Fantasy Book Club discussion

Are you planning to read? Or have you read?

I'll start as soon I'm done with the one in my hands "Spy Glass," shouldn't be long :)

I'd love to read it, but I've never read any of the Discworld series. Does order matter or can I pretty much just pick it up?

You don't need to read Pratchett in order. :)

I love Discworld. Pratchett is a favorite author. I read this when I first started reading his work so I don't remember much about it. So yes I will be reading this next month.

Will start reading it as soon as I am done with A Clash of Kings. Really looking forward to it, I love Death.

That didn't sound right.

Will start reading it soon. I've seen the movie and liked it a lot. "Susan" is wonderful!

Liang wrote: "I'd love to read it, but I've never read any of the Discworld series. Does order matter or can I pretty much just pick it up?"

Pretty much. If you're someone who needs everything spelled out, you might be a little perplexed here and there, because you'll miss some backstory - but nothing that's essential to the plot and/or that you can't glean from the book itself. You'll also miss some in-jokes here and there, and be mildly spoiled regarding one or two events in earlier books, but I wouldn't worry too much. Basically, as long as you're not a complete purist, there's no real reason not to read Hogfather as your first Discworld book.

[In an earlier thread I outlined what I thought were the main background points it might be helpful to know. But I seriously wouldn't worry too much about it.]

On the original question: yeah, I re-read Hogfather when the group was nominating it. It wasn't earth-shakingly brilliant, but it was certainly very good, and very enjoyable (and very funny!). Reassured me that my happy memories of earlier Discworld books weren't just nostaligia.

Max wrote: "Will start reading it as soon as I am done with A Clash of Kings. Really looking forward to it, I love Death.

That didn't sound right."

LOL!!

Max, I'm completely with you. Death is one of the most hilarious characters ever written. To me, Death is the epitome of that wonderful dry British humor that I just love to -well- death.

I'm about 20% through the Hogfather, I'm really enjoying it so far. Its definitly a nice break as its been sandwiched between reading GRRM. I think my husband is starting to be concerned by my seemingly random hysterical laugher while reading :)

Next on my list, just need to finish Tigana.

Ya, I'm going to read this and never read it before.

I've read this ages ago, but can't remember it. I will read it but have a few in front. I too am finishing Tigana - which I love!

I'll be reading it in a week or so.

I have never read any of Terry Pratchett's books as for some reason I thought that they were for children. Now looking forward to picking it up and having a giggle.

I'll be reading it, hopefully by this weekend. December will be a very busy month.

Jacinta wrote: "I have never read any of Terry Pratchett's books as for some reason I thought that they were for children. Now looking forward to picking it up and having a giggle."

Well, some of them are. The Johnny Maxwell books, the Tiffany Aching books, the Bromeliad... and frankly, many of the early discworld books are more suited to teenagers than to adults. And until the later books, I'd say Discworld is very well geared toward children. It's just that it's also, mostly, very good reading for adults as well. [It does this by speaking up to children, rather than by speaking down to adults].

I've read random discworld novels, and havent had any problem following the story, so you don't really need to know anything about it.
I will read it although I don't like Terry Prachet's books. However, I insist on giving him chances.
I'll start when I'm done with my Y.A. read
Why am I reading this? I needed a change of pace :P. Don't judge me!

Pratchett is a new discovery for me. My partner (that has a full tower of faded and well-read paperbacks in the disc world series) turned me onto "The Color of Magic", which quickly resulted in a few others. The films were quite good. I hear that the plot was quite different in some ways compared to the book, so I am looking forward to it. Besides it is perfect for Christmas!!!! Actually, we just watched the 3hr "Going Postal" the other night. Excellent! Still, I need to read the series. You could run a parallel reading thread of Discworld where we read one of them every month..... ; -)

I just realized that there are a metric ton of discworld books and I own... 6 of them, from which I have only read three or four. I guess my reading list for 2012 has just become a lot bigger, since I loved every single pratchett I have read to date.

I'm going to skip this one. I've read a couple of Pratchett's disc world series, but I'm set on reading a few biographies in December.

Catch you all next month.

I've read (and enjoyed) it a couple of times; I also saw the BBC miniseries, which I quite liked. Most recent was on a family vacation; I think I was reading 1.5-2 Discworld books/day on that particular trip . . .

(In the pre-Kindle era, the way I'd prepare for a vacation would be to take my backpack and jam in a ridiculous quantity of paperbacks -- one year it was all the Discworld books, one year it was a bunch of Robert A. Heinlein juveniles, one year a bunch of Tanith Lee, etc., etc.)

That made me laugh! All that heavy luggage we used to carry...

just started last night, and the first line was
"Everything starts somewhere, although many physicists disagree"
I know I'm going to love this book :)

"(In the pre-Kindle era, the way I'd prepare for a vacation would be to take my backpack and jam in a ridiculous quantity of paperbacks -- one year it was all the Discworld books, one year it was a bunch of Robert A. Heinlein juveniles, one year a bunch of Tanith Lee, etc., etc.)"


I should have done that, too. Every vacation, I only packed one or two books, read them and then stared blankly at a wall until we went to a bookstore. I don't know what I even wanted in france. I mean, come on, france ;-).

