AAKIBA Small Bookclub discussion

This thread may contain spoilers.
Please put anything plot-related under Spoiler tag, or if you are not sure just Spoiler your whole post.

"This is where the dragons went. They lie... not dead, not asleep, but... dormant. And although the space they occupy isn't like normal space, nevertheless they are packed in tightly. They could put you in mind of a can of sardines, if you thought sardines were huge and scaly. And presumably, somewhere, there's a key..."

Start Date: October 17th, 2025 | Planned Schedule: (30 minutes / 25 pages per day), total of 370+ pages over 2 weeks.

Started reading!

(view spoiler)[miffs (hide spoiler)]

Sweet~ I plan on starting my reading this Sunday or Monday (since it's Deepavali holiday).

started also

I'm currently at 33% so I may finish this a little bit late 😅

It's interesting so far, although written different than I'm used to, but not in a bad way. I have a feeling I may have liked the witches story more as an alternate entry point to the series than the city watch story, since I don't like drunken men too much, but the intrigue of the dragon plot is pretty cool :)

Checking in on everyone's progress~~~

I think I may need another week as well. can probably finish this weekend but I don't wanna rush my readings.

so far it feels like it's trying to be humorous but the humour doesn't get through me ^^"

It reads kind of like "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" to me but maybe less random. I will need more time also what with work and all. But will try to finish within next week ~

So... I think I only like Carrot tbh. Everyone else have colourful personality, but I like straight upright people like Carrot :'D

I like the Hitchhiker's Guide comparison. I think unlike Adams, whose strength is in his characters, Pratchett's strength is pretty obviously in his worldbuilding. The absurdism is pretty comparably well-paced, but while I don't think Pratchett's characters are badly written, I think they can almost have too much depth in a sense. There's very little hand-holding with the writing. While it is enjoyable continuously, I liked Going Postal a lot more in terms of something with the potential to pick it up and put it down. I had similar issues with Colour of Magic — I could read through a bunch of it continuously but as soon as I put it down, I struggle to pick it up again.

I'd love to see a TTRPG set in Discworld. I think I need a bit more to latch onto in terms of the fantasy reading side of things.

I think Pratchett might want us to feel more evolution in some of the characters than is actually there, in a sense. Maybe I'm just missing something. I don't feel like the characters are one-dimensional or anything like that. I'd say a better word is "static". A lot of the characters feel static in a way that reminds me of a slice of life story, which on some level Pratchett's writing is.

This somewhat unchanging nature can lead to an overwhelming feeling because there's a sense of more detail than fits the lack of change.

I actually finished this (... today). I think the chapterless format makes it a little hard for me to set reading goals, and daunting to come back to it. But I slowly chipped away.

I set out wanting to like it because of Pratchett's reputation. I did end up liking it but it didn't really feel like much special, like I set my expectations too high. The beginning half was difficult for me to get through because I was not interested in the characters or the plot. The second half though after the, let's say, midpoint twist/turn of events? I liked it a lot more after that, I was interested in finding out what the characters would do and how it would resolve.

The humor felt self-important, or perhaps just British, the kind of humor where like yeah I get it but I'm not gonna laugh. Some of the situational humor is pretty funny though.

My favorite characters were the Librarian, Carrot, and the Patrician.