durr expression' - and that's goddamn glorious.

I'm sure it's partly a childhood thing as well, though, since those old covers are what I grew up reading between. On the other hand I disliked them at the time, for pretty much the reasons you put forward.

[Anonymous No.661549]

>>661526
Do mean the style as in the context (like how the characters are placed, the background) or the way that they are drawn? I wouldn't mind that much if the same pictures was drawn by much better artist.

It's the way that it is drawn that makes me mad. The way that people are drawn like collection of shit logs.

>I make no bones about accurate character representations on the cover and even if everyone was drawn correctly they still probably wouldn't be how I imagined them

Well, I guess my imagination is not really that good. Sometimes I need help in the department of imagining characters and the covers fuck that up so bad.

[Croaker !!DDgOIlOdqYI No.661551]

>>661549

Well, I'm no expert in composition. I do like how the characters are drawn. It's a weird style, for sure, but I'll take it over another fantasy artist who's trying to rip off Rackham again. It's all just personal preferences.

[Anonymous No.661555]

>>661543
>I believe the original covers were the ones trying to neuter the series and corrupt them.
>I'm curious as to why you think this?

Don't know, maybe it's just me. But I don't think so, everyone I've shown these covers were just as repulsed as I was.


I just think that if Terry's work wasn't widely acclaimed (let's say in some horrible alternate dimension he's grossly underrated) most people, except hardcore fantasy nerds, would shun the books just by looking at them.

[Anonymous No.661559]

>>661549

>The way that people are drawn like collection of shit logs.

EXACTLY. How often do you see ugly people in fantasy art? When that art style was conceived it was for the publication of the first Discworld novel in the 80s, which was far more focused on parody of the fantasy genre than the later series. In a world of rippling muscles, big breats and strong faces, all THESE characters look like they've been chewed up and shat out the wrong end of a dog. It's weird, it's funny and it's very distinctive.

I actually never imagine what characters in Discworld novels look like. Pratchett rarely spends much time describing them. Their voices are far more important; they're creations of speech and statement.

[Anonymous No.661562]

>>661551
>Rackham

Who's that?

Quick look at google.

...
..
.

Those are good! Why don't you like them?

[Anonymous No.661570]

Speaking of simple covers.

The place where I bought Small gods from had both this (picture) and this >>661473 covers.

I REALLY wanted to take the book from the left (picture) but for some reason it was about 3.5$ more so I took the one with the original cover.


>>661559
I guess I don't read fantasy much (actually never before Pratchett..... actually I haven't been reading at all before I started with Discworld last year April) to make that distinction. But I know what you are talking about, fantasy covers are in general loads of awful but original Discworld covers didn't take the step in right direction imo.

By the way, here's a site with "amazing" collection of fantasy book covers
http://www.goodshowsir.co.uk/

[Anonymous No.661571]

Kidby is god-tier for Discworld art. The guy is so fucking talented it blows my mind.

[Croaker !!DDgOIlOdqYI No.661578]

>>661562

Rackham's great! Just I've seen far too many people trying to imitate his style (like many LOTR illustrations), that's why the Discworld covers are sort of refreshing.

[Croaker !!DDgOIlOdqYI No.661587]

>By the way, here's a site with "amazing" collection of fantasy book covers http://www.goodshowsir.co.uk/

Ahh, yes, much as I love the Black Company (duh), some of those old covers sucked ass.

Thank god the omnibuses got awesome art.

[Anonymous No.661599]

>>661587

Ok, Black Company has been mentioned twice in this thread.

What is this? And should I read it? Tell me what makes it good.

Since I've read all of Terry's books a while ago (and later some Gaiman's books, though I'm starting to dislike books which are collections of different stories). I'm kind of hungry for more good books.

[Anonymous No.661610]

>>661571
>>661571

Indeed. Last Hero is fucking amazing.
It's a shame he didn't do all the covers for Discworld, he make magic.
I still don't understand people defending original art...

[Croaker !!DDgOIlOdqYI No.661624]

>>661599

TBC is great but stick to the original trilogy (the others are still good but have some real ropey plotting).

It's basically about the grunts in a mercenary company. It ditches many old clichés that had built up until then and they're very good, concise for the genre, reads.