Tag Archives: Discworld

Book Review – The Wee Free Men

Another literary masterpiece by my loved author Terry Pratchett, the Wee Free Men is a mixture of the usual Pratchett fantasy with some pretty weird dreams stuff that feel taken out of an a Lewis Carroll book (Through the Looking Glass, or Alice in Wonderland). And to top it all, we also have the Nac Mac Feegle, a race of war loving creatures that are simply hilarious.

The book tells the story of how a little but very smart girl from “the chalk” gets involved in a quest to save the world from evil monsters that come from some dreamland that is somehow connected to our reality. That is basically it, and I don’t know how to tell more without spoiling the fun.

What I really liked about the book are the lessons about good behavior, kindness and correctness that are thrown every couple of pages. How the people who do wrong are either punished or understand their mistake. This is something that I didn’t find in previous Pratchett books, and I kind of liked it, although IMHO the number of morals could be reduced a bit.

In conclusion, great book, great author, great fun!

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Book Review – The Science of Discworld

After readingThe God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins (a book I had to make myself finish although I hated it), I needed some light reading material to clear up my brain, and what better than a Terry Pratchett book to do the job!

But “The Science of Discworld” is not your ordinary Discworld book. It is actually parallel to Dawkins’ book – talking about how the world (ours) was created, as seen from the perspective of the wizards of the Unseen University. And it also talks about how our brains work, about how we think (reminding me of Hofstadter, which I love).

As usual, Pratchett doesn’t disappoint me (well, almost, except one time for now), and I really enjoyed this book. One quote from was worth all of it:

“Beware of scientific fundamentalists who try to tell you everything is pretty much worked out, and only a few routine details are left to do. It is just when the majority of scientists believe such things that the next revolution in our world-view creeps into being…” – Terry Pratchett, “The Science of Discworld”

Keep them coming Sir. Pratchett!

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Book Review – Snuff

If you have read any of my previous book reviews, you know I am a big fan of Terry Pratchett. Sadly, Snuff was not good. To tell the truth, it was actually pretty bad; it was the first time I started looking forward in his books to see where the chapter ends so that I can go to sleep.

Snuff tells the story of an adventure that captures Sam Vimes while he is on vacations in the country with his wife. It seems that Vimes acquired a number of “super powers” since the last time I read about him, so I must have skipped a book or two in the line, but this never seemed to bother me before. Now it did. Sam seems to be a kind of superman that can do all kinds of magical and mystical things. There are many characters in the Discworld series who have superpowers, but they are never used so many times to solve all of their problems. In Snuff, the plot is a bit too centered in him. Maybe that what Pratchett’s idea.

Not that the book is so bad. It is funny and easy to read (as always), but it didn’t have any of the WOW moments that I usually get from reading his books. I really hope this doesn’t happen anymore.

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