I think I will pass on reading this now, because if I do read it I want to have read the previous death books first. I know it's said that you can read it even if you haven't read any of the other books, but I just don't want to miss out on anything :P.

Ditto, Yvonne.

I love to participate group reads, but when it comes series, I'm an insufferable purist; every book should be read in intended order. Discworld is the series I frequently remind myself to start reading but quantity of books make it look like quite a commitment is required.So, I'll pass.

If you haven't read other Death books and plan to...there is something that might be spoiled by reading out of order. But to be honest Pratchett books, for the most part, aren't really plot driven. It's hard to explain. You get attached to and like characters but not to the level of someone like Hobb's Fitz. I guess I would kind of compare him to a sitcom. But that's not exactly right either...
I respect anyone's choice not to join in the read but each Discworld book is basically a standalone.

Ena wrote: "I love to participate group reads, but when it comes series, I'm an insufferable purist; every book should be read in intended order. Discworld is the series I frequently remind myself to start rea..."
Well, the longest discworld book I have found was 500 pages, and the pages are not very densely filled (Compared to the 1000 pages of Clash of Kings at least), so you can make good speed through them, especially since they are so much fun to read. So, I guess you could read all 30 pratchett books in the time it takes you to read the wheel of time (Disclaimer: I havent read it yet, but I heard the books are pretty big). All in all, it's probably worth it, because, well, it's pratchett. ;-).

Max wrote: "Ena wrote: "I love to participate group reads, but when it comes series, I'm an insufferable purist; every book should be read in intended order. Discworld is the series I frequently remind myself ..."

Thanks for the information. Knowing this encourages me toward the series. I'm so used to seeing around 800 pages per book series, I assumed Discworld is such.

Hi, all. I just joined the group a month or two ago, and this will be my first group read (didn't have time to do Tigana). It will also be my first Pratchett - I have heard so much praise of the Discworld series I'd been meaning to try one for a while but wasn't sure where to start.

Each Pratchett book takes me 1-2 days to read. They're pretty fast easy reads.

@Guidenstern (just had to, love the name), hope you enjoy the book. I started last night and it seems like a good example so far of the Pratchett wit.

I thought about it, but recently saw the movie which I liked and don't really feel in the mood to read the book.

Just started reading this, I can relate to why I did not like Pratchett's previous books, I don't understand his dry humour, or actually let me say I didn't understand it. So far I'm actually enjoying it and it's making sense, so let's keep our fingers crossed :P

Have read and loved it. Then again Terry is one of my gods.

I hope to read this one in December. It's been sitting on my shelf for a while now. Plus DEATH is such a fun character.

This was the first Discworld novel I read and it set me collecting all of them :) Loved it, and agree that Death is a great character!

I have read this book and it's a tradition for my daughter and I to watch it for Christmas. I'm a big fan of Terry Pratchett. Death is one of the most interesting characters I've read.

It would seem Pratchett is no longer on the plan, I must've lent my copy to someone. If I can get hold of one I shall read otherwise...

I just started it this weekend and am finding it quite enjoyable. And agree Death is quite funny.

I'm starting to get confused, as is the case with all of my Pratchet experiences. However, I will fight on, especially since Death is so cute, yes I said cute.

I'm in the middle of Brisingr right now, but as soon as I finish it, I plan on snatching up Hogfather. :)

I've only read one Pratchett book before this (The Color of Magic), and I've heard that though it's good as a stand alone, Hogfather is easier to appreciate in context with all of the other books that preceded it, because of the familiarity with the characters, etc. Would anyone agree with that, or no?

Anatha wrote: "I've only read one Pratchett book before this (The Color of Magic), and I've heard that though it's good as a stand alone, Hogfather is easier to appreciate in context with all of the other books that preceded it, because of the familiarity with the characters, etc. Would anyone agree with that, or no?"

Certainly not the entire series. It might be nice to have read the previous books about Death (Mort and Reaper Man and am I forgetting any?) to have an introduction to the characters, but the story is essentially standalone. When I started reading the Discworld books, large chunks of them weren't even available in US editions, so I'd just read whatever I could lay hands on in whatever order, and I don't think I suffered any ill effects . . .

Usually I say Pratchett is fine to read out of order...but in this case I have to agree a familiarity would help. It's not required. And there's no spoilers for previous books. But it's a little hard to get the connection between Death and Susan in this one alone.

And to be honest even though I'm a Pratchett fan and have read all the Death books, years ago, I did get a little confused reading this for the groupread.

Traci wrote: "Usually I say Pratchett is fine to read out of order...but in this case I have to agree a familiarity would help. It's not required. And there's no spoilers for previous books. But it's a little ha..."

I thought it was pretty clear she's his granddaughter. Is there more to get than that?

No. I didn't mean the family connection but the emotional connection. In other books the emotional connection seems a little more to me. It seemed distant here. IMO.

I have't read the other death books and I'm finding it a little bit hard to follow. I can't tell if I'm supposed to already know what Pratchet is reffering to, or if it's going to be explained later on in the book. It's proving to be a bit of a tedious read.

Traci wrote: "No. I didn't mean the family connection but the emotional connection. In other books the emotional connection seems a little more to me. It seemed distant here. IMO."

Oh, I see.