She doesn’t know it yet, but she will soon. You see, the midterm paper on calls for students to write a collection evaluation for a library of our choosing. Now, I know that when she said that library does not need to be real, she meant that we didn’t need to pick a specific one. But what I heardwas…
For those of you requesting the full paper, I’ll see what I can do once I get the grade back!
I’M SO GLAD YOU ASKED
For the sake of this evaluation, only the official, present collection of the Unseen University will be examined. Collections belonging to other libraries that are accessible via L-Space will be considered as part of the Interlibrary Loan System, as will materials available by time-travel and other such means.
Relatedly:
Whether or not acquiring books that have not yet been written is a violation of copyright law has yet to be legally clarified, but faculty and students should not expect to be permitted to cite them in their own work (see also Library Rule 3: Do Not Interfere With The Nature Of Causality).
Describing Terry Pratchett’s books is difficult. Someone asked me what the book I was reading was about, and I had to tell them it was about banking and the gold standard, but like in a cool way with golems and action.
I don’t think they believed me.
welcome to the club
It is so, so difficult to explain to people that your favorite book is about transgender feminist dwarves, Nazi werewolves, and the mystery of a missing piece of really old ritual bread. And Opera saves the day.
yes, give us those sweet, sweet, terrible descriptions
A tortoise who’s really a god, finds an allegory for Jesus and they go on adventures in an ancient greece like place and then a desert
The chief of police averts a rerun of an ancient war, partially despite and partially because of being possessed by a dying dwarf’s graffiti
It’s like Les Miserables but Javert is the good guy and also there’s time travel.
Macbeth but it’s about the witches
Chapter one, the protagonist is hanged. Then he’s put in charge of the post office. Yes, in that order.
it’s like mulan if there were way more mulans in mulan and also pratchett is extra irritated that too many people missed the point of jingo
The bureaucrats of the universe get annoyed at the paperwork humanity causes so they decide to steal Christmas. Replacement Christmas is done by Death and replacement Death is done by goth Mary Poppins, who is also in charge of the investigation.
these are all nice and accurate reasons to read discworld if you haven’t yet
Romeo and Juliet football AU but the other team is wizards
Hollywood????
An entire clan of tattooed, hairy, kleptomaniac, alcoholic Scotsmen decide a little girl is their new best friend whether she wants to be or not and she rescues her absolutely worthless brother by discovering the power of selfishness.
Someone is dying, journalism is being invented, and part of Pulp Fiction is going on in the background.
The universes burocrats want to measure everything so they pay a man to imprison time so everything will stop and they can measure things in peace. Goth mary Poppins saves the day, the fifth horseman of the apocalypse is the best Milkman in the world, and chocolate saves the day. Also someone was born twice.
Classic dynastic machinations are happening in fantasy China, to be completely overturned by a gang of elderly barbarian heroes and the world’s worst wizard and best sprinter
A sad, pathetic male of his species re-plumbs the depths of his soul and saves the city by wooing a powerful female. The same thing happens to a dragon.
Some holiday fan art of Terry’ Pratchett’s Discworld Christmas fantasy-adventure: THE HOGFATHER! Where Death himself and his granddaughter Susan Sto-Helit must save the disc’s equivalent of Christmas and Santa from nefarious forces, along with encountering the strange new fairy creatures, gods, bogeymen, assassins, and holiday traditions! HO! HO! HO!
Because it’s the Glorious 25th, I am of course thinking of Sam Vimes today.
And the thing about Vimes as a hero is that he’s so extreme in personality, but also so deeply relatable.
Carrot, for example, (and of course it’s not an accident that Carrot is there as comparison) is your typical fantasy hero. And he’s not relatable at all. He’s Good in a way that most people will never be, can never be. There’s something God-touched about his goodness. And his goodness isn’t…super effective. I mean, it is a little. But no, who is it that really creates and continues the sweeping change of Discworld, over and over again? It’s Sam Vimes.
Sam Vimes, who spent most of his life drunk and in a gutter. Who burnt out from his unfair job, unjust world, and unappreciated caring and gave up. For YEARS AND YEARS he gave up.
Until he finally met a situation that was so intense it forced him to care again.
And lord, that is so COMFORTING. That you can fuck up your whole life for a couple decades and then still answer the call when it comes. Save the day and push for changes. Be the sand in the gears of industry, fight impossible odds and win over and over, while complaining about having to do it the whole time.
Vimes as we mostly know him is a character our world desperately needed. Someone who keeps pushing and pushing against overwhelming injustice, even when it seems like the powers that be are stacked so high against you.
But also how much more powerful to say “this character was once a total waste of space.” He was ground down by daily life and constant injustice. But he didn’t stay that way forever.
blessings blessings, indira varma is such a great narrator; oddly enough she does sound a lot like celia imrie at times, even enounces in a curiously similar manner, BUT thank god! steers clear of pronouncing “gyta” as bleeding “g-ai-tah”
serafinowicz has a VOICE for sure but he ain’t no nigel planer; i don’t think those parts are working
“Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder. Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels. Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies. Elves are glamorous. They project glamour. Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment. Elves are terrific. They beget terror. The thing about words is that meaning can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning. No one ever said elves are nice. Elves are bad.”
-Lords and Ladies by Sir Terry Pratchett, setting the standard for Changeling the Lost’s Gentry.
