wilderthan | Entries tagged with terry pratchett

The Colour of Magic (Terry Pratchett)

The first Discworld book, in publishing order, is pretty fun. It's also pretty light, a bit scatter-brained: funny without really sticking in my mind. There's something compelling about it, but at the same time it's far from what it could be -- far from being, say, like Good Omens. Still, I know that Pratchett's writing changes and develops throughout the series, and this was enjoyable -- I'll be reading the rest, eventually.

My favourite thing about this book was the Luggage. I just... found it adorable, somehow.

Despite liking it in a vague sort of smiling-at-it way, I don't have much to say about it.

An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (P. D. James)

Read for my Crime Fiction class. This one certainly wasn't talked up at all by the lecturer, which didn't help, but her comment that "Gray" is a very appropriate name for this female detective is unfortunately true. The whole book was drab and gray for me: the writing was never exciting, the tension never had me curious to read on, the characters rarely compelled me -- the only character I found interesting was the murdered boy, who I felt sorry for.

I'm sure this must be somehow influential or interesting in terms of Crime Fiction, but I couldn't get into it or enjoy it and I'm not planning to write an essay about it. The writing -- the actual mechanics of it, the characters, all of it -- is entirely functional, but entirely uninspired. Part of this might be me as a reader, and the world I've grown up in, of course. The idea of a female detective is no longer surprising, for one thing.

I've read some Pratchett before, quite a while ago, and don't remember much about it, and of course, I've read Good Omens, the book he wrote with Neil Gaiman. So Nation isn't exactly an introduction to Pratchett for me, but maybe a reintroduction. As far as I can tell it isn't exactly typical of Pratchett, since it stands completely alone.

I liked it. I didn't get that into it, really, but I was still interested enough to keep turning the pages and finish it in one day -- not quite interested enough to stop me browsing my bookshelves for something else to read alongside it, though. It's set in an alternate universe to this one and there's a lot of world-building and discussion of belief and people's reasons for it, and making a community. And there's a real grief in it, too, and people trying to deal with the grief. The little community, trying to figure out a life from what's left behind after a tidal wave, is interesting. But it never really sparked with me, somehow.

There are definitely some awesome quotes in it, though. I especially liked the one about being in a Jane Austen novel, except with less clothes. And the King being thoroughly 'daughtered'. I recognise this as a truth: it happens even with me and my dad.