Unseen Academicals, Terry Pratchett



Okay; this wasn't as good as Pterry when he's good, but it wasn't as bad as the Post Office books. Possibly trying to make golems interesting and a postal service - any postal service - efficient is beyond even the scope of his genius. I found it terribly, terribly sad that he had to get someone else to type up his manuscript for him. I also found it annoying, because you could tell. Rob Wilkins is having some kind of depraved illicit love affair with ellipses.

Football has permeated the social consciousness thingummy to the point where I realised all the riffs - 'who ate all the pies?', 'there's only one X', etc. As a parody of the game and its supporters, it could have been better - but I'm not sure how. Things I didn't like included the presentation of Vetinari as someone who laughed by accident; Drumknott's crazy (maybe because I'm a fierce shipper of Vetinari/Drumknott and have no truck with vampire seductresses, curly-haired or no); and the orc storyline. That isn't an unpossessed fairytale - that BELONGS to Tolkien. I presume LotR has gone out of copyright by now, but still.

I really did think the romances were going in a Juliet/Glenda direction at one point. I was genuinely disappointed when they turned off for heterosexual land. That's one thing he's never done, actually. Although I suppose many (strange) people would argue strongly for Vimes/Vetinari … which to me is like breaking up Pete/Ashlee. *le shrug*

"[...] We need, do we not, to make a sport that is more exciting than beating other people over the head with big weapons."
"That one's always been very popular," said Ponder doubtfully.

I HEART HIS TAKE ON WAR, FOR ALWAYS AND AFTER.

"[...] Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to us to become his moral superior."

GO GO VETINARI. I want this as a BUMPER STICKER.

"The female mind is a devious one, my lord."
Vetinari looked at his secretary in surprise. "Well, of course it is. It has to deal with the male one. [...]"

THIS TOO, ONLY I FEAR IT WOULD BE TOO LONG.

"I would like you to teach [the orcs] civilised behaviour," said Ladyship coldly.
He appeared to consider this. "Yes, of course, I think that would be quite possible," he said. "And who would you send to teach the humans?"

I'm still in. ♥



Previously, on Book Glomp 2009:
He Knew He Was Right, Anthony Trollope |The Bostonians, Henry James | For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway | For Esme - with Love and Squalor, JD Salinger | The Outsider, Albert Camus | The Princess Diaries: Ten out of Ten, Meg Cabot | The Vicar of Bullhampton, Anthony Trollope | Molesworth, Geoffrey Willans | Villette, Charlotte Bronte | The Portrait of a Lady, Henry James | The Way of All Flesh, Samuel Butler | Cecilia, Fanny Burney | The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger | The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark | Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut | Valley of the Dolls, Jacqueline Susann | Siddhartha, Herman Hesse | The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga | The Duke and I, Julia Quinn | Brave New World, Aldous Huxley | North and South, Elizabeth Gaskell | Cider with Rosie, Laurie Lee | Catch-22, Joseph Heller | Bright Shiny Morning, James Frey | Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck | The Demon's Lexicon, Sarah Rees Brennan | The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton | jPod, Douglas Coupland | 'Are these my basoomas I see before me?', Louise Rennison | Faro's Daughter, Georgette Heyer | Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman | The Accidental Sorcerer, K.E. Mills | Ethan of Athos, Lois McMaster Bujold | V., Thomas Pynchon | The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway | The Dragon Keeper, Robin Hobb | Orlando, Virginia Woolf | The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath | Snuff, Chuck Palahniuk | Crush, Richard Siken | Trust Me, I'm a Junior Doctor, Max Pemberton | The Dice Man, Luke Rhinehart | Call Me By Your Name, Andre Aciman | Young Miles, Lois McMaster Bujold | He's Just Not That Into You, Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo | The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand | A Classical Education, Caroline Taggart | The Way We Live Now, Anthony Trollope | Two Cures for Love, Wendy Cope