Reading roundup: the jumbo Discworld edition
43. Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters -- finally, my library acquired a Witches book! I hope there are more on the way. I haven't read a whole lot of Shakespeare (shhh!), but I have read Hamlet and Richard III and Romeo and Juliet and know enough about Macbeth to appreciate (most of) the references, as well as the Waiting for Godot one (which I forced myself to read at one point just to see what it was all about... and I'm still not really sure. But I guess that's kind of the point. Anyway. Oh, and the Marx brothers reference, though I've never actually seen a single of their films.) It was a bit odd to read Wyrd Sisters right after Moving Pictures in the Pterry-verse, because, while he treats movies and theater in rather different ways, some of the *ideas* are the same -- namely that both have a kind of magic that's distinct from actual magic, and the fine line between acting/"pretending" and reality.
But, really, philosophy isn't why I read Pterry -- the humor and the characters are. On the character front, I really liked Tomjon, and his relationship with Hwell. I could take or leave Verence (the younger) and Magrat, I'm fond of Nanny (so this is the book where the famous hedgehog song comes from!), and, of course, I've always loved Granny, although it was a bit odd (but in a good way) to see how much more flawed she is in this earlier book. She reminds me quite a lot of my great-grandmother, who was a very strong-willed lady who lived to be 96. Now Felmet was really very creepy, for a character in a humorous book -- especially all that business with scrubbing/mutilating his hand. That's the point, of course, but still *shiver*. But, back to the humor. I giggled at all the droit de seigneur jokes, but my favorite running funny bit was the cook attempting to roast celery and stick an apply in oatmeal's mouth and stuff like that. Also, I totally didn't see the last twist coming. Heh!
Also, totally randomly, I really liked that one of the townspeople (in the Magrat and Granny sneak into the castle as apple-sellers scene), Champett Poldy, seems to be named after (a modified version of) the old king Champot, whose ghost ghost!Verence meets in the very beginning. I totally don't know if it's even intentional or a coincidence, but I still like it.
46. Terry Pratchett, Pyramids -- I think I might be saturating on Pratchett. I can't say I enjoyed reading this one as much as I usually enjoy reading Discworld. Not sure why -- Teppic is a nice enough lad, and I rather like the assassins in general -- I think his time in the Guild was actually my favorite part of the book. Egyptians and mummies don't do much for me, but I did like the revelation that camels are the best mathematicians. I should tell B about this. He likes camels. (The mathy camel!thoughts though kind of got old pretty quickly.) But I do like quantum accountancy! and the engineer and accountant progeny of the pyramid builder in general. What I really liked best about this book, though, was Dios. He is one of those characters -- like Tywin Lannister -- whom I'm a little disturbed to like quite so much. But he is competent, masterful, and universally feared -- what's not to like? Aside from his total willingness to subvert justice to the benefits of the kingdom and murder his own king and everything... I keep thinking that he is an excellent foil for Vetinari -- with the key difference that Vetinari has learned to tap into the magic of delegation, and is much happier for it, and Dios still tries to do everything himself. I have to say though, the ending Pratchett devises for him is one I totally did not foresee and is the absolute best possible, perfect ending for this character.
Oh, also, totally unrelated, this book features the phrase "come back in out of the sun" -- which I adore in a horrified sort of way because I always end up stringing too many prepositions/prepositional clauses together and I remember learning that you're not supposed to have more than three prepositions in a sentence, and here are four back to back. Awesome!
I keep thinking that maybe I should lay off Pratchett now for a bit, at least until the library acquires Making Money, because I want to be in the mood for Moist/Discworld when I finally read that book -- but I know that if they've meanwhile added some old Pratchett that I haven't read yet, I'll snatch up those and start reading them. No self-control when it comes to books...
And it was as this point that I stopped by the library to find not one, not two, but FOUR new-to-me Pratchetts: Mort, Maskerade, Small Gods, and Wintersmit. And it turned out that I wasn't sick of Pratchett after all -- I just actually hadn't liked Pyramids all that much.
