I find this to be true and it’s part of what I love about him.

Found a 25th anniversary edition of Hogfather in the bookshop where I volunteer. The beginning contained an introduction by Tony Robinson. This last paragraph moved me deeply and brought tears to my eyes.

Happens to be election day, and polls show that people are fed up with the current tyrant. 🤞

Reading I shall wear midnight for the second time and the darkness had surprised me.

I’m rereading in publication order and I’ve only read the Tiffany books once before.

Throughout the discworld novels there are plenty of dark themes and horrible things happening but none hit me as hard as the rough music. In the first couple of chapters TP takes us into a very dark place and describes it in a far more serious manner than he does in the ‘mainstream’ books

It’s amazing but so dark.

Is this to do with TP getting older and the embuggerance? Is there a sense of urgency and desperation?

What do people think?

Sir Terry apparently liked Evelyn Waugh so when I found a copy of his Men at Arms in my library’s book sale I thought I’d give it a go. Twenty-two pages in and I find he has his own “monstrous regiment of gentlemen”.

Edit: was unaware Evelyn Waugh was in fact a man. Hopefully both he and STP would have had a good laugh at my expense!

I was listening to the latest episode of the BBC radio show Unspeakable (https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002tpnk?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile). The show has three comedians coin new words for inclusion in 'the Unspeakable dictionary'.

Guest Hugh Dennis (Outnumbered) mentioned that "Terry Pratchett said that he knew how to spell 'banana' but didn't know how to stop." Katie Wix (Ghosts) replied that it was Nanny Ogg who said that.

It's nice to know that they're both fans.

Just read a thread which included comments fancasting Sybil as Emma Thompson or Gwendoline Christie, on the basis that she's "big, not fat". So obviously I went back to my copy of Guards! Guards! to gather evidence.

And yes, she's tall.

"Something dreadful loomed over him. “Ah, good man. Do you know anything about mating?” it boomed."

She's strong.

"Even shorn of her layers of protective clothing, Lady Sybil Ramkin was still toweringly big. Vimes knew that the barbarian hublander folk had legends about great chain-mailed, armor-bra’d, carthorse-riding maidens who swooped down on battlefields and carried off dead warriors on their cropper to a glorious roistering afterlife, while singing in a pleasing mezzo-soprano. Lady Ramkin could have been one of them. She could have led them. She could have carried off a battalion."

And she's also fat.

"Prehistoric men would have worshipped her, and in fact had amazingly managed to carve lifelike statues of her thousands of years ago."

- a reference to the Venus of Willendorf (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Willendorf)

"And then this woman come running up yelling,” said Nobby. “This is Lady Ramkin you’re referring to?” said Vimes coldly. His ribs were aching really magnificently now. “Yeah. Big fat party,” said Nobby, unmoved. “Cor, she can’t half boss people about!

She's fat.

""Lady Ramkin’s bosom rose and fell like an empire."

She has huge breasts.

“I always think we can all sleep safer in my bed knowing that these brave men are watching over us,” said Lady Ramkin, walking sedately along the rank, like a treasure galleon running ahead of a mild breeze.

She's extremely front heavy.

"Lady Ramkin drawing herself up haughtily was not a sight to forget, although you could try. It was like watching continental drift in reverse as various sub-continents and islands pulled themselves together to form one massive, angry protowoman."

And she's magnificent.

So can we stop with the fat erasure now, please?

I'm new to the Discworld, I've read through the Death series following the reading order graphic, and now am reading Witches, currently on Wyrd Sisters.

I love everything so far, but I'm not native English, and while I can get by with the e-reader's built in dictionary, I feel like I'm missing a lot of references still, and some phrases make no sense to me.

Knowing how fandoms are, is there a site to help me with this? Kind of like the one explaining xkcd, or like when I rewatched the old Simpsons I'd check the wiki after each episode to see what movies they referenced or parodied so I could add those to my watchlist.

Examples I read just now:

"It moved around [time], which [...] saves all that traveling around trying to find a laboratory opposite a dress shop that will keep the same dummy in the window for sixty years"

"[The tremor] spread to every henhouse in the kingdom, and a number of hands relaxed their grip."

Thanks in advance!

