Making Money
The second Moist von Lipwig book is a very entertaining romp. Not as powerful or as moving as the very top echelon of Pratchett's work can be, but very much worth a read.
Previously reviewed in 2007 and 2009. This re-read was prompted by a showing of the Sky production of Going Postal over xmas. It's probably the best of all the Discworld adaptations so far, with the performance by Claire Foy as Adora Belle Dearheart a particular standout.
Snuff
The latest Discworld novel finds us once again in the company of Pratchett's greatest character - Sam Vimes.
Snuff finds Vimes rather reluctantly on holiday with his wife and son at her country estate. Of course, being the true copper that he is, Sam finds himself in the middle of a mystery.
What makes Pratchett great, of course, is his ability to capture the complexities and messiness of being human and part of the greater animal that is society.
His clear eyed humanism is a treasure we should cherish.
Snuff starts slowly and doesn't spark into life until Vimes relaxes into his inquiry and feels like he's on familiar ground. The main body of the story is typical Pratchett, beautifully told and utterly involving. However the ending is weirdly muddled, with uneven pacing and too many things left off screen and just related to the reader.
As I always say when reviewing Sir Terry - if you haven't read his stuff please do; they are more than worth your time.
This isn't recommended as a place to start, though. Read a few more of the Vimes books, starting with the first perhaps (Guards! Guards!), and you'll be ready to come back and enjoy this one.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
So I saw the final film installment of the Harry Potter saga the other week and it gave me the impetus to do something I'd been meaning to do for a while; to re-read all the books.
This is in part to experience the world as Rowling wrote it, shorn of the film maker's interpretations and compromises. The other reason is that I've only read the last book once - and a very quick read it was. So there's a lot of things that I can't remember and I'm sure there's a lot of nuance I missed throughout the entire series that I never picked up on.
The first book is a great kids book. It's not terribly original but very well done with a consistency of tone and world building that would pay dividends as the series grew into a phenomenon.
It's a quick, fun read within a recognizable tradition of boarding school (magic or otherwise) stories. The greatest pleasure of this re-read is identifying the number of things that are seeded here that come to fruition later in the series. Though it's hard to tell what's a deliberate plant - some things gain signifigance in an almost haphazard fashion.
Another enjoyable aspect of the book is getting to know characters again that aren't terribly well served by the films. Ron and Hermione are richer and more interesting people in the books. In the celluloid version of the series I feel that they were reduced to comic foil and brain respectively.
One thing that I definitely noticed this time through are that there's a lot of negatives in the depiction of fat people.
I like this book and it's an enjoyable gateway to a series that is ultimately a very rewarding read.
The Daughter of Time
I'll be perfectly honest - this is not the kind of book I'd read normally. A Fifties police procedural about an upright police detective who investigates a historical mystery? Not my cup of tea!
However I was reading a thread about a book I love - The Dragon Waiting by John M. Ford and lots of people said that if you want some historical context then The Daughter of Time was the most palatable way to get it.
So I picked it up via the wonder that is inter-library loan. Libraries rock.
This brief book was written in 1951 and, given that some of it's attitudes towards women and anyone who isn't English are quite appalling, I found it quite entertaining.
The major thrust of the book is that common knowledge or the historical record is frequently a lot of rubbish and doesn't exactly match what really happened, which he then applies to the story of Richard III. As a result it's ironic that he accepts establishment interpretations of controversial events as examples of how historical events and the facts don't always marry up.
If you like a detective story, or historical sleuthing then you might love this book. Personally, as primer to the fall of the Plantagenet dynasty, I found it enlightening.
Passage
If this book had just been shorter, or quicker paced it would have received a much higher mark from me.
The book follows Doctors researching into Near Death Experiences based in a General Hospital somewhere in the USA. One of them develops a way to safely replicate NDEs under lab conditions in volunteers and the other has been recording the testimony of real life NDE patients.
Essentially what should be a snappy medical mystery/science fiction novel gets bogged down in the detail of Near Death Experiences and generally makes you think "this is going nowhere, do something to advance the story"
It's extremely well written and some of the characters are great (especially the ultra pragmatic, disaster obsessed, pre-teen heart patient Maisie), and generally what happens is quite satisfying - I just felt it took too long to get there.
I think I'm going to take a break from Willis' books - I've been struggling with the audiobook of Blackout for months now and lost the will to listen to it anymore!
My Shit Life So Far
Of the comedian's biographies I've read this year, this is closest to an actual biography. True it contains substantial chunks of his stand up routine, but it also feels like you're getting some insight into what makes Boyle the man he is.
It is of course very funny in places.
I'd say it's worth picking it up dirt cheap someplace - no need to encourage him too much.
Wyrd Sisters
This, the 5th Discworld book, is the first where Pratchett really finds the style and tone that he would use for the majority of the rest of the series.
A brilliant parody of Shakespeare, Witch stories and fantasy in general it also happens to be the first book in the Witches sub-series (Granny Weatherwax appears earlier in Equal Rites but that's more of a standalone DW book).
If you've never read it before I very highly recommend it.
It's a great wee book that I've knocked down the score of because there are better Pratchett books out there now and I'm way too familiar with the book now and have rung much of the humour out it - even though I've not read it in at least 7 years.
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