47. Terry Pratchett, Maskerade -- So, along with Wyrd Sisters and Moving Pictures, this completes the performing arts trifecta as done by Pterry, eh? I thoroughly enjoyed it, in spite of having very little interest in opera (or musical theater). I do like the Witches books better when Magrat is not in them, I guess. I like Agnes well enough (Agnes, specifically, rather than Perdita; and I totally cracked up at the line that she liked the elephants because they "were reassuringly larger than her"), but really it's because Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg have all the opportunities to play off each other, undiluted by Magrat's dippiness. MAJOR SPOILERS: I was rather disappointed that Salzella turned out to be the villain, because I actually rather liked him as a character, and laughed at all his digs at "Basilica" and pretty much everyone else, and the climax was less... interesting than the rest of the book (with the exception of Granny grabbing the sword and then having to pay for it later, which was very neat). On a similar note, I really enjoyed Granny's confrontation/poker game with Death -- the archetypical situation is something I've always really liked. /spoilers Also, the "take off your hat" scene in the opera -- which mirrored but ended quite differently from a similar scene in Wyrd Sisters. In general, I really enjoyed the descriptions and insight into both Granny Weatherwax ("But the point about that kind of stuff was that you needed someone around to be proudly independent and self-reliant at" and similar, Lady Esmeralda) and Nanny ("Let me through. I'm a nosy person" and her recipes and everything).
Also, humaniform!Greebo -- I finally understand all the Greebo love I've been seeing around (I haven't read Lords and Ladies yet, which is where I'm assuming he got turned into a human for the first time.)
I laughed at the translation of the "Departure" aria, becuase the last time I went to see (a bit of an) opera I could understand Italian well enough to understand really how inane the words were. And I guess I finally know which DW book that "five exclamation marks" thing comes from. This is a very quotable book in general, isn't it? The Witches books seem to be, more than any other series, judging by the DW icons I see around.
48. Terry Pratchett, Small Gods -- it's rather interesting for me to read this book, because I came both to PTerry and to Neil Gaiman via Good Omens, and my favorite (non co-authored) Gaiman book is American Gods, and this is like PTerry's take on many of the same themes (minus the American part), though at the core it's about something quite different. I can see why it's many people's favorite, though it's more on the philosophical than character-driven side, and my Discworld favorites are character-driven. Actually, I think it might be taking the third-favorite slot, behind Going Postal (which was just an incredible lot of fun) and Night Watch, and that because Night Watch has Vimes and Vetinari and Small Gods doesn't. It is really very powerful. I did at first feel that the deus ex machina ending with the antagonistic humans banding together to save each other from the incidental wrath of the gods and the gods all telling them to leave Omnia alone was a bit of a cop-out (though I wouldn't've been all that thrilled to read a book where the battle did happen and lots more people died, as I do like happy endings), but once it was shown to be part of Lu-Tze's meddling I was OK with that.
I can take or leave Om himself, but I rather like Brutha as a protagonist -- his basic integrity (and that's really what it is, in the purest sense of the word, "I'm me") is done incredibly well, in an understated, non-preacy way. Though I had a little bit of trouble accepting him carrying Vorbis along in the desert. It does make sense with his character and everything, it's just such an extraordinary act that even so it took me awhile to convince myself I believed it. I like the more minor characters of Urn and his feats of engineering, general Fri'it, and even Brother Nhumrod, surprisingly. I dislike Simony as a "person", but I do think he is a very effective incarnation of the character role he represents -- a totally understandable person straddling the line between hero and villain, and very, very dangerous to history. And I am rather bowled over by Vorbis as a villain, especially as his personality is revealed by the proactive retaliation planning. Pratchett is really good at writing villains who are seriously creepy and/or terrifying and clearly psychopathic and yet make sense to themselves and thus become, not sympathetic but just open enough to the reader to allow a peek into the abyss. Teatime is a villain like that (and one of the things I liked best about Hogfather), and Vorbis is like that too -- just with a much saner madness than Teatime.
But, of course, Vorbis is just the catalyst for making evil the normal order of the day, and that's the quote that's going to stick with me from this book:
"I know about sureness," said Didactylos. [...] "I remember, before I was blind, I went to Omnia once. This was before the borders were closed, when you still let people travel. And in your Citadel I saw a crowd stoning a man to death in a pit. Ever seen that?"
"It has to be done," Brutha mumbled. "So the soul can be shriven and--"
"Don't know about the soul. Never been that kind of a philosopher," said Didactylos. "All I know is, it was a horrible sight."
"The state of the body is not--"
"Oh, I'm not talking about the poor bugger in the pit," said the philosopher. "I'm talking about the people throwing the stones. They were sure all right. They were sure it wasn't them in the pit. You could see it in their faces. So glad it wasn't them that they were throwing just as hard as they could"
The other moment hitting me with nearly the same force was Cut-Me-Own-Hand-Off Dhblah comment after Om endorsed him to make turtle souvenirs: "'Tell you the truth,' said Dhblah, 'I've already drawn a few designs just now... [...] ...but I suppose I suppose I'll have to take the little figure off them,' he said more or less to himself."
