Guards! Guards!
is my very first Discworld Novel. I wanted to hate it. I really, really did. The first few pages, I thought I would hate it, I thought about skipping the next Book Club Meeting, I thought about not actually buying the book (I read the first few pages on Google Books). Well, I found a "buyable" copy at Half Price Books, and I read again.First - let me interrupt myself if I may - I don't buy books that look like crap. If I am buying a book at Half Price Books, then it must be in near mint condition. No spine creases (or at least not any major ones). I want my books to look like they've never been read. I hate when I accidently crease a spine. It physcially pains me when someone "dog-ears" a page in a book. I'm a book snob. I did buy a book once that wasn't up to my standards. I read it. I sent it right back to Half Price Books.
Now, let me also explain why I pick up ANY books at Half Price? Am I not, lowering the royalties of authors, am I not contributing to the pirating problems? Am I not making it harder on traditional book publishers?
Yes, I am. I am aware of the issues. I still pick up a good number of books at traditional book stores or on Amazon. But, part of the magic of books is sharing the tales, and while I refuse to lend out books to anyone - The two books I did lend out most recently were returned to me as brand new copies because the lendees destroyed the books. One was actually dropped in the Ocean! - There is a sense of community around books. I buy older books, or books of authors I haven't read from Half Price Books at times, because it gives me a chance to go in at a low invesetment. If I pay $4 for a book and don't like it, I don't feel like I wasted my time and my money. If I spent $24-30 on a hardback copy at a traditional bookstore and I didn't like it? Well, honestly, it's not much different from borrowing it from a friend.
But back to the topic of Discworld.
So, this was my first travel to this place. And as I said before I was prepared to not like it. Halfway through the book, I cursed the selectee of said book for Book Club and was actually a bit upset that I would now have to start reading Discworld novels.
There were some laughable lines. (I like it when a book can make me laugh out loud.) There was an interesting and not quite predictable story and plot. There were very interesting characters. And it all felt sort of... organic. Like it just grew there. I like it a lot when a book just sort of comes together because that's exactly what the characters would be doing and while there were some predictable points, nothing felt exactly forced.
For a book in a series, it did an admirable job of not needing to have read the books that came before it to be understood. (Not all series work like this - Wheel of Time for instance, while covering some reminder basics, isn't something you can just jump into at any point you wish.) And while some of the humor relied upon one character's naivete, it was still fun.
So, what has been your experiences with Discworld? Good, bad, indifferent? And where did you start your journey?
2 comments:
"I wanted to hate it. I really, really did." Why, just curious?
As to your questions, I'm a little indifferent to Disk World currently. I have a few things I like and a few things I dislike. My biggest dislike comes from the writing more then anything. I just feel the author takes the reader, far too often, off on tangents that have nothing to do with the story at all. Sure a quick joke or two is fine, but not a significant scene. I guess it's pacing, here's my example from "Guards, guards" with as little spoiler as possible. There is a point where we are expecting a fight, we just got done with a nice high paced section and we gave chase to what amounts to the BBEG(Big Bad Evil Guy). In the middle of our character giving chase we run into a milling crowd and a vendor. Quick little aside with the vendor for comedy and to let us breath a bit was great. Then the vendor follows us into a crowd discussing everything that has transpired to this point in the book and how it will effect all 10 of them each individually and what there personal thoughts and opinion about it are. Then we needed to argue about those opinions. The whole time I'm sitting there thinking, move on already!
I started with Color of Magic, but this was the first I had actually finished, having put Color of Magic down in frustration because a the main character was left in a cliff hanger while the author went on about the history of the universe and every other minute detail he could think of at the time.
I apologize as I know I over exaggerated but I wanted to emphasize the feelings I had reading the books, putting a cliffhanger in front of some long slow dialog really just emphasizes how LONG and SLOW the dialog is, and makes it all the more boring a tedious to read. So the author's pacing is my biggest dislike. Although a sweat bird keeps chirping that my complaint gets better in the later novels.
For balance sake I'll type up one thing I liked. I liked his characters, he set up each one and then left them go. It was kind of like rolling marbles down a slope. Each imperfection is what made the character unique and the more imperfections the more interactions you had. Watching the marble collide was simply joy.
I always want to not like books by very well known established authors. I dislike both "getting to the party late" and "being just another part of the crowd." I like reading things by authors that don't have a ton of books out there, because I feel like I'm actually contributing to their careers. All time spent on well established authors, and authors with tons of books, makes me fee like I'm taking time and money away from those authors that might actually benefit.
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