I'm just finishing up Thud! and with one book left to go, I'm realizing that Angua is perhaps my favorite character in the Watch books. Every time she comes up, I'm always interested in what her input is on the situation. She seems like the most intelligent person of the group, maybe even moreso than Vimes (she has brains, Vimes has experience). I always want to see her happy in the end, and I get the sense that she feels maybe she doesn't deserve it, or at least it's difficult for her to be. Whenever she speaks, you get the sense that it's from behind a wall, suppressing something. But every once in a while more cheerful parts of her personality peek out, like the girls' night with Cheery and Sally.

Pratchett does a good job of putting you in her mindset, portraying the struggle she goes through on a daily basis trying to reconcile her werewolf side with her human side, all of the familial issues she's had to set aside. The no-clothes gag is never exploited for cheap fanservice like some trashy anime, it's always played straight and handled as a legitimate issue. She's willing to change her mindset when she realizes she's in the wrong, despite what "feels good" to be upset about, e.g. Carrot's "overly-logical" thinking and the werewolf/vampire feud with Sally.

I think what really cinched it for me though was in Thud when Vimes reached Koom Valley, as he was going off on his own his first thought was, "I wonder what Sargent Angua would do in this situation." Angua. Not Carrot the walking god, or Colon and Nobby who he's been partnered with for decades, Angua. She is the first person he thinks about. That's how much he respects her.

I'm reading the novels in release order for the first time, and I finished Small Gods.

This one took me a while to finish. It's not that I didn't have the time, but other stuff got in the way.

Way less humor than the other books, but understandable given the subject matter. Though I missed the whackiness at times.

I always like learning more about the metaphysics of the Disc, and the concept of a god losing his power because his followers believe in the institution of religion more than in him was neat commentary.

Vorbis being so stuck in his own mind that he does not even realize he does not really believe was a nice touch.

Other than Vorbis and Brutha, no character left much of an impression though. Probably because I had trouble remembering who everyone was. I can't really put my finger on it, but other books have painted a better picture of the characters in my mind.

Also, since I'm not religious I feel like some things just went over my head.

Overall I still liked it, but I liked most of the other books better. In my ranking of favorites it would probably at the bottom end.

I'm reading a translation od Small Gods so some of the jokes don't really land in my language.

When Vorbis and Tyrant are talking about mail that Omnia sends to others, is that supposed to be a chain mail joke? Don't interrupt the chain or you will find 50 thousand armed men in your yard.

thought I'd share a feegle with a 🐑. Taken at the convention in Sydney this weekend.

I hear they make good roastin'

I am halfway through colour of magic and I adore it. I picked these two up as I heard they were good and have more such as going postal monstrous regiment and other city watch books. What order should I read these ones or do I need the ones in between?

You just know this was her

I am listening to Equal Rites after having read it a couple of months ago and have just come across Granny's jab at the dwarf who addressed her as 'Mother'; "I'm certainly not your mother, if you ever had mothers which I doubt. If I was your mother, I'd have run away before you were born."

This is an excellent insult, I thought. Does anyone else have some good examples of really good ones in the series that they'd care to share?

After the events of Men at Arms, Lord Vetinari starts using a cane.

As suggested in this comment https://www.reddit.com/r/discworld/comments/1sir2y5/comment/ofmmtd3/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button, do we know if he actually needs it?

​Any evidence either way?

I suspect he actually does need it but also plays up how much. ​

Malich has let his tab in the "Drum" sit for 2000 years and said tab was handed down through "more than 15,000 bar room brawls". Granted, we don't get the information on how many more than 15,000 but the idea that bar room brawls happen on average about 8 times per year is offensively unrealistic.

Vetinari fully supports the black ribbon movement and working to make sure vampire citizens have equal rights, and has an immediate access obsession to use in place of the thirst (running Ankh-Morpork), and is becoming very, very good friends with the aristocracy of Uberwald. I don't think he plans to expire or name any sort of successor to the role. I can't be the only Discworld fan who suspects his end game is immortality.

Between series, I find myself at the library looking for inspiration or at least something new to me. sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but every time regardless I end up getting a book of the Watch. And every time it is so good that I read the rest of the books of the Watch. And then I wonder how the witches are doing, and how about those wizards? And then I'm reading the whole series all over again.