Also, "constitutional religion" with collective bargaining power is kind of an awesome idea. ("This Is Religion, Boy, Not Comparison Shopping! You Shall Not Subject Your God to Market Forces!")
Beyond the central theme of the book, one of the reasons it's now in my top three is all the other themes it brushes on along the way: slavery ("The Ephebian garrison commander had declared somewhat nervouslythat slavery would henceforth be abolished, which infuriated the slaves. What would be the point of saving up to become free if you couldn't own slaves afterwards?"), the relationship between philosophy and mechanics, scientific progress (re: the Moving Turtle:
"It will help overthrow a tyrant."
"And then?"
"And then what?"
"And then you will smash it to bits? Smash it up? Take the wheels off? Get rid of the spikes? Burn the plans? Yes? When it's served its purpose, yes?"
"Well--"
"Aha!"
"Aha what? What if we do keep it? It'll be a... a deterrnet to other tyrants!"
"You think tyrants won't build'em too?"
"Well... I can build bigger ones!"
"Yes. No doubt you can. So that's all right then. My word. And to think I was worrying"
and, later, "Killing the creator was a traditional method of patent-protection"). I may not agree with all of these stances, but they're all important points, masterfully raised. Thematically, too, I liked Didactylos's self-preservation-enhanced "Eppur si muove" moment, the library "leaking" into Brutha's head. Also, much as I look forward to the Death cameos in all the Discworld books, I'm not that often actually moved by them (the appearance that stands out as particularly moving is actually one from Good Omens), but in this one I was very moved by the sequence with the ghost ship.
Also, there were things that just tickled me, the chief among them the fact that in this case the wrong-headed, unscientific worldview enforced by the Quisition is the Copernican universe, and the world is *really* flat. Also, Brutha's approach to plans: "What did you go and do that for?" "I... don't know. It seemed like... the next thing to do." Also, hee, Bede sparrow reference. (Or, at least, Bede is where *I* know it from.)
49. Terry Pratchett, Mort -- the thing that struck me most about this book (and I read the Death series in a really scattered order, starting with Soul Music, moving on to Reaper Man, then Hogfather, and now Mort, the first Death book) is how much less... fluffy Death is in this one. There's the love of cats, and the attempts at making his surroundings human and going native, a bit, and, of course, the adopted daughter, but Death himself feels rather more alien, less human. Less NICE. I kind of like it, actually. I like Mort well enough, though, like Pteppic, he feels almost too *normal* a protagonist to root for -- a sharp young boy, but without something -- some evident flaw or internal struggle or something -- that makes other Pratchett protagonists particularly memorable and empathetic. I was reading Mort in parallel with both Maskerade and Small Gods (it's too short a book to last me a full day's commute reading, so I kept it on my bedside table instead, that's why), and both Agnes and Brutha are so much more *vivid* and *different*. I'm not terribly impressed with Ysabell, though I feel for her. I like perpetually food-stained Cutwell, and I *adore* Princess Keli and her Mongolian-conqueror-like heritage shining through. And it was AWESOME to find out who Albert actually was and to see him bossing all the UU wizards around. I didn't really buy or care about the Mort/Ysabell relationship, though I did enjoy their anti-courtship by the fish pond. Overall, it was a pretty enjoyable read, but it neither blew me away (like Small Gods) nor swept me along with mad glee the way Maskerade (and, to a lesser, Magrat-dampened extent, Wyrd Sisters).
Also, there seem to be pyramids in Tsort in this one, as opposed to Djelybeybi (which I can't be arsed to look up how to spell correctly) like in Pyramids.
OK! I did actually read some non-Pratchett last month:
44. Clare B. Dunkle, Close Kin (Book 2 of The Hollow Kingdom trilogy) -- I liked this book less than the first one. Probably it had a lot less Marak in it. Emily is fun and Seylin is a really nice guy, but neither of them can anchor an arc the way Marak can. Also, because the action was split between three or even four strands (which did eventually come together) -- Seylin's quest, Em's quest, Sable's miserable existence, and "back in the goblin kingdom", the book just felt really scattered. I didn't get a good feel for place or passage of time -- something I thought the first book did better, if not particularly gracefully. The writing thing that *really* "bugged me though was the tendency to refer to Seylin as "the shy young man" or "the curious cat" or "the reserved young elf", etc., every couple of lines. I'm not an epithet-phobe like some folks, but this book really went too far.
