Boy am I glad the election is over. I’d been distracted and irritable for months. But now I’ve finally got all the pieces of my brain back, and it seems I mostly remembered how they fit together. (Obviously this is all predicated on us having won, otherwise I’d be catatonic.)
I can enjoy things so easily now. Brains are wild. One thing I enjoyed today, that I think some of you will appreciate, was a panel discussion about Terry Pratchett. It featured Terry’s longtime collaborator/friend Rob Wilkins; Neil Gaiman; and Terry’s daughter Rhianna Pratchett. We heard lots of cute stories, and I gained some insights into what made Terry tick. Apparently, he was the sort of person who would call you at midnight and invite you to his private observatory for some drinks, and after an hour, ask if you’d like to help him do some work now.
I jotted down some other tidbits in some tweets:
Watching this panel. Very interesting. Apparently Pratchett wanted to abandon Discworld for The Long Earth in the 80s(!). Gaiman said, Oh that’s a shame, you should really write a book about Death, he’s your best character… https://t.co/ZrCYoWbujb
— ? Tynan ? (@TynanPants) November 17, 2020
Pratchett would come home from work and write 400 words each day, which makes me feel better about my own velocity
He sometimes wrote a book by coming up with a tentpole set piece, and working in both directions. Apparently Vince Gilligan also does this
— ? Tynan ? (@TynanPants) November 17, 2020
“Do you think people will be reading your books in three hundred years’ time?” Rob once asked Pratchett.
“Good god no, we’ll all be eating each other.”
— ? Tynan ? (@TynanPants) November 17, 2020
“Which one of Pratchett’s characters was most like him?”
Gaiman: “Vetinari and Granny Weatherwax.”
Rhianna: Right in the middle of a Death/Vimes/Granny Weatherwax triangle— ? Tynan ? (@TynanPants) November 17, 2020
I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a recording somewhere. I’ll definitely share it if they send me one.
Update: Commenter Aleta found the video for us! I’m putting it below the fold.
Here’s an open thread for your evening!
On The Road – JanieM – Fall Color, Central Maine Sampler
Pooh
Ahem.
DRAG THEM!
https://twitter.com/firenzemike/status/1328880419106942979?s=21
czha
I envy you. I started re-reading the Discworld series recently, keeping my sweetheart up at night laughing through the books.
Jude
I would LOVE to hear that! What a great guy. And yes, DEATH is sublime.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
damn straight.
Vetinari and Granny Weatherwax… interesting combo
Yarrow
I’m the other way. Listless, exhausted, unfocused, even shaky. I think I’ve been on guard for four years or longer and I’m finally letting down a bit and my body simply doesn’t know what to do.
PsiFighter37
Speaking of books – got my copy of A Promised Land delivered today. It’s been a long time since I read Dreams From My Father, so I had forgotten just how damn good a writer Obama is. Got through 40 pages tonight; have a virtual client event tomorrow but otherwise hoping to get through it by the time Thanksgiving weekend is over.
oatler.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/17/chris-krebs-trump-fired-cybersecurity-voter-fraud-claims
Citizen_X
@Pooh: Oh, HELL yes!
Major Major Major Major
Just remembered another funny bit. The day Terry finished writing Mort, the first Death book, he’d only used 120 words. So he sat down to write the next one. He didn’t get all the way to 400, and left it at this for the night, since he didn’t know what it meant:
Citizen_X
@Citizen_X: Note to all: it is Ned Stabler, one of the Wayne Co. Canvassing board, reading his Republican colleagues for filth for their attempt at disenfranchising all of Detroit.
aliasofwestgate
@Major Major Major Major: XD Yeah. Those intros never cease to make me smile.
PsiFighter37
In looking at the results in the House and Senate races, I do think that had Democrats run a traditional ground game of any kind, we would have saved a lot of the seats we barely lost in the House. I am less convinced that we would have won FL or NC, but it would have been closer, especially in FL (where abdicating ground game in Miami got us killed). That’s why I think there is still lots to play for in 2022, even if we are supposed to be on the defensive.
aliasofwestgate
@PsiFighter37: 2022 will definitely be different. We were more concerned with voter and volunteer safety than the other side. That’s the only reason we couldn’t run our ground game and i hate that the GOP won those areas by risking lives like that. Death cult only begins to describe how much these people are assholes.
Major Major Major Major
@aliasofwestgate: reminds me of the Good Omens origin story. Gaiman came up with the “demons meeting up to talk about misdeeds, but one is really lazy” bit after reading some old play that started with three Jews getting together to gloat. Didn’t figure out what to do with it for a little while.
Mike J
I’m almost at the end of the first book. Never read ’em before. Not bad, but I need to be in the mood for it.
