Bobby Ingram > Recent Status Updates

The Nac Mac Feegle spark joy

Daily Rob Anybody:
“At a time like this, too,” said Miss Treason, laying down the shamble. She paused for a moment and said: “I will die the day after tomorrow. On Friday, just before half past six in the morning.”
It was an impressive statement, and did not deserve this reply: “Oh, that’s a shame, tae be missin’ the weekend like that,” said Rob Anybody. “Are ye goin’ somewhere nice?”

Daily Rob Anybody:
The Chalk Hill Feegles, on the other hand, were more at home with the drinkin’, stealin’, and fightin’, and Rob Anybody was good at all three. But he’d learned to read and write because Jeannie had asked him to. He did them with a lot more optimism than accuracy, Billy knew. When he was faced with a long sentence, he tended to work out a few words and then have a great big guess.

Daily Granny Weatherwax:
Granny Weatherwax wasn’t popular with anyone much—except when they needed her. When Death was standing by the cradle or the axe slipped in the woods and blood was soaking into the moss, you sent someone hurrying to the cold, gnarly little cottage in the clearing. When all hope was gone, you called for Granny Weatherwax, because she was the best.
And she always came. Always. But popular? No.

Daily Vimes + Death:
“Is it?” he insisted. “Is this it? This time I die?”
COULD BE.
“Could be? What sort of answer is that?” said Vimes.
A VERY ACCURATE ONE. YOU SEE, YOU ARE HAVING A NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE, WHICH INESCAPABLY MEANS THAT I MUST UNDERGO A NEAR-VIMES EXPERIENCE. DON’T MIND ME. CARRY ON WITH WHATEVER YOU WERE DOING. I HAVE A BOOK.

I'm a simple man. I read a Watch book, I enjoy a Watch book

Daily Brick:
“Do you want a lawyer?”
“No, I ate already.”
“You eat lawyers?” said Carrot.
Brick gave him an empty stare until sufficient brain had been mustered.
...
“What I meant,” said Carrot, “was when we talk to you, do you want someone to be on your side?”
“Yes please. Everyone,” said Brick promptly.

Daily Vimes:

“We could handle them, though, couldn’t we, sir?” said Carrot. “With the golem officers on our side, too? If it came to it?”
Of course we couldn’t, Vimes’s mind supplied, not if they mean it. What we could is die valiantly. I’ve seen men die valiantly. There’s no future in it.

Daily Vimes:

Vimes had never got on with any game much more complex than darts. Chess in particular had always annoyed him. It was the dumb way the pawns went off and slaughtered their fellow pawns while the kings lounged about doing nothing that always got to him; if only the pawns united, maybe talked the rooks around, the whole board could've been a republic in a dozen moves.

Daily Nobby:
“Don’t say it like that, Sarge.” Nobby sounded a little hurt. “This is modern times. And she’s got class, Tawneee has. She even brings her own pole. No hanky-panky.”
“But, I mean…showin’ her body off in lewd ways, Nobby! Dancing around without her vest and practic’ly no drawers on. Is that any way to behave?”
Nobby considered this deep metaphysical question from various angles.
“Er…yes?” he ventured.

Daily Pratchett:
That’s why it was left to wizards, who knew how to handle it safely. Not doing any magic at all was the chief task of wizards—not “not doing magic” because they couldn’t do magic, but not doing magic when they could do and didn’t. Any ignorant fool can fail to turn someone else into a frog. You have to be clever to refrain from doing it when you knew how easy it was.

Daily Pratchett:
When Banks Fail, It Is Seldom Bankers Who Starve. Your Actions Have Taken Money From Those Who Had Little Enough To Begin With. In A Myriad Small Ways You Have Hastened The Deaths Of Many. You Did Not Know Them. You Did Not See Them Bleed. But You Snatched Bread From Their Mouths And Tore Clothes From Their Backs. For Sport, Mr. Lipvig. For Sport. For The Joy Of The Game

Pretty sure I've seen this cited as a popular "Best Discworld novel" choice, so I am excited.

Daily opening paragraph:
THEY SAY THAT the prospect of being hanged in the morning concentrates a man’s mind wonderfully; unfortunately, what the mind inevitably concentrates on is that, in the morning, it will be in a body that is going to be hanged.

Daily Rob Anybody:
“Will ye hush yer gob, ye big mudlin!” shouted Rob Anybody, standing up. “I am no’ deid! I’m trying to have a moment o’ existential dreed here, right? Crivens, it’s a puir lookout if a man canna feel the chilly winds o’ fate lashing aroound his nethers wi’out folks telling him he’s deid, eh?”

Love the Nac Mac Feegle so much

Daily Pratchett:

The Nac Mac Feegle are the most dangerous of the fairy races, particularly when drunk. They love drinking, fighting, and stealing, and will in fact steal anything that is not nailed down. If it is nailed down, they will steal the nails as well.

Daily Pratchett:
‘Then you’ve never heard of the Amazon warriors of Samothrip? The most fearsome fighting force for hundreds of years. All women! Absolutely merciless in battle! They were deadly with the longbow, although in order to get maximum draw they had to cut off one of their, um...er...I say, you ladies haven’t been cutting off your, um, er...’
‘No, we haven’t cut off any um ers, sir. Only hair.’