I liked Emily and Seylin's relationship just fine, in an inoffensive childhood sweethearts way. Totally didn't buy Ruby the humanophobe suddenly deciding to care for the little twins. And then there were the elves. It's an interesting choice -- and interesting role-reversal from the typical fantasy convention of sophisticated, gentle elves and brutish, neanderthal-like goblins. The "oh how the mighty have fallen" angle was one I would've been curious to see -- but I thought it was taken too far. The "oops, all the women are dead" explanation for how the childbirth magic was lost was lame. Also, why would an isolated band of elves forget elvish and start speaking English instead? The human nurses? Well, I guess, but why would it replace a language that everybody in the camp spoke? If they didn't have contact with the broader human world. Especially if *customs* were in fact preserved. Oh well.
The thing that really bugged me though was Thorn's character. Yes, he is meant to be a thoroughly evil abusive type, and he is. But he is *too* evil. There needs to be some glimpse of something if not redeemable, at least human in there, and there just isn't -- and characters like that are boring. Rowan and Willow, twisted by his influence as they are, are much more interesting than that because there does seem to be hope for them at least. Even airhead Irina with her one hidden talent is more interesting (and I actually kind of thought her relationship with Thaydar was sweet. Especially this part: "Who would have thought, their eyes told eah other, that the boss [i.e. Thaydar] was such an idiot?"]). As for Sable...
She's a character who could've been really interesting, but feels like she falls short of her true potential. For one thing, it feels like a cop-out that her beauty is restored by goblin magic. Yes, she is left with faint scars, but shouldn't the (metaphorically echoed) point be that you *can't* undo that kind of (emotional) damage by magic? Also, the core of strength that's presumably within her doesn't seem to actually manifest itself. I dunno... much as I like the fact that she's an elven magical math nerd, her character just doesn't seem to fit its role.
The book ends on kind of an ominous note, with Catspaw (Marak's heir) growing up and antagonism set up between him and his foster-sister Til. Wonder how that all turns out in the end. (Speaking of which, I have the third and final book sitting on my shelf now waiting for me. Good place to be.)
45. Jonathan Kellerman, Obsession -- I rather liked this one! Better than the last several, probably mainly because I didn't see the whole thing coming from miles off. The multiple convoluted family connections were quite neat, if not exactly plausible (including the last twist at the end). And also, I really, really liked Kyle, in all his dorky, badly dressed, hyper-self-conscious glory. I half-thought he was going to turn out to be a bad guy at first and was preparing myself to lament this fact, and then, when it became pretty clear that he was in fact a good guy, I became half-convinced that Kellerman was going to kill him off in some traumatic-for-Tanya fashion (especially when I peeked at the end and saw Tanya was going to need therapy indefinitely) -- so I'm really glad that he survived! I hope he shows up in glimpses in subsequent books, as a couple of other characters have done (like the spook father of the girl in Time Bomb (I think)), although I can't imagine what Alex and Milo could need a physics Ph.D. for. (Also, I kind of liked the not-all-that-subtle mirroring between Mario Fortuno and Kyle's father both telling Delaware to tell their sons they love them.) I liked child!Tanya more than grown-up Tanya, and also liked the two Central detectives.
Moving on to random territory. Blanche (the new dog) is a Doggie-Sue. I liked Spike's brindled antagonism towards Alex so much better! There is some Rick in this one -- I can't think of another one where he actually makes an appearance on the page... Also, just lots and lots of random Jews. Kellerman always has one or two as minor characters, but this one I think had more than the usual quota, or at least it was very noticeable -- there's the oncologist lady (Tziporah Ganz), the scriptwriter neighbor gal (Lisa Bergman, who says "From your mouth to God's ears"), and the contractor (Avi Benezra) at a minimum, and I think there may have been others. Oh, right, the SWAT guy with cousins in Jerusalem.
Also, kind of unrelated to the actual book, but a couple of weeks ago I was checking for new Kellerman novels and saw the library had a book by Jesse Kellerman on the shelves. I wondered whether this was one of Jonathan's sons ('cos they're pretty grown-up at this point), but the Jesse book didn't mention that in the blurb, although it did say he was from LA. Well, Obsession mentions that Jonathan's son Jesse is, indeed, a novelist. I'll probably pick up the Jesse book and see if he is any good.