Major Major Major Major
@Mike J: the series has a bit of a bumpy start.
frosty
@Yarrow: It’s OK. When I heard Friday morning that Decision Desk called PA for Biden I couldn’t stop crying. I didn’t know I’d been that tense for so long.
randy khan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yeah, Death definitely is the best character.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Major Major Major Major:
Love this – thanks for sharing these memories of TP
randy khan
@PsiFighter37:
The Pod Save America guys seem to have reached a similar conclusion – that being responsible and worrying about people’s health may have hurt because the contacts do make a difference.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
So many great Pratchett books and characters, but the first one that I fell in love with was Going Postal, and Moist Von Lipwick. He revived the post office – freshly relevant!
danielx
Stress induced by cats: oatmeal-raisin-cinnamon cookies on cooling rack. Natasha the tuxedo cat flies around the corner, leaps to the top of the kitchen island and sends the rack and cookies flying.
Cats. Whaddyagonnado?
dmsilev
@Mike J: Try skipping ahead to Small Gods. It’s a standalone book that doesn’t share any characters with others (well, except for Death of course), and by the time it was written, Pratchett had a much better sense of the world he had created and the writing voice and so forth, so it holds together better than many of the earlier books.
SectionH
@Mike J: I find the very early Discworld books amusing enough, but they get so much better as they go along. I hope that’s encouraging (it’s meant to be)
eta: the first one I read was Equal Rites, which was given away as a freebie at Nolacon, the 1988 Worldcon. Enjoyed it, but it was some years later I picked up Men At Arms – that one got me hooked. It’s nice to read them in order I guess, but not entirely necessary, at least with the early-ish ones.
Patricia Kayden
@Yarrow:
I was like that on election night. Went to bed with a queasy stomach and shaking. Was terrified that Trump was going to win another term.
Looking forward to President Elect Biden’s swearing in when we can finally all take a collective deep breath.
Major Major Major Major
@dmsilev: I think my first book was Thud!. Not really a required order.
also one of my favorites incidentally.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@randy khan:
Personally my favorite is Vetinari. Interesting to know that he was Pratchett
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@SectionH: the series started as a parody (the 70’s was full of ridiculous fantasy stuff) and then, about midway through the second book, you can see the whole concept take off.
I think Pratchett also started taking it more seriously when he realized how thoroughly he could parody this modern world in them. I proselytize Pratchett by giving people copies of Small Gods; I’ve given away three so far.
Major Major Major Major
@Chacal Charles Calthrop: Pratchett is also the angel in Good Omens.
LongHairedWeirdo
I do love Terry Pratchett. He has that special gift of poking fun at the human condition in a way that can only be truly accomplished if he *loves* people.
He mocks Dibbler for selling horrible food from a pushcart; and he mocks those who, in eternal hope, keep *buying* food from him; he, at one point calls Dibbler a marketing genius because “he can sell you a sausage in a bun, *even if you’ve eaten one in the past!!!*” And you can just bet he loves to see a hot dog stand when he’s got a bit of hunger, and the right level of GI-daring. (In this case, think GI as like GI tract, not GI Joe – though we could equate the levels of courage, in this instance!)
I mean, he loves the brave, hopeful spirit of those who hawk food on street corners, and the equal bravery and hope of those who hope to consume that food safely, and loves that the experience is usually acceptable (and requiring of far less bravery and hope than I’ve suggested), but with plenty of room for cheerful grousing about how horrible it is, and how life would be so much *different* if you changed any aspect of this.
Amazingly, he made me see a reason for “off sides” in soccer… in Unseen Academicals, he riffs on the development of soccer, and points out the ball can be kicked so far, so fast, that no defender could handle two close attackers able to kick the ball between each other. I’m sure I’ve seen descriptions of “off sides” in this blog a few times, but nothing that pointed out that plain, and bloody obvious in retrospect, bit of information. (No offense intended – all I’ve said is “so not all writers are as good as Terry Pratchett” and if that’s going to offend someone, I’d be forced to guess that maybe they didn’t read much Pratchett.)
He’s one of the few authors where, if I hear someone say “I’ve never read any of his works”, I can respond sincerely with “if your reading tastes are *anything* like mine, I can’t tell you how lucky you are to be able to experience them all for the first time.”
CaseyL
Oh I envy you going to that panel! If you can put up a recording, we will overload BJ to hell and back, but it will be worth it!
Many of my favorite writers have died over the years, which always upsets me. But Pratchett is one of two writers whose deaths ripped my heart out and made me cry like a baby (the other being John “Mike” Ford).
