The Discworld series is over.

[Trebuchet]

Ook.

Dang, that's better than mine.

 

[gumboot]

Some of the best books in the series are the latter books. The quality goes up significantly in the later books in the series, I think.

Agreed. Pratchett always argued his books weren't fantasy, but rather that the fantasy setting made it easier to explore and critique our world. In the latter books the fantasy mask is thrown aside and he opens up full broadside on human society, and in my opinion that's where his best work is. The books are darker, more serious in tone, but in my opinion also more meaningful.

Going back to his earliest work like The Light Fantastic and The Colour of Magic is painful because frankly I find those books childish in comparison with his more recent ones.

 

[catsmate]

Good.

Not that I don't love the series. I do. The issue is, it was Terry Prachett's thing. No other author could do as well--at best, they'd be imitating what Terry did. Remember the Dune prequils? The best thing for this series is to be left alone, as a monument to what a great author can do. I'm thrilled that his daughter realizes this, and chose to make the correct artistic choice (if not necessarily the best financial choice).

If nothing else, they broke fantasy out of the horror-or-Medieval dichotomy it seemed to have been stuck in for so long. A novel that thought through the implications of magic during industrialization--much less a series--is pretty unique.

Absolutely. A few other authors have written along similar lines, for example Weber's The War God's Own which is mixing magic, inter-god conflicts and industrialisation.

You can see that in Snuff as well. The book was....weird. Disjointed in strange ways, not as fluid as the other books were. More brutal as well. The previous stories in the Night Watch seris were brutal, sure, but there was a lightheartedness that was absent in Snuff.

Yeah, Snuff was very dark for the series. I suspect Pratchett was in a bad place himself when he wrote parts of it.

Very true. I've never understood the notion that if a book, movie, album, whatever isn't better than the previous best, it's crap. Snuff was a very good book, one I am very happy I got to read. It's not as good as, say, Thud, but it's still a damn good read.

Exactly. Authors try experiments that don't necessarily appear to everyone (I personally dislike it when half a book is flashbacks) but work for others.

I saw what happened to Dune and Foundation after their authors died.

This is for the best.

And not just SFF; just look at the post-Christie Poirot book The Monogram Murders, it was awful.

Agreed. Pratchett always argued his books weren't fantasy, but rather that the fantasy setting made it easier to explore and critique our world. In the latter books the fantasy mask is thrown aside and he opens up full broadside on human society, and in my opinion that's where his best work is. The books are darker, more serious in tone, but in my opinion also more meaningful.

Isn't the the role of literature to hold a mirror to society? His books did that brilliantly.

 

[Dinwar]

Exactly. Authors try experiments that don't necessarily appear to everyone (I personally dislike it when half a book is flashbacks) but work for others.

It's not just experiments. I've heard people say that a TV series should end because it's not as good as it once was multiple times. And 9 times out of 10, they're right--the quality of a season or story arc is less than the peak quality. But at the same time, it's often still good--it's enjoyable, makes me care about the characters, etc. There seems to be this notion that quality should only improve, that anything less than the peak is worthless. I tend to think differently. If the book, episode, movie, whatever is still enjoyable--if I still think time spent on it was time well spent--I think it's time well spent.

Isn't the the role of literature to hold a mirror to society?

That's certainly one possible objective. There are others. The Belgariad, for example, was an experiment in the use of tropes--it had little to do with society, and everything to do with the mechanics of writing.

 

[catsmate]

It's not just experiments. I've heard people say that a TV series should end because it's not as good as it once was multiple times. And 9 times out of 10, they're right--the quality of a season or story arc is less than the peak quality. But at the same time, it's often still good--it's enjoyable, makes me care about the characters, etc. There seems to be this notion that quality should only improve, that anything less than the peak is worthless. I tend to think differently. If the book, episode, movie, whatever is still enjoyable--if I still think time spent on it was time well spent--I think it's time well spent.

True, though my experiment comment had to do with a particular book where the author admitted his use of the flashback format was experimental.
With series (TV or book) there's always an issue with maintaining the level of quality as ideas are used. Certainly it seems few TV series can last indefinitely without producing some pretty awful episodes, even with their ability to bring in new writers. And, really, who's to say if a later story is better anyway?

That's certainly one possible objective. There are others. The Belgariad, for example, was an experiment in the use of tropes--it had little to do with society, and everything to do with the mechanics of writing.