So, the Pratchett binge interrupted me two-thirds into Mercedes Lackey's Fortune's Fool and a little over halfway into A Song for Arbonne, so I'll probably be going back to those now, instead of diving into Wintersmith. There's also Jim Butcher's third Codex Alera book, which I'm only bout a chapter into but it's not sweeping me away or anything. Mostly I'm wishing it were White Night.
But, really, philosophy isn't why I read Pterry -- the humor and the characters are. On the character front, I really liked Tomjon, and his relationship with Hwell. I could take or leave Verence (the younger) and Magrat, I'm fond of Nanny (so this is the book where the famous hedgehog song comes from!), and, of course, I've always loved Granny, although it was a bit odd (but in a good way) to see how much more flawed she is in this earlier book. She reminds me quite a lot of my great-grandmother, who was a very strong-willed lady who lived to be 96. Now Felmet was really very creepy, for a character in a humorous book -- especially all that business with scrubbing/mutilating his hand. That's the point, of course, but still *shiver*. But, back to the humor. I giggled at all the droit de seigneur jokes, but my favorite running funny bit was the cook attempting to roast celery and stick an apply in oatmeal's mouth and stuff like that. Also, I totally didn't see the last twist coming. Heh!
Also, totally randomly, I really liked that one of the townspeople (in the Magrat and Granny sneak into the castle as apple-sellers scene), Champett Poldy, seems to be named after (a modified version of) the old king Champot, whose ghost ghost!Verence meets in the very beginning. I totally don't know if it's even intentional or a coincidence, but I still like it.
46. Terry Pratchett, Pyramids -- I think I might be saturating on Pratchett. I can't say I enjoyed reading this one as much as I usually enjoy reading Discworld. Not sure why -- Teppic is a nice enough lad, and I rather like the assassins in general -- I think his time in the Guild was actually my favorite part of the book. Egyptians and mummies don't do much for me, but I did like the revelation that camels are the best mathematicians. I should tell B about this. He likes camels. (The mathy camel!thoughts though kind of got old pretty quickly.) But I do like quantum accountancy! and the engineer and accountant progeny of the pyramid builder in general. What I really liked best about this book, though, was Dios. He is one of those characters -- like Tywin Lannister -- whom I'm a little disturbed to like quite so much. But he is competent, masterful, and universally feared -- what's not to like? Aside from his total willingness to subvert justice to the benefits of the kingdom and murder his own king and everything... I keep thinking that he is an excellent foil for Vetinari -- with the key difference that Vetinari has learned to tap into the magic of delegation, and is much happier for it, and Dios still tries to do everything himself. I have to say though, the ending Pratchett devises for him is one I totally did not foresee and is the absolute best possible, perfect ending for this character.
Oh, also, totally unrelated, this book features the phrase "come back in out of the sun" -- which I adore in a horrified sort of way because I always end up stringing too many prepositions/prepositional clauses together and I remember learning that you're not supposed to have more than three prepositions in a sentence, and here are four back to back. Awesome!
I keep thinking that maybe I should lay off Pratchett now for a bit, at least until the library acquires Making Money, because I want to be in the mood for Moist/Discworld when I finally read that book -- but I know that if they've meanwhile added some old Pratchett that I haven't read yet, I'll snatch up those and start reading them. No self-control when it comes to books...
And it was as this point that I stopped by the library to find not one, not two, but FOUR new-to-me Pratchetts: Mort, Maskerade, Small Gods, and Wintersmit. And it turned out that I wasn't sick of Pratchett after all -- I just actually hadn't liked Pyramids all that much.
47. Terry Pratchett, Maskerade -- So, along with Wyrd Sisters and Moving Pictures, this completes the performing arts trifecta as done by Pterry, eh? I thoroughly enjoyed it, in spite of having very little interest in opera (or musical theater). I do like the Witches books better when Magrat is not in them, I guess. I like Agnes well enough (Agnes, specifically, rather than Perdita; and I totally cracked up at the line that she liked the elephants because they "were reassuringly larger than her"), but really it's because Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg have all the opportunities to play off each other, undiluted by Magrat's dippiness. MAJOR SPOILERS: I was rather disappointed that Salzella turned out to be the villain, because I actually rather liked him as a character, and laughed at all his digs at "Basilica" and pretty much everyone else, and the climax was less... interesting than the rest of the book (with the exception of Granny grabbing the sword and then having to pay for it later, which was very neat). On a similar note, I really enjoyed Granny's confrontation/poker game with Death -- the archetypical situation is something I've always really liked. /spoilers Also, the "take off your hat" scene in the opera -- which mirrored but ended quite differently from a similar scene in Wyrd Sisters. In general, I really enjoyed the descriptions and insight into both Granny Weatherwax ("But the point about that kind of stuff was that you needed someone around to be proudly independent and self-reliant at" and similar, Lady Esmeralda) and Nanny ("Let me through. I'm a nosy person" and her recipes and everything).
