It's a long time since I've read them, and they're not that similar but as said - nothing really is.
The Bartimaeus Sequence - it's set in a 20th Centuryish alt history where magic exists, and told from the point of view of a snarky millennia old djinn who is basically sick and tired of all this crap humans force him to do.
From memory it probably does lean more YA though.
Switch Friend Code: SW-3944-9431-0318
PSN / Xbox / NNID: Fodder185
I managed to convince my fiancee to listen to the Discworld audiobooks. She's loving them, but wants to mix it up a bit with books from authors of a similar style to Pratchett.
I'm kinda drawing a blank - any suggestions?
I'd suggest Jasper Fforde. A lot less subtle than Pratchett, but they're a lot of fun, and he really plays with the medium.
He's got two main series (that are loosely linked); Thursday Next is the protagonist of the first series, set - at least at first - in a *heavily* alternate-reality England - indeed, it's probably better to think of it as a fantasy land with some bits of reality bleeding in, rather than a reality with some changes, hence why I suspect it might do the trick.
Later - and somewhat related - are the Nursery Crimes books, hard-boiled detective thriller starring nursery rhyme and fairy story characters . It's probably a bit similar to Fables in that regard (I'm not very familiar with it), but the ties to the TN series help to keep it being its own thing.
There's a couple of others - Shades of Grey, The Last Dragonslayer series - but I've not read those.
As a slightly left-field alternative selection, can I suggest the radio series Bleak Expectations? There is a book tie-in as well, although I don't know how well it works in text. It's still much less subtle than Pratchett, but endearingly silly. And it does have Anthony Head as the villain, hamming it up like nobody's business.
Back when I were in school in the 90s Robert Rankin and Tom Holt were the big British comic fantasy authors that tended to share a billing with Pratchett.
These are both much more into the comic than the clever like Pratchett, but might be worth looking in to. I don't know, I haven't read either for decades and can't remember much!
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ShadowenSnores in the morningLoserdomRegistered Userregular
ShadowenSnores in the morningLoserdomRegistered Userregular
Leaving aside that Discworld is not the kind of geek reference I expect from a corporate marketing account, that's not even what I would expect for a Discworld reference on such an account. It's a reasonably deep cut.
I managed to convince my fiancee to listen to the Discworld audiobooks. She's loving them, but wants to mix it up a bit with books from authors of a similar style to Pratchett.
I'm kinda drawing a blank - any suggestions?
Piers Anthony Xanth series is on par with Discworld in my opinion. I might have enjoyed it more but to be fair I read Xanth when I was a preteen and read Discworld in my 30s. I also liked some of his other series but they are nothing like Discworld.
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silence1186Character shields down!As a wingmanRegistered Userregular
Leaving aside that Discworld is not the kind of geek reference I expect from a corporate marketing account, that's not even what I would expect for a Discworld reference on such an account. It's a reasonably deep cut.
Maybe the Arby's account was taken over by the Nihilist Arby's account?
+1
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
I managed to convince my fiancee to listen to the Discworld audiobooks. She's loving them, but wants to mix it up a bit with books from authors of a similar style to Pratchett.
I'm kinda drawing a blank - any suggestions?
Piers Anthony Xanth series is on par with Discworld in my opinion. I might have enjoyed it more but to be fair I read Xanth when I was a preteen and read Discworld in my 30s. I also liked some of his other series but they are nothing like Discworld.
Just beware that Xanth has.... interesting things to say about gender.
+4
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YggiDeeThe World Ends With You ShillRegistered Userregular
Maybe... Maybe don't introduce your fiancee to Xanth. It's not a series that necessarily holds up over time.
I managed to convince my fiancee to listen to the Discworld audiobooks. She's loving them, but wants to mix it up a bit with books from authors of a similar style to Pratchett.
I'm kinda drawing a blank - any suggestions?
Piers Anthony Xanth series is on par with Discworld in my opinion. I might have enjoyed it more but to be fair I read Xanth when I was a preteen and read Discworld in my 30s. I also liked some of his other series but they are nothing like Discworld.
Just beware that Xanth has.... interesting things to say about gender.