Very true, and Eddings did it well. Far better than most of those using "The Tough Guide to Fantasyland" as a basis for a book/series.

 

[Hawk one]

Agreed. Pratchett always argued his books weren't fantasy, but rather that the fantasy setting made it easier to explore and critique our world. In the latter books the fantasy mask is thrown aside and he opens up full broadside on human society, and in my opinion that's where his best work is. The books are darker, more serious in tone, but in my opinion also more meaningful.

Going back to his earliest work like The Light Fantastic and The Colour of Magic is painful because frankly I find those books childish in comparison with his more recent ones.

The earlier books also suffer from the fact that he seemed to try to make a fantasy version of the very esteemed Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books; the first two in particular are just random things happening as setup for gags, and nobody, not even Pterry, managed to do that half as well as Douglas Adams.

But gradually he tried seeing if he could do better than that; and the true change is found when Pratchett gets to work with Neil Gaiman on Good Omens. From Gaiman, Pratchett must have learned a lot about plot-making, about making human characters, and perhaps most importantly, about how to make books that are readable once the gags are wearing thin...

And then he comes out with Reaper Man the following year, which I firmly believe marks when the Discworld series matured. And soon thereafter comes Small Gods, which I would call the first "dark book" in the series... and of course a book that many on this site in particular holds dear to heart, considering how it tackles organised religion. Pyramids also has a lot to say about organised religion, but the criticism isn't as scathing, isn't as focused, and the characters not as interesting as in Small Gods (although it does have the world's smartest camel).

 

[Hawk one]

OK, so this post is probably mostly for Dinwar, but I reckon you others can read it too. Or not.

Anyway, Dinwar, remember when we talked about how the last few books turned out to be rather odd and not at all in the usual Pratchett style? Well, I recently found something that explains everything.

The "The Long X" trilogy, a collaboration work between Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter.

Trust me, when you start reading these books —which I recommend that you do, they're pretty good— you'll find pretty much all of the things that felt so weird and off-putting in the last few Discworld books, particularly "Raising Steam". You'll find all those little side stories put in seemingly at random; you'll find monologuing and long conversations and explanations; and most certainly you'll find that it's about how humanity as a whole will deal with something that changes the entire world in very short order. Even when it turns the focus on the main characters, it's still not really about them per se; they just happen to be the ones in the center of things.

But the thing is, all of this is clearly a result of Baxter's style of writing, and it works much better in these books. He manages to give his characters more personality when they keep on talking. Plus, they are characters made from scratch in a world made from scratch, so we never got to feel that feeling of old characters suddenly changing entirely in front of our eyes. So in these books, the style works, because it's self-contained. But when putting all of these things into an established universe, the end result ends up feeling wrong.

So yeah, that's all.

 

[Dinwar]

Interesting. That could well explain it--he tried a new style. I agree that it wouldn't work badly in a different novel; the issue isn't the style itself, but rather the clash between the style of those stories and the style of the previous ones. In a self-contained universe, I can see it being fine.

I'll have to check those out. Thanks for the heads-up!

 

[jimbob]

OK, so this post is probably mostly for Dinwar, but I reckon you others can read it too. Or not.

Anyway, Dinwar, remember when we talked about how the last few books turned out to be rather odd and not at all in the usual Pratchett style? Well, I recently found something that explains everything.

The "The Long X" trilogy, a collaboration work between Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter.

Trust me, when you start reading these books —which I recommend that you do, they're pretty good— you'll find pretty much all of the things that felt so weird and off-putting in the last few books, particularly "Raising Steam". You'll find all those little side stories put in seemingly at random; you'll find monologuing and long conversations and explanations; and most certainly you'll find that it's about how humanity as a whole will deal with something that changes the entire world in very short order. Even when it turns the focus on the main characters, it's still not really about them per se; they just happen to be the ones in the center of things.

But the thing is, all of this is clearly a result of Baxter's style of writing, and it works much better in these books. He manages to give his characters more personality when they keep on talking. Plus, they are characters made from scratch, so we never got to feel that feeling of old characters suddenly changing entirely in front of our eyes. So in these books, the style works, because it's self-contained. But when putting all of these things into an established universe, the end result ends up feeling wrong.

So yeah, that's all.

As an aside, I've just read The Shepherd's Crown. I think it is a fitting end to the series.