Also, humaniform!Greebo -- I finally understand all the Greebo love I've been seeing around (I haven't read Lords and Ladies yet, which is where I'm assuming he got turned into a human for the first time.)
I laughed at the translation of the "Departure" aria, becuase the last time I went to see (a bit of an) opera I could understand Italian well enough to understand really how inane the words were. And I guess I finally know which DW book that "five exclamation marks" thing comes from. This is a very quotable book in general, isn't it? The Witches books seem to be, more than any other series, judging by the DW icons I see around.
48. Terry Pratchett, Small Gods -- it's rather interesting for me to read this book, because I came both to PTerry and to Neil Gaiman via Good Omens, and my favorite (non co-authored) Gaiman book is American Gods, and this is like PTerry's take on many of the same themes (minus the American part), though at the core it's about something quite different. I can see why it's many people's favorite, though it's more on the philosophical than character-driven side, and my Discworld favorites are character-driven. Actually, I think it might be taking the third-favorite slot, behind Going Postal (which was just an incredible lot of fun) and Night Watch, and that because Night Watch has Vimes and Vetinari and Small Gods doesn't. It is really very powerful. I did at first feel that the deus ex machina ending with the antagonistic humans banding together to save each other from the incidental wrath of the gods and the gods all telling them to leave Omnia alone was a bit of a cop-out (though I wouldn't've been all that thrilled to read a book where the battle did happen and lots more people died, as I do like happy endings), but once it was shown to be part of Lu-Tze's meddling I was OK with that.
I can take or leave Om himself, but I rather like Brutha as a protagonist -- his basic integrity (and that's really what it is, in the purest sense of the word, "I'm me") is done incredibly well, in an understated, non-preacy way. Though I had a little bit of trouble accepting him carrying Vorbis along in the desert. It does make sense with his character and everything, it's just such an extraordinary act that even so it took me awhile to convince myself I believed it. I like the more minor characters of Urn and his feats of engineering, general Fri'it, and even Brother Nhumrod, surprisingly. I dislike Simony as a "person", but I do think he is a very effective incarnation of the character role he represents -- a totally understandable person straddling the line between hero and villain, and very, very dangerous to history. And I am rather bowled over by Vorbis as a villain, especially as his personality is revealed by the proactive retaliation planning. Pratchett is really good at writing villains who are seriously creepy and/or terrifying and clearly psychopathic and yet make sense to themselves and thus become, not sympathetic but just open enough to the reader to allow a peek into the abyss. Teatime is a villain like that (and one of the things I liked best about Hogfather), and Vorbis is like that too -- just with a much saner madness than Teatime.
But, of course, Vorbis is just the catalyst for making evil the normal order of the day, and that's the quote that's going to stick with me from this book:
"I know about sureness," said Didactylos. [...] "I remember, before I was blind, I went to Omnia once. This was before the borders were closed, when you still let people travel. And in your Citadel I saw a crowd stoning a man to death in a pit. Ever seen that?"
"It has to be done," Brutha mumbled. "So the soul can be shriven and--"
"Don't know about the soul. Never been that kind of a philosopher," said Didactylos. "All I know is, it was a horrible sight."
"The state of the body is not--"
"Oh, I'm not talking about the poor bugger in the pit," said the philosopher. "I'm talking about the people throwing the stones. They were sure all right. They were sure it wasn't them in the pit. You could see it in their faces. So glad it wasn't them that they were throwing just as hard as they could"
The other moment hitting me with nearly the same force was Cut-Me-Own-Hand-Off Dhblah comment after Om endorsed him to make turtle souvenirs: "'Tell you the truth,' said Dhblah, 'I've already drawn a few designs just now... [...] ...but I suppose I suppose I'll have to take the little figure off them,' he said more or less to himself."
Also, "constitutional religion" with collective bargaining power is kind of an awesome idea. ("This Is Religion, Boy, Not Comparison Shopping! You Shall Not Subject Your God to Market Forces!")