And moral values when it comes to selling your unborn children to slavery (totally ok), not fulfilling promises others give on your behalf before you are born (total no no), and brainwashing (just fine).
Early Xanth was interesting, but later it got, weird, to say the least.
Leaving aside that Discworld is not the kind of geek reference I expect from a corporate marketing account, that's not even what I would expect for a Discworld reference on such an account. It's a reasonably deep cut.
Maybe the Arby's account was taken over by the Nihilist Arby's account?
The Arby's Twitter account has been dropping those nerd references for a couple years now. Every couple weeks ill see one come across my Facebook with a an Arby's food item next to a videogame or anime thing.
Though papercraft A'tuin is definitely a cut above the normal ones.
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
I managed to convince my fiancee to listen to the Discworld audiobooks. She's loving them, but wants to mix it up a bit with books from authors of a similar style to Pratchett.
I'm kinda drawing a blank - any suggestions?
Piers Anthony Xanth series is on par with Discworld in my opinion. I might have enjoyed it more but to be fair I read Xanth when I was a preteen and read Discworld in my 30s. I also liked some of his other series but they are nothing like Discworld.
Just beware that Xanth has.... interesting things to say about gender.
And moral values when it comes to selling your unborn children to slavery (totally ok), not fulfilling promises others give on your behalf before you are born (total no no), and brainwashing (just fine).
Early Xanth was interesting, but later it got, weird, to say the least.
Even early Xanth has large chunks that would be, as they say today, problematic. I wouldn't go beyond book six, and there's some pretty dubuous stuff in those. That said, his ability to pop out a book a year at the ripe old age of 83 is pretty impressive, even if the quality ain't all that.
You could always try some Gaiman. Stylewise it's very different, as in there's none of the humor of Pratchett, but the mixture of fantasy with, I dunno, fundamental humanity is similar.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
I managed to convince my fiancee to listen to the Discworld audiobooks. She's loving them, but wants to mix it up a bit with books from authors of a similar style to Pratchett.
I'm kinda drawing a blank - any suggestions?
Piers Anthony Xanth series is on par with Discworld in my opinion. I might have enjoyed it more but to be fair I read Xanth when I was a preteen and read Discworld in my 30s. I also liked some of his other series but they are nothing like Discworld.
Just beware that Xanth has.... interesting things to say about gender.
And moral values when it comes to selling your unborn children to slavery (totally ok), not fulfilling promises others give on your behalf before you are born (total no no), and brainwashing (just fine).
Early Xanth was interesting, but later it got, weird, to say the least.
Even early Xanth has large chunks that would be, as they say today, problematic. I wouldn't go beyond book six, and there's some pretty dubuous stuff in those. That said, his ability to pop out a book a year at the ripe old age of 83 is pretty impressive, even if the quality ain't all that.
You could always try some Gaiman. Stylewise it's very different, as in there's none of the humor of Pratchett, but the mixture of fantasy with, I dunno, fundamental humanity is similar.
Maybe... Maybe don't introduce your fiancee to Xanth. It's not a series that necessarily holds up over time.
Good job ad system. Way to insert ads to buy the books on that article about how terrible they are.
Actually kind of brilliant. I mean, how many people are going to read that article and think "Well, surely this article was written by someone cherry picking the very worst examples of stuff they don't like, or worse, making it up completely to discredit what I'm sure is a fine fantasy setting. I'll read this for my self and comment on the article to point out how ridiculously unfair the article actually is, and then the internet shall love me and shower me in acclaim and cat videos!".
Well, now you have a link directly to where you can buy the novels.
Full disclosure: I've not read any of the Xanth books, or the articles linked to above.
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daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
Tennant was pretty excellent as Kilgrave, so I'm generally OK with him as Crowley.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
Maybe... Maybe don't introduce your fiancee to Xanth. It's not a series that necessarily holds up over time.
Good job ad system. Way to insert ads to buy the books on that article about how terrible they are.
Actually kind of brilliant. I mean, how many people are going to read that article and think "Well, surely this article was written by someone cherry picking the very worst examples of stuff they don't like, or worse, making it up completely to discredit what I'm sure is a fine fantasy setting. I'll read this for my self and comment on the article to point out how ridiculously unfair the article actually is, and then the internet shall love me and shower me in acclaim and cat videos!".
