[LMB] OT: Recommendation

[Dawn Benton]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ed Burkhead" <edburkhead at insightbb.com>
To: "'Discussion of the works of Lois McMaster Bujold.'" 
<lois-bujold at lists.herald.co.uk>
Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2008 1:10 PM
Subject: Re: [LMB] OT: Recommendation


>> The comment about Colour of Magic intrigues me though I mis-understand 
>> the
> sentence.  Was that about Pratchett's series?
>
> I've seen the terrific popularity of Pratchett's Discworld books so I 
> tried
> Color of Magic.  I got through it but wasn't inspired to read any more.
>
> Do the Diskworld books get better?

In my opinion they get considerably better.  However, in fairness to "The 
Colour of Magic" and "The Light Fantastic".  They seem to have been pretty 
straight examples of parody.  Terry parodies all the major tropes of heroic 
fantasy plus stuff that is directly aimed at specific authors.  Just off the 
top of my head I can think of: Leiber's Fafhrd and Grey Mouser, Lovecraft, 
Howard's Conan the Barbarian (very obviously) and Anne McCaffrey's Pern.  I 
loved them but I grew up reading all that stuff and got almost all of the 
jokes.  If you didn't read enough of the relevent stuff, you might not find 
it very amusing.  The later books are more generally accessible as they 
satirize more real world themes.  I second whoever suggested Guards, Guards 
as a good place to start.  I love the night watch books and think they 
provide a more representative example of Pratchett's work.  However, I know 
some people have started with more independant books like "Small Gods", 
"Moving Pictures" or "Pyramids".  "A Monstrous Regiment" would also be an 
easy start as it doesn't directly depend much on knowing the other books.

Dawn