Beyond the central theme of the book, one of the reasons it's now in my top three is all the other themes it brushes on along the way: slavery ("The Ephebian garrison commander had declared somewhat nervouslythat slavery would henceforth be abolished, which infuriated the slaves. What would be the point of saving up to become free if you couldn't own slaves afterwards?"), the relationship between philosophy and mechanics, scientific progress (re: the Moving Turtle:
"It will help overthrow a tyrant."
"And then?"
"And then what?"
"And then you will smash it to bits? Smash it up? Take the wheels off? Get rid of the spikes? Burn the plans? Yes? When it's served its purpose, yes?"
"Well--"
"Aha!"
"Aha what? What if we do keep it? It'll be a... a deterrnet to other tyrants!"
"You think tyrants won't build'em too?"
"Well... I can build bigger ones!"
"Yes. No doubt you can. So that's all right then. My word. And to think I was worrying"
and, later, "Killing the creator was a traditional method of patent-protection"). I may not agree with all of these stances, but they're all important points, masterfully raised. Thematically, too, I liked Didactylos's self-preservation-enhanced "Eppur si muove" moment, the library "leaking" into Brutha's head. Also, much as I look forward to the Death cameos in all the Discworld books, I'm not that often actually moved by them (the appearance that stands out as particularly moving is actually one from Good Omens), but in this one I was very moved by the sequence with the ghost ship.
Also, there were things that just tickled me, the chief among them the fact that in this case the wrong-headed, unscientific worldview enforced by the Quisition is the Copernican universe, and the world is *really* flat. Also, Brutha's approach to plans: "What did you go and do that for?" "I... don't know. It seemed like... the next thing to do." Also, hee, Bede sparrow reference. (Or, at least, Bede is where *I* know it from.)
49. Terry Pratchett, Mort -- the thing that struck me most about this book (and I read the Death series in a really scattered order, starting with Soul Music, moving on to Reaper Man, then Hogfather, and now Mort, the first Death book) is how much less... fluffy Death is in this one. There's the love of cats, and the attempts at making his surroundings human and going native, a bit, and, of course, the adopted daughter, but Death himself feels rather more alien, less human. Less NICE. I kind of like it, actually. I like Mort well enough, though, like Pteppic, he feels almost too *normal* a protagonist to root for -- a sharp young boy, but without something -- some evident flaw or internal struggle or something -- that makes other Pratchett protagonists particularly memorable and empathetic. I was reading Mort in parallel with both Maskerade and Small Gods (it's too short a book to last me a full day's commute reading, so I kept it on my bedside table instead, that's why), and both Agnes and Brutha are so much more *vivid* and *different*. I'm not terribly impressed with Ysabell, though I feel for her. I like perpetually food-stained Cutwell, and I *adore* Princess Keli and her Mongolian-conqueror-like heritage shining through. And it was AWESOME to find out who Albert actually was and to see him bossing all the UU wizards around. I didn't really buy or care about the Mort/Ysabell relationship, though I did enjoy their anti-courtship by the fish pond. Overall, it was a pretty enjoyable read, but it neither blew me away (like Small Gods) nor swept me along with mad glee the way Maskerade (and, to a lesser, Magrat-dampened extent, Wyrd Sisters).
Also, there seem to be pyramids in Tsort in this one, as opposed to Djelybeybi (which I can't be arsed to look up how to spell correctly) like in Pyramids.
OK! I did actually read some non-Pratchett last month:
44. Clare B. Dunkle, Close Kin (Book 2 of The Hollow Kingdom trilogy) -- I liked this book less than the first one. Probably it had a lot less Marak in it. Emily is fun and Seylin is a really nice guy, but neither of them can anchor an arc the way Marak can. Also, because the action was split between three or even four strands (which did eventually come together) -- Seylin's quest, Em's quest, Sable's miserable existence, and "back in the goblin kingdom", the book just felt really scattered. I didn't get a good feel for place or passage of time -- something I thought the first book did better, if not particularly gracefully. The writing thing that *really* "bugged me though was the tendency to refer to Seylin as "the shy young man" or "the curious cat" or "the reserved young elf", etc., every couple of lines. I'm not an epithet-phobe like some folks, but this book really went too far.