Well, now you have a link directly to where you can buy the novels.
Full disclosure: I've not read any of the Xanth books, or the articles linked to above.
I read them between about 4th and 7th grade. I loved them then but definitely not worth a read now. I'd caught some of the stuff mentioned the articles but just seeing how much of it i missed/forgot in just one book is crazy.
The descriptions are starting to remind me of the Sword of Truth books. The first one was ok, but damn did they go off the rails rapey as they went on though.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
edited September 2017
The first one is pretty Rapey, too.
On the other hand, reading Sword of Truth made tolerating the shit in Wheel of Time muuuuch easier.
Fencingsax on
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HedgethornAssociate Professor of Historical Hobby HorsesIn the Lions' DenRegistered Userregular
Tennant was pretty excellent as Kilgrave, so I'm generally OK with him as Crowley.
Although Crowley isn't creepy nightmarish like Kilgrave. Remember that he "didn't so much fall as saunter vaguely downwards;" Crowley represents the most banal of banal evil.
Really looking forward to how this turns out.
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daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
Tennant was pretty excellent as Kilgrave, so I'm generally OK with him as Crowley.
Although Crowley isn't creepy nightmarish like Kilgrave. Remember that he "didn't so much fall as saunter vaguely downwards;" Crowley represents the most banal of banal evil.
Really looking forward to how this turns out.
I think a bit of the attitude will transfer. The other demons that Crowley deals with on team Hell are morons, so I think a fair amount of barely suppressed contempt should be on tap.
Crowley (at least initially) and Kilgrave both think of people as things to be manipulated. I think there's some overlap there.
I wonder if someone somewhere managed to get a tape of Christopher Lee doing DEATH's lines before he died.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
Tennant was pretty excellent as Kilgrave, so I'm generally OK with him as Crowley.
Although Crowley isn't creepy nightmarish like Kilgrave. Remember that he "didn't so much fall as saunter vaguely downwards;" Crowley represents the most banal of banal evil.
Really looking forward to how this turns out.
Kilgrave is the sort of person who Crowley uses as an example about how humans are the truly evil fuckers and that the demons should take notes from them.
Crowley is evil in much the same way an 80's Russian spy is evil. He nominally advocates the party line but in the end of it he's "bad" because of where he was "born" and not really because of what his actions entail.
I'm kinda curious what they're going to do with those cold war spy allusions since they don't really play now but I guess we'll see.
I managed to convince my fiancee to listen to the Discworld audiobooks. She's loving them, but wants to mix it up a bit with books from authors of a similar style to Pratchett.
I'm kinda drawing a blank - any suggestions?
Piers Anthony Xanth series is on par with Discworld in my opinion. I might have enjoyed it more but to be fair I read Xanth when I was a preteen and read Discworld in my 30s. I also liked some of his other series but they are nothing like Discworld.
Just beware that Xanth has.... interesting things to say about gender.
And moral values when it comes to selling your unborn children to slavery (totally ok), not fulfilling promises others give on your behalf before you are born (total no no), and brainwashing (just fine).
Early Xanth was interesting, but later it got, weird, to say the least.
Even early Xanth has large chunks that would be, as they say today, problematic. I wouldn't go beyond book six, and there's some pretty dubuous stuff in those. That said, his ability to pop out a book a year at the ripe old age of 83 is pretty impressive, even if the quality ain't all that.
You could always try some Gaiman. Stylewise it's very different, as in there's none of the humor of Pratchett, but the mixture of fantasy with, I dunno, fundamental humanity is similar.
Yeah, when i said early, i really meant eearly, like first four or so books, though it's really hard to remember much of them because it's over a decade since i read one.
Though even book one had, issues.
I managed to convince my fiancee to listen to the Discworld audiobooks. She's loving them, but wants to mix it up a bit with books from authors of a similar style to Pratchett.
I'm kinda drawing a blank - any suggestions?
Piers Anthony Xanth series is on par with Discworld in my opinion. I might have enjoyed it more but to be fair I read Xanth when I was a preteen and read Discworld in my 30s. I also liked some of his other series but they are nothing like Discworld.
