Book #201 of 2020: The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett (Discworld #24) Author Terry Pratchett’s Discworld is reliably hilarious, and I appreciate how his City Watch subseries blends that humor with wry philosophizing and a detective story structure. The question for me as a reader is always whether the writer can stay out of his …
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Book #178 of 2020: Jingo by Terry Pratchett (Discworld #21) This is a reasonably funny satire on the pointlessness of war, but as with many of Terry Pratchett’s books, there’s a certain degree of low-level racism and sexism underpinning some of the jokes. (Although the most overtly bigoted characters are generally positioned as fools, the …
Book #224 of 2018: Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett I loved this book back in middle school, and it’s even better now that I get more of the jokes (thanks to being both older and more familiar with British culture). The story is a terrifically funny take on the Christian apocalypse, an …
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Book #182 of 2018: Nation by Terry Pratchett This novel about the aftermath of a natural disaster in the Pacific Islands is fine, but it doesn’t quite spark the joy and humor in me that I expect from Terry Pratchett at his Discworld / Good Omens best. I think I would have better enjoyed reading …
Book #216 of 2017: Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett (Discworld #19) Terry Pratchett’s City Watch novels have been steadily improving as the Discworld sub-series goes along, and this third book continues that happy trend. Whereas the introduction of nonhuman characters into the Watch in the previous volume felt largely like an unfunny joke about …
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Book #117 of 2017: Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett (Discworld #15) This second Discworld City Watch novel is an improvement over the first, thanks mostly to some appreciated deepening of the characters of Carrot and Sam Vimes. But it’s still not great, and the satire on affirmative action involving the appointment of fantasy creatures …
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Book #9 of 2017: Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett (Discworld #8) This early Discworld novel introduces the character Sam Vimes and the rest of the City Watch, although it’s clear that author Terry Pratchett was still figuring out who they would be at this point. Here the Watch investigates the sudden appearance of a dragon …
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Book #65 of 2016: Dodger by Terry Pratchett Dodger has its share of Terry Pratchett’s classic humor, but it’s missing the comic sensibility that his best books display throughout. Part of this is likely due to the setting, which replaces the author’s usual Discworld for the rather less fantastic Victorian London. (And we are supposed …
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