I liked Emily and Seylin's relationship just fine, in an inoffensive childhood sweethearts way. Totally didn't buy Ruby the humanophobe suddenly deciding to care for the little twins. And then there were the elves. It's an interesting choice -- and interesting role-reversal from the typical fantasy convention of sophisticated, gentle elves and brutish, neanderthal-like goblins. The "oh how the mighty have fallen" angle was one I would've been curious to see -- but I thought it was taken too far. The "oops, all the women are dead" explanation for how the childbirth magic was lost was lame. Also, why would an isolated band of elves forget elvish and start speaking English instead? The human nurses? Well, I guess, but why would it replace a language that everybody in the camp spoke? If they didn't have contact with the broader human world. Especially if *customs* were in fact preserved. Oh well.
The thing that really bugged me though was Thorn's character. Yes, he is meant to be a thoroughly evil abusive type, and he is. But he is *too* evil. There needs to be some glimpse of something if not redeemable, at least human in there, and there just isn't -- and characters like that are boring. Rowan and Willow, twisted by his influence as they are, are much more interesting than that because there does seem to be hope for them at least. Even airhead Irina with her one hidden talent is more interesting (and I actually kind of thought her relationship with Thaydar was sweet. Especially this part: "Who would have thought, their eyes told eah other, that the boss [i.e. Thaydar] was such an idiot?"]). As for Sable...
She's a character who could've been really interesting, but feels like she falls short of her true potential. For one thing, it feels like a cop-out that her beauty is restored by goblin magic. Yes, she is left with faint scars, but shouldn't the (metaphorically echoed) point be that you *can't* undo that kind of (emotional) damage by magic? Also, the core of strength that's presumably within her doesn't seem to actually manifest itself. I dunno... much as I like the fact that she's an elven magical math nerd, her character just doesn't seem to fit its role.
The book ends on kind of an ominous note, with Catspaw (Marak's heir) growing up and antagonism set up between him and his foster-sister Til. Wonder how that all turns out in the end. (Speaking of which, I have the third and final book sitting on my shelf now waiting for me. Good place to be.)
45. Jonathan Kellerman, Obsession -- I rather liked this one! Better than the last several, probably mainly because I didn't see the whole thing coming from miles off. The multiple convoluted family connections were quite neat, if not exactly plausible (including the last twist at the end). And also, I really, really liked Kyle, in all his dorky, badly dressed, hyper-self-conscious glory. I half-thought he was going to turn out to be a bad guy at first and was preparing myself to lament this fact, and then, when it became pretty clear that he was in fact a good guy, I became half-convinced that Kellerman was going to kill him off in some traumatic-for-Tanya fashion (especially when I peeked at the end and saw Tanya was going to need therapy indefinitely) -- so I'm really glad that he survived! I hope he shows up in glimpses in subsequent books, as a couple of other characters have done (like the spook father of the girl in Time Bomb (I think)), although I can't imagine what Alex and Milo could need a physics Ph.D. for. (Also, I kind of liked the not-all-that-subtle mirroring between Mario Fortuno and Kyle's father both telling Delaware to tell their sons they love them.) I liked child!Tanya more than grown-up Tanya, and also liked the two Central detectives.
Moving on to random territory. Blanche (the new dog) is a Doggie-Sue. I liked Spike's brindled antagonism towards Alex so much better! There is some Rick in this one -- I can't think of another one where he actually makes an appearance on the page... Also, just lots and lots of random Jews. Kellerman always has one or two as minor characters, but this one I think had more than the usual quota, or at least it was very noticeable -- there's the oncologist lady (Tziporah Ganz), the scriptwriter neighbor gal (Lisa Bergman, who says "From your mouth to God's ears"), and the contractor (Avi Benezra) at a minimum, and I think there may have been others. Oh, right, the SWAT guy with cousins in Jerusalem.
Also, kind of unrelated to the actual book, but a couple of weeks ago I was checking for new Kellerman novels and saw the library had a book by Jesse Kellerman on the shelves. I wondered whether this was one of Jonathan's sons ('cos they're pretty grown-up at this point), but the Jesse book didn't mention that in the blurb, although it did say he was from LA. Well, Obsession mentions that Jonathan's son Jesse is, indeed, a novelist. I'll probably pick up the Jesse book and see if he is any good.
So, the Pratchett binge interrupted me two-thirds into Mercedes Lackey's Fortune's Fool and a little over halfway into A Song for Arbonne, so I'll probably be going back to those now, instead of diving into Wintersmith. There's also Jim Butcher's third Codex Alera book, which I'm only bout a chapter into but it's not sweeping me away or anything. Mostly I'm wishing it were White Night.