I found it difficult to go back and read Xanth books once i hit 30. I really think they were written for children/teenagers. Discworld i can re-read and enjoy greatly even now.
I managed to convince my fiancee to listen to the Discworld audiobooks. She's loving them, but wants to mix it up a bit with books from authors of a similar style to Pratchett.
I'm kinda drawing a blank - any suggestions?
Piers Anthony Xanth series is on par with Discworld in my opinion. I might have enjoyed it more but to be fair I read Xanth when I was a preteen and read Discworld in my 30s. I also liked some of his other series but they are nothing like Discworld.
I found it difficult to go back and read Xanth books once i hit 30. I really think they were written for children/teenagers. Discworld i can re-read and enjoy greatly even now.
Future generations will put Pratchett in the same league as P G Wodehouse, something I highly doubt they will do with PA.
I managed to convince my fiancee to listen to the Discworld audiobooks. She's loving them, but wants to mix it up a bit with books from authors of a similar style to Pratchett.
I'm kinda drawing a blank - any suggestions?
Piers Anthony Xanth series is on par with Discworld in my opinion. I might have enjoyed it more but to be fair I read Xanth when I was a preteen and read Discworld in my 30s. I also liked some of his other series but they are nothing like Discworld.
I found it difficult to go back and read Xanth books once i hit 30. I really think they were written for children/teenagers. Discworld i can re-read and enjoy greatly even now.
Future generations will put Pratchett in the same league as P G Wodehouse, something I highly doubt they will do with PA.
Future generations will wonder how piers anthony is not in jail.
Not that I think he's committed any actionable crime (that I know of), I'm just hoping that one day we'll enact laws against god-awful prose.
I managed to convince my fiancee to listen to the Discworld audiobooks. She's loving them, but wants to mix it up a bit with books from authors of a similar style to Pratchett.
I'm kinda drawing a blank - any suggestions?
Piers Anthony Xanth series is on par with Discworld in my opinion. I might have enjoyed it more but to be fair I read Xanth when I was a preteen and read Discworld in my 30s. I also liked some of his other series but they are nothing like Discworld.
I found it difficult to go back and read Xanth books once i hit 30. I really think they were written for children/teenagers. Discworld i can re-read and enjoy greatly even now.
Future generations will put Pratchett in the same league as P G Wodehouse, something I highly doubt they will do with PA.
Pratchett was a knight, who took his duties seriously and had a Sword of Meteoric Iron forged...just in case.
I think with the philosophy of the Discworld books, their popularity amongst so many people of our generations and the honest to god goodness of the man himself he's definitely earned his place as one of the greats of modern English Literature. Though I do wonder if popular history will always have him in JK Rowling's shadow.
Posts
The Bartimaeus Sequence - it's set in a 20th Centuryish alt history where magic exists, and told from the point of view of a snarky millennia old djinn who is basically sick and tired of all this crap humans force him to do.
From memory it probably does lean more YA though.
PSN / Xbox / NNID: Fodder185
I'd suggest Jasper Fforde. A lot less subtle than Pratchett, but they're a lot of fun, and he really plays with the medium.
He's got two main series (that are loosely linked); Thursday Next is the protagonist of the first series, set - at least at first - in a *heavily* alternate-reality England - indeed, it's probably better to think of it as a fantasy land with some bits of reality bleeding in, rather than a reality with some changes, hence why I suspect it might do the trick.
Later - and somewhat related - are the Nursery Crimes books, hard-boiled detective thriller starring nursery rhyme and fairy story characters . It's probably a bit similar to Fables in that regard (I'm not very familiar with it), but the ties to the TN series help to keep it being its own thing.
There's a couple of others - Shades of Grey, The Last Dragonslayer series - but I've not read those.
As a slightly left-field alternative selection, can I suggest the radio series Bleak Expectations? There is a book tie-in as well, although I don't know how well it works in text. It's still much less subtle than Pratchett, but endearingly silly. And it does have Anthony Head as the villain, hamming it up like nobody's business.