Daily Pratchett:
‘But Lieutenant Blouse—’
‘The rupert should stick to sums. He thinks he’s a soldier. Never walked on a battlefield in his life. All that rubbish he gave your man was death-or-glory stuff. And I’ll tell you, Perks, I’ve seen Death more often than I care to remember, but I’ve never clapped eyes on Glory.

Time to be depressed about how timeless the war machine satire from a quarter century ago remains again!

Daily Pratchett:
Too many young men had left over the last few years, and not enough had come back. And, of the ones who’d come back, sometimes not enough of each man had come back. The corporal could bang his big drum all he liked. Munz was running out of sons almost as fast as it accumulated widows.

I'm gonna quite enjoy the Tiffany books

Daily Pratchett
That wasnt a lie. In fact, it was completely true, even if it wasnt exactly accurate. Tiffany was on the whole quite a truthful person, but it seemed to her that there were times when things didnt divide easily into true and false, but instead could be things that people needed to know at the moment and things that they didnt need to know at the moment.

I usually talk about how he manages to be so funny so subtly, but this book, while also funny, has been a nice reminder he is just a brilliant writer, full stop. The absolute tension of being in the head of someone ahead of a tragedy who knows what's coming as he tries to fight it is INTENSE. This has been more than outstanding.

Pratchett's take on "character sent back into own past" is, unsurprisingly, quite brilliant.

Daily Vimes:
That was always the dream, wasn’t it? ‘I wish I’d known then what I know now’? But when you got older you found out that you now wasn’t you then. You then was a twerp. You then was what you had to be to start out on the rocky road of becoming you now, and one of the rocky patches on that road was being a twerp.

Oh, yes, gonna like this one

Daily His Grace the Duke of Ankh, Commander of the City Watch, Sir Samuel Vimes:
But the helmet had gold decoration, and the bespoke armourers had made a new, gleaming breastplate with useless gold ornamentation on it. Sam Vimes felt like a class traitor every time he wore it. He hated being thought of as one of those people that wore stupid ornamental armour. It was gilt by association.

Daily Pratchett:
Keith looked up. His eyes narrowed. He got to his feet.
Here it comes, thought Maurice. He’s going to leap forward with superhuman strength because he’s so angry and they’re going to wish he’d never been born …
Keith leapt forward with ordinary human strength, landed one punch on Rat-catcher 1 and was smacked to the floor again by a big, brutal, sledgehammer blow.

Daily Pratchett:
She leaned against the wall with incredible nonchalance. There was not a click. A panel in the floor did not slide back. ‘Probably the wrong place,’ she said. ‘I’ll just rest my arm innocently on this coat hook.’ A sudden door in the wall completely failed to happen. ‘Of course, it’d help if there was an ornate candlestick,’ said Malicia. ‘They’re always a sure-fire secret passage lever."

Apparently his first YA. Stars a talking cat and talking rats. Love it

Daily Maurice:
A sense of smell that was, as far as Maurice could understand it, almost as good as sight and sound and speech all put together. For example, the rat always turned to face Maurice and looked directly at him when he spoke. It was uncanny. Maurice had known a blind cat that walked into doors a lot, but Dangerous Beans never did that.

Daily Rincewind:
Carrot sighed. ‘You're just a coward really, aren't you?’
‘Yes, but I've never understood what's wrong with the idea. It takes guts to run away, you know. Lots of people would be as cowardly as me if they were brave enough.’

Daily Cohen:
‘But there's lots more a proper historian could tell you—’ said the minstrel.
‘Hah!’ said Cohen. ‘It's what ordin'ry people remember that matters. It's songs and sayin's. It doesn't matter how you live and die, it's how the bards wrote it down.’

Daily Death:
THINGS WILL HAVE COME TO A PRETTY PASS, ALBERT, IF I DID NOT KNOW WHETHER A THING WAS DEAD OR ALIVE WITHOUT HAVING TO GO AND LOOK.
‘Er… the way the theory goes, sir, it's the act of lookin' that determines if it's alive or not.’
Death looked hurt. ARE YOU SUGGESTING I WILL KILL THE CAT JUST BY LOOKING AT IT?
‘It's not quite like that, sir.’
I MEAN, IT'S NOT AS IF I MAKE FACES OR ANYTHING.

Daily Cohen the Barbarian:
‘Oh, there's always villains!’ said Evil Harry.
‘No, there's vicious evil underhand bastards, true enough. But they use laws now. They'd never call themselves Evil Harry.’
‘Men who don't know the Code,’ said Boy Willie. Everyone nodded. You mightn't live by the law but you had to live by the Code.
‘Men with bits of paper,’ said Caleb.

Daily Pratchett:
Not a muscle moved on the Patrician's face.
‘Pardon me, I'm a little out of date on faculty staff,’ he said. ‘Are you the one who has to take the dried frog pills?’
‘No, sir. That's the Bursar, sir,’ said Ponder. ‘He has to have them because he's insane, sir.’
‘Ah,’ said Lord Vetinari, and now he did have an expression. It was that of a man resolutely refraining from saying what was on his mind.