Max wrote- >Some Pratchett fans that particularly hate *Night Watch* would be amazed >that you find *Night Watch* "lighter" reading, but perhaps you lucked >out by skipping *Thief of Time*, first. You might find *Night Watch* to >be a subtly different beast if you re-read it after *Thief of Time*. >(Personally I'm a fan of *Thief of Time* and *Night Watch*.) However, >you probably want to read a lot more Discworld books before you work >your way back to *Thief of Time*...
OK Max, you are going to chuckle, guess what one of the other 2 Pratchetts I downloaded was? Already a good chunk of the way through Thief of Time, not as good as Night Watch to me, but it is good enough to pass some flight time. My comments on "lighter" are from a naive perspective since this was my introduction to Pratchett in a lay persons terms........ Quaint village opening with some time of police force with cross bows and suddenly there is an interaction with a zombie.... <what kind of story is this????> ..... <oh well, take it in stride, I don't know what "discworld" *is*, and a zombie never really hurt a story too bad most of the time>..... moving along...... interaction with troll and timeline stuff...... <well, after a zombie, what is a troll to bother about, I am a non discrimatory head shaker, but still don't know where it is going, time line stuff seems cool enough, lets see where it goes>..... rinse, repeat. Whenever I read Bear and Gibson, I have to prepare myself for the possibility of a major culture immersion, something where I have to work at to get a cultural anchor (but also can create a connection/commitment to the story *belief* for a time afterwards if it is successful). I don't know anything about literary stuff like that, but examples are reading Queen of Angels/Slant, etc. In Pratchett the story seem to ease you into thinking you know the culture and then makes you do a double take that is kinda fun. You are right, the tongue in cheek is helpful strategy/stories are good and the "time monks" are a wild card (and from a literary perspective I could see that would allow some incongruencies in story lines). I guess it is like reading Heinlein, I found the older stuff first and got hooked as a young adult, saving things like the Puppet Masters for later. If I had started with the Cat who walked through walls, I am not sure I would have had the same perspectives on Heinlein. <arm chair critic mode off> Dee
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