These are both much more into the comic than the clever like Pratchett, but might be worth looking in to. I don't know, I haven't read either for decades and can't remember much!
Also, I just finished re-reading Small Gods, so this was rather timely.
here is a review
Maybe the Arby's account was taken over by the Nihilist Arby's account?
Just beware that Xanth has.... interesting things to say about gender.
Early Xanth was interesting, but later it got, weird, to say the least.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-41267378
"New, clear cherry bombs".
The Arby's Twitter account has been dropping those nerd references for a couple years now. Every couple weeks ill see one come across my Facebook with a an Arby's food item next to a videogame or anime thing.
Though papercraft A'tuin is definitely a cut above the normal ones.
Well I've never heard of this before I wonder what it's about.
*reads article*
Oh.
Even early Xanth has large chunks that would be, as they say today, problematic. I wouldn't go beyond book six, and there's some pretty dubuous stuff in those. That said, his ability to pop out a book a year at the ripe old age of 83 is pretty impressive, even if the quality ain't all that.
You could always try some Gaiman. Stylewise it's very different, as in there's none of the humor of Pratchett, but the mixture of fantasy with, I dunno, fundamental humanity is similar.
Good job ad system. Way to insert ads to buy the books on that article about how terrible they are.
Also I wanted James D'Arcy to do a variant of his Jarvis from Agent Carter as Aziraphale.
No idea who I really wanted for Crowley. Tennant was not someone I would have picked even though he is one of my favorite actors.
Isn't Xanth getting a tv show?
Actually kind of brilliant. I mean, how many people are going to read that article and think "Well, surely this article was written by someone cherry picking the very worst examples of stuff they don't like, or worse, making it up completely to discredit what I'm sure is a fine fantasy setting. I'll read this for my self and comment on the article to point out how ridiculously unfair the article actually is, and then the internet shall love me and shower me in acclaim and cat videos!".
Well, now you have a link directly to where you can buy the novels.
Full disclosure: I've not read any of the Xanth books, or the articles linked to above.
I read them between about 4th and 7th grade. I loved them then but definitely not worth a read now. I'd caught some of the stuff mentioned the articles but just seeing how much of it i missed/forgot in just one book is crazy.
On the other hand, reading Sword of Truth made tolerating the shit in Wheel of Time muuuuch easier.
Although Crowley isn't creepy nightmarish like Kilgrave. Remember that he "didn't so much fall as saunter vaguely downwards;" Crowley represents the most banal of banal evil.
Really looking forward to how this turns out.
I think a bit of the attitude will transfer. The other demons that Crowley deals with on team Hell are morons, so I think a fair amount of barely suppressed contempt should be on tap.
Crowley (at least initially) and Kilgrave both think of people as things to be manipulated. I think there's some overlap there.
I wonder if someone somewhere managed to get a tape of Christopher Lee doing DEATH's lines before he died.
Kilgrave is the sort of person who Crowley uses as an example about how humans are the truly evil fuckers and that the demons should take notes from them.
Crowley is evil in much the same way an 80's Russian spy is evil. He nominally advocates the party line but in the end of it he's "bad" because of where he was "born" and not really because of what his actions entail.
I'm kinda curious what they're going to do with those cold war spy allusions since they don't really play now but I guess we'll see.
Yeah, when i said early, i really meant eearly, like first four or so books, though it's really hard to remember much of them because it's over a decade since i read one.
Though even book one had, issues.
Hardly a selling point.
I found it difficult to go back and read Xanth books once i hit 30. I really think they were written for children/teenagers. Discworld i can re-read and enjoy greatly even now.
Future generations will put Pratchett in the same league as P G Wodehouse, something I highly doubt they will do with PA.
Future generations will wonder how piers anthony is not in jail.
Not that I think he's committed any actionable crime (that I know of), I'm just hoping that one day we'll enact laws against god-awful prose.
Pratchett was a knight, who took his duties seriously and had a Sword of Meteoric Iron forged...just in case.
I think with the philosophy of the Discworld books, their popularity amongst so many people of our generations and the honest to god goodness of the man himself he's definitely earned his place as one of the greats of modern English Literature. Though I do wonder if popular history will always have him in JK Rowling's shadow.