I Am Begging You to Read Terry Pratchett

theatlantic.com

5 points·Michelangelo11··4 comments

I bought a cheap collection of his books thinking I'd surely like it after hearing about it forever, but I just can't make it through a chapter. Too many hard-to-pronounce, impossible-to-remember, names that are "a subtle reference" to something in real life. For the first few nouns, it's a light "ha, clever." After that, they become the opposite of funny, and a constant distraction (am I pronouncing it right? this behavior isn't anything like the thing I thought it was a reference to, did I interpret it wrong? am I only reading this because it's popular?)

The books were also oddly skinny, and apparently the library DOES NOT want any more of that friggin' box set. And definitely not that Dune box set! I ended up just throwing them out.

In case anyone needs help: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Discworld_Reading_Or...

(I recommend starting with Going Postal tho)

Yeah, I think that's a good one, as would be e.g. Guards! Guards!

No idea why the recommendation in that link is Sourcery -- it's not bad, but it has that early Discworld flavor that's really just an extended riff on late '80s / early '90s fantasy and probably wouldn't land with a modern audience.

I love terry pratchett a ton (going postal & the truth are amazing), but for the sake of an opposing viewpoints I'd like to point out that he's pretty cynical. overall highly recommended neverthelss

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