For the devotees of Discworld

[The Whiskey Priest]

Is this satire and a comment on the state of the world? Is there a moral?

[Az]

1. Its a running social commentary

And a marvelous one at that.

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. Yeah... it's a fun place. Anyone seen my luggage?

[greatauntoftriplets]

2. What is Discworld?

Got a link to that? ;)

[Orsino]

3. Here's a bunch...

http://www.ie.lspace.org/books/index.html

[Frozen Hamster]

5. Yes to all three

Although the great thing about Pratchett is that he usually doesn't ram the moral down your throat. My favourite series. I've read most of the series.

Edit: Left out half a sentance.

[Az]

6. I like to say

That Pratchett is what Douglas Adams would have been if he wrote fantasy instead of SciFi and actually liked to write.

[Frozen Hamster]

7. Yeb.

DNA is my second-favourite author. I need to find the Drik Gently eries somewhere.
Can anyone tell me if it's as good as Hitchhicker's?

[Az]

8. It has it's high points

But Guide is just simply an event in his life. He really didn't like to write. It shows in Gently. Though I do still reference the refrigerator battle in it to this day.

[Robeson]

9. Dang. I thought this thread was going to be about Disc Golf.....

...you had me excited for a moment...:-(

[Az]

10. Books and stuff

Blech.

[Frozen Hamster]

11. Yeah, who reads nowadays?

If it is larger than a back of a milk carton only nerds and geeks read it.
:sarcasm:

[Truebrit71sbruv]

12. It is all of those things and more...

His craft comes in using current cultural and societal icons/motifs and repurposing them in the Discworld context.

In books like Feet of Clay he especially examines the human condition. And whilst he does not produce work that has a huge placard saying "LOOOOOOK SATIRE", he certainly manages to be both thought-provoking and capable of making me laugh out loud on a train or plane. ~grins sheepishly~

The only fly in the ointment is that I have met him on a couple of occasions in the course of work, and he is something of a pompous ass "off camera". (And yes, I do note the irony of me saying something like that as being somewhat pompous myself, sorry)...

Mind you... which former CEGB press-officer turned multi-multi-millionaire wouldn't be?

[Orrex]

13. Two morals

1. Don't call on the same few characters to support more than their fair share of your fictional world (Night Watch falls into a ST: Voyager-esque "hurl-em-back-in-time" hackplot and thereby signals the creative death of The Watch)

2. Make sure you have a good and thorough editor. Pratchett's later books have suffered from numerous instances of conspicuously-repeated phrases and dumbing-down of jokes for no apparent reason other than boosting the bottom line. Hey, we all gotta make a living, but it's sad to see a creative and entertaining writer stumble over such basic obstacles.

I've read Prachett since '91, but IMO he's lost a lot of steam in the past decade or so.