“‘I don’t mind criticism,’ said Granny. ‘You know me. I’ve never been one to take offence at criticism. No-one could say I’m the sort to take offence at criticism -’
[Text ID: ‘It’s daft, locking us up,’ said Nanny. ‘I’d have had us killed.’ / ‘That’s because you’re basically good,’ said Magrat. ‘The good are innocent and create justice. The bad are guilty, which is why they invent mercy.’/End ID]
The sun was well up when the three witches spiralled into the sky. They had been delayed for a while because of the intractability of Granny Weatherwax’s broomstick, the starting of which always required a great deal of galloping up and down. It never seemed to get the message until it was being shoved through the air at a frantic running speed. Dwarf engineers everywhere had confessed themselves totally mystified.
Most people, on waking up, accelerate through a quick panicky pre-consciousness check-up: who am I, where am I, who is he/she, good god, why am I cuddling a policeman’s helmet, what happened last night?
And this is because people are riddled by Doubt. It is the engine that drives them through their lives. It is the elastic band in the little model airplane of their soul, and they spend their time winding it up until it knots. Early morning is the worst time–there’s that little moment of panic in case You have drifted away in the night and something else has moved in. This never happened to Granny Weatherwax. She went straight from fast asleep to instant operation on all six cylinders. She never needed to find herself because she always knew who was doing the looking.
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.
…And all the above are true. :)
Someone invents a) affirmative action and b) black powder firearms. This makes a lot of people very angry and is widely regarded as a bad move.
A convicted (and executed) conman is given the job of looking after the moribund municipal government service and ends up fighting the corrupt businessmen who took over the internet and put it behind a giant paywall.
Cinderella but it’s about the fairy godmothers (and their opposite numbers), with bonus Frog Princess reversed, Puss-in-Boots reversed, vodoun/ Santería reversed, Casanova sort of reversed, and Wizard of Oz reversed, with musings along the way about identity, justice vs. mercy, and inedible bread,
Midsummer Night’s Dream meets Fake Boudicca, with bonus teen identity, how to spot and avoid grooming, the purpose of royalty, the purpose of witches, and bees.
Dracula, but with religion, resisting manipulation, the nature of sin, and Dissociative Identity Disorder.
Assassins Creed meets Egyptian Mythology; there are time loops, reanimated mummies, and camels are mathematical geniuses. Also technically incest but it’s okay?
Proto-Socialist policeman and reluctant noble solves a murder, avenges genocide, and learns kung-fu. There’s high-speed chase shenanigans and a lethal butler. Also harp music and jokes about novelists.
“Mrs. Gogol could feel them among the trees. The homeless. The hungry. The silent people. Those forsaken by men and gods. The people of the mists and the mud, whose only strength was somewhere on the other side of weakness, whose beliefs were as rickety and home-made as their homes. And the people from the city – not the ones who lived in the big white houses and went to balls in fine coaches, but the other ones. They were the ones that stories are never about. Stories are not, on the whole, interested in swineherds who remain swineherds and poor and humble shoemakers whose destiny is to die slightly poorer and much humbler.”
“It wasn’t the wearing of the hats that counted so much as having one to wear. Every trade, every craft had its hat. That’s why kings had hats. Take the crown off a king and all you had was someone good at having a weak chin and waving to people. Hats had power. Hats were important.”
“But it was miraculous, the dwarf bread. No-one ever went hungry when they had some dwarf bread to avoid. You only had to look at it for a moment, and instantly you could think of dozens of things you’d rather eat. Your boots, for example. Mountains. Raw sheep. Your own foot.”
“The Yen Buddhists are the richest religious sect in the universe. They hold that the accumulation of money is a great evil and burden to the soul. They therefore, regardless of personal hazard, see it as their unpleasant duty to acquire as much as possible in order to reduce the risk to innocent people.”
“And I don’t hold with all this giving things funny names so people don’t know what they’re eating,’ said Granny, determined to explore the drawbacks of international cookery to the full. ‘I like stuff that tells you plain what it is, like … well … Bubble and Squeak, or … or…’
“It was one of the weak spots of Granny Weatherwax’s otherwise well-developed character that she’d never bothered to get the hang of steering things. It was alien to her nature. She took the view that it was her job to move and the rest of the world to arrange itself so that she arrived at her destination.”
“Magrat bought occult jewellery as a sort of distraction from being Magrat. She had three large boxes of the stuff and was still exactly the same person.”
“It’s a strange thing about determined seekers-after-wisdom that, no matter where they happen to be, they’ll always seek that wisdom which is a long way off. Wisdom is one of the few things that look bigger the further away it is.”