@Mike J: The early Discworld books are a little too arch, and some of them I never developed a taste for (*cough* Rincewind *cough*).
My first Pratchett – still a bit early in the canon, but starting to show some of the depth that would blossom later on – was “Pyramids,” and I was hooked immediately. This, too, is a stand-alone, in that none of the characters continue on in the other books.
NotMax
The Discworld-set mini-series Going Postal is still available on Prime.
dmsilev
@Major Major Major Major: Some of the books really need familiarity with the characters to really work. Night Watch is absolutely amazing if you know Sam Vimes, but it loses a lot of its punch if you’re coming in cold without that.
LongHairedWeirdo
@Chacal Charles Calthrop: There’s something awesome about proselytizing by giving away Small Gods.
(See, the book is about a god who has become a small god – he has only one believer left. His religion has many, many adherents – but only one person who actually believes in him, the god.)
Richard
@Yarrow: i’m exhausted too. But because i am an old man in a wheelchair i have also to be irrelevant and wise. I don’t like that job.
I hate this suspended time while we wait to get rid of that thing. I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.
I will not be going to Thanksgiving feast this year. I will call my brothers and sisters and my favorite old roommate and say hello.
I have been to some good thanksgivings but this is not the year for that.
Major Major Major Major
@dmsilev: yeah there are definitely recommended sub-orders, but you don’t have to read the first couple.
CaseyL
@NotMax: You know, as good an adaptation as Amazon’s “Good Omens” was (and it was very fine indeed), I actually preferred the book.
I think the same may be true for “Going Postal,” though it would be nice to see who they cast for the roles.
ETA: Just checked out the cast and MY GOD it’s as good as Good Omens. Charles Dance as Vetinari! Claire Foy as Spike!
Kristine
@Major Major Major Major: The first Discworld book I read was Lords and Ladies. I thought the character who spoke in ALL CAPS was a wizard.
If I’d started with the first couple, I doubt I’d have continued the series.
Splitting Image
I’m part of the minority that really loved the first few books.
It helped that I read a lot of Conan comics back in when I was a wee one, and remember the attempts to revive Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon in the late 70s/early 80s. Pratchett’s parody of that stuff is dead-on, but I can see how it can fall flat if you aren’t very familiar with it, and a lot fewer people today are familiar with those franchises. Something like Wyrd Sisters is easier to get in to if you know even a minimal amount of Shakespeare.
That said, I still think the Luggage is one of my favourite characters in Discworld.
I was reading some commentary on Twitter about the upcoming Watch series, and both Rhianna Pratchett and Neil Gaiman remarked that the series creators were departing too far from the source material. Gaiman actually compared it to turning Batman into a newsman in a yellow trenchcoat who carried around a pet bat, and then claiming that he was still the same character. Someone chimed in to explain to Neil how comic books worked and said that he should really learn more about Batman before spouting off like that.
Aleta
The discussion is on youtube (it streamed live there)
Magical Mind – The World of Terry Pratchett
LongHairedWeirdo
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:
I also loved that book, because it was an interesting study of how a man is both what he *is*, and what he isn’t. Like, the golems in that book demand definition as independent beings, not just tools, by demanding one day off a week. A hammer doesn’t get a day off from being a hammer – but golems are demanding to be seen as more than just tools.
(Golems are animated clay-creatures; introduced, or at least clayed-out (you don’t want me to be all speciesist and say “fleshed out”, do you?) in Feet Of Clay.)
And in the end, well… the victory comes because Moist Von Lipwig has learned that, if he’s brutally honest with himself, he’s lived his life as a total, shameless, bastard – but he wins the day, because, unlike his rival, he’s not a *heartless* bastard.
And if I were the writer I wished I could be, some of y’all would read the book, and just happen to remember “not a *heartless* bastard” at just he right moment.
Major Major Major Major
@Aleta: Wonderful thank you! Updating post.
CaseyL
@Aleta: Thank you!
Frosty Fred
@SectionH: I picked up Carpe Jugulum in a bookstore and once I started leafing through it I haven’t looked back. I do agree that the series got off to a slow-ish start, and Small Gods is the most successful as a stand-alone, but I got to the point where, as the saying goes, I’d read Sir Terry’s grocery list.
Roger Moore
@Patricia Kayden:
Absolutely. I woke up at about 12:30AM on election night, was too nervous and worried to fall asleep again, and wound up following the election online, both at election sites and here. When enough returns were coming in from Michigan and Wisconsin to convince me Biden could win narrowly without Pennsylvania or Georgia, I was finally able to get a couple of hours of sleep before getting up for work.
