So early next morning she softly arose

[sovay]

I am eight pages into Terry Pratchett's Monstrous Regiment* and already I can see that I may have to keep a sharp ballad lookout. Our heroine Polly has cut her hair, dressed in her brother's clothes, and enlisted as a soldier (in the Borogravian Army) under the name Oliver:

"Age?"

"Seventeen come Sunday, sir."

"Yeah, right," said the sergeant.

*I am convalescing on all the Terry Pratchett I've missed in the last several years. Yesterday was The Fifth Elephant, Thief of Time, and Night Watch. Today, I will be out of new Terry Pratchett. I may re-read Going Postal and Thud! anyway.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_jb/]

Jingo is earlier than The Truth, and is some of the biting satire that he's written, as is Small Gods. Feet of Clay isn't hilarious, but it's grown on me - it has a quiet meditation on so much hidden behind the silliness, that each time I read it I see it a bit more. Lords and Ladies is also the best meta-novel (novel about stories and myths) he's written, with Witches Abroad and it's mediation on fairy tales a close second. He's been doing the serious stuff for a while - alongside silly books (like most of the Rincewind ones).

The Last Hero is worth getting, especially if you can get it on sale (it shows up in remainder sales, and Amazon mikght have it cheap). The story is definitely short, but the images are worth spending time with and looking at again and again.

[sovay]

Jingo didn't do much for me, although I'm always fond of Vimes and I liked that the Patrician can juggle. Small Gods, on the other hand, is brilliant and one of the best. It wasn't my introduction to the Discworld—that was Moving Pictures—but I know many people who did get in that way.

He's been doing the serious stuff for a while - alongside silly books (like most of the Rincewind ones).

I'm starting to wonder if it's even a case of serious versus silly: there has been a real shift in tone in the last five or six books. Ankh-Morpork has been gradually evolving into the present day in odd directions, and the political angle has been consistently emphasized (perhaps since Jingo) in ways that it previously wasn't, even in Rincewind books like Interesting Times. Sword-and-sorcery has not been the default paradigm of the Discworld for a while now. Maybe it's the distinction between spoof and satire? I'm still working this out.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_jb/]

Did you read it before or after September 11?

I read it about 2003, and it was just so on (having been written in the late nineties, I think) that it was eerie. But I remember not so much the novel, which was entertaining, but not stellar, as the way it encapsulated jingoism.