“It was the living who ignored the strange and wonderful, because it was too full of the boring and mundane. But it was strange.”Windle Poons had that realization while he was munching on celery in the dark lying in his coffin shortly after his burial. Let’s back up a bit. Reaper Man, by Terry Pratchett, beings with Death being fired from his job. Apparently Death had developed too much of a personality (he is one of the most amusing characters in Discworld, after all), so the Powers That … [Read more...] about Looking at Life Off Kilter
Terry Pratchett
The Great Movies?
Terry Pratchett had an uncanny ability to isolate an aspect of the world, turn it inside out and drop it into the fantastical world of his creation. The result is inevitably an amusing tale, littered with enough slightly more than thinly veiled references to keep your brain locked in looking for the jokes. Underneath the narrative is a substantive point. It really is a rare talent. Moving Pictures takes on Cinema. An old man guarding a secret dies, and the next thing you know, people are … [Read more...] about The Great Movies?
The Wishing Game
Let’s play the “You get three wishes” game. (And, yes, "ixnay on the wishing for more wishes.") Here is the challenge: Can you craft a wish which cannot be subverted? Terry Pratchett’s novel, Eric, is, like all Discworld novels, a mash-up parody of innumerable other things. In this case, the primary objects of mockery are Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, Homer, the Aztecs, and Dante. As with all Discworld novels, it is marvelous fun. In the novel Eric tries to summon a demon so he can … [Read more...] about The Wishing Game