SectionH
@Frosty Fred: Heh, that’s me, once I got started.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@Frosty Fred: when you get to the Bromeliad trilogy, you know you’ve gone too far
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@Major Major Major Major: good to know! Thks
Mingobat (f/k/a Karen in GA)
My dog Muppet was originally going to be named Magrat, but my husband wasn’t familiar with any of the Discworld characters. “You want to call her a rat?” “No! I want to name her after—you know what, forget it.”
Magrat would have been perfect for her — sweet natured, surprisingly smart, and has never known a good hair day.
Steeplejack
@Mike J:
Maybe don’t read the Discworld novels in strict chronological order. I recommend reading each subseries in order—e.g., the City Watch, the Witches, Death, Rincewind—as illustrated in this chart. I did them in the order I listed (although maybe Death before the Witches).
Another thing to keep in mind is that the first novel in each subseries is a little shaky, as Pratchett was finding his groove in that period when he was launching the whole operation. But once he got going they are amazing. And even the early ones are good.
Steeplejack
@dmsilev:
Agreed, Small Gods is a good starting point to get a sense of Pratchett really on his game.
opiejeanne
@CaseyL: I always suggest “Guards! Guards!” for the uninitiated. It’s short and an easy introduction to Ankh-Morpork, and I’ve given away 3 copies so far. I did give “Small Gods” to my BIL as a Christmas gift and he loved it.
The first Pratchett I read was “Equal Rites”. It was a paperback discard from the library when I worked there, and I took it home rather than trashing it, which was allowed. It had been loved to death and the covers were loose. It sat on the shelf for 2 years before I picked it up and read it. Terry signed it for me at Vroman’s bookstore in Pasadena. He wrote: Burn this!
lowtechcyclist
I never could make sense of this. You wear a mask, you ring the doorbell, you take three steps back before the door opens. Nothing to it, and by the beginning of August at least, we knew that was basically safe – that any shreds of virus that escaped your mask would be scattered by even negligible air currents, and wouldn’t represent a threat to anyone.
Elizabelle
Octavia Butler fans: free event tonight (Wednesday) at 10:00 pm Eastern (7:00 pm Pacific).
Eventbrite registration: again, free:
Nancy
@Chacal Charles Calthrop:
I like Guards! Guards! And anything with Vimes and Mrs.
JML
@opiejeanne:
Neil has a habit of writing the same “Burn This!” when he signs Good Omens (on my friend’s copy he also drew a “sacred match”).
I’m a big Discworld fan. The only writer who is even remotely in Sir Terry’s league when it comes to the use of the hilarious footnote is, strangely, Bill Simmons. (who I doubt has ever read a single Discworld book).
J R in WV
@Mingobat (f/k/a Karen in GA):
Our first dog was named Muffin, short for Ragamuffin, who was a very minor demon in some very early European literature. I rescued her in February (a very cold one!) from a DQ where she was trying to live on discarded hot dog ends. She barely made it, Vet helped, was perhaps the best Valentine’s Day present for wife ever.
Very fuzzy dark gray, left hind leg would come up if she was in a hurry, was injured while malnourished so didn’t heal well. She taught other newer rescues how to be a good dog, was very explicit about “Do this like that!” to get into and out of the car, for example.
Muffin led us to rescue at least 7 or 8 other dogs, we have three darling dogs right now, they are saving my sanity during the Plague of Trump.
Chris Johnson
The thing about Pratchett is that it’s immersive: he’s often not great about making a good arc that starts somewhere and goes somewhere. This is extra true of Rincewind stories because there he’s got a hapless Arthur Dent-like character who doesn’t want anything except to run away. That helps him get through kaleidoscopic riffs off other people’s stories (such as ‘Eric’) but it’s really, really empty calories.
The stuff that hits like a ton of bricks is the stuff where HE, the author, cares. Pratchett didn’t love people, he hated ’em (and loved many things about ’em, granted). I’ve read he was an angry, angry guy and that’s what gives characters like Vimes and Vetinari and Granny Weatherwax their power: either they are serving Justice, or, like Vetinari, they’re quite satisfied there is no justice and everybody sucks, and choose to do what they can with that reality.
I’d like to act Vetinari someday. I can read his lines very convincingly: which probably doesn’t say good things about my character! :D
The nihilism keeps Pratchett funny and stops him taking himself too seriously, but the conviction and sheer intensity of stories like Thud, Lords and Ladies, or even Hogfather are in a whole other league from Rincewind stories. Pratchett is at his most powerful when he’s able to depict something about our world that he absolutely hates, but understands deep in his bones. There’s usually not a permanent happy ending there. The evil is beat back… for a time. And people will rest, which is largely why the evil will return. But they can’t do otherwise, as they are only human.
Like us.