To her really excited every time I spot another discworld themed name on here

[HerrenaHarridan]

I just love it. What I really want to know is where is cheery littlebottom? According to mn the name is taken but I've never seen it.
So far I have spotted
MrsTerryPratchett
NannyOgg
Greebo
IShallWearMidnight
TiffanyAching

And quite a few others I can't recall right now.
Who haven't I spotted / remembered and where is cheery?

Whoops idiot phone told me that hadn't posted.
I wouldn't join any of the guilds. I'm the discs first female barbarian

Without a shovel

Not even the Seamstresses guild Herrena?

Maybe when I'm forced to retire from consensual orgies and pillaging big banks

I read that as pillaging pig banks - which on the Disc, probably works.

Think that's part of the Soul Cake Duck festivities Alice

I like my name

I was previously EarlyMorningBaconDemon, so was a namechange and NOT me being new :P

I'm happy to be part of a CMOTD quiche

Has anyone read The World of Poo?

I've just downloaded it, and looking forward to delving into the depths, pun intended

Just don't join the Guild of Fools and Joculators and College of Clowns .

My favourites are Granny, The Luggage, Susan Death, Pretty Butterfly (Twoflower's daughter), Esk, Greebo as a human.

I've never been part of a quiche before...

My favourites...hmm, hard because they're all like old friends but at a push, I'd have to say; Death, Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg the dirty old madam , Lord Vetenari, The Librarian, Willikins, The Feegles (I see myself in them, as I too am tiny, blue, a sheep rustler and deathly loyal).

I agree with your favourites, Feegle but to my mind they are all trumped by Sam Vimes. He's such a brilliant, flawed human being. Loved him in Night Watch and Thud. I'm going through the Watch series with the DDs at the moment, we are on Feet of Clay. I keep thinking that I need to stop and they aren't old enough, but they handle the themes so well that I think I am just going to carry on. I have some concerns about Snuff because it is so very sad, but then I think about the golems and I think that they are ready for it if I read it to them and we talk about it.

op?

Excellent name choice btw

I agree, AScorpian - Sam Vimes is just such an extraordinary character - his morality, his rage, his idealism ... his creaky joints and flaws...
Every time I read Night Watch (which I think DOES standalone as exceptional literature, actually) I think 'this is something only a book can do' - no amount of clever voice over on telly or a film could give you Sam Vimes' soul the way that Pratchett's writing does.

I think Granny Weatherwax is similarly complicated and Pratchett invested a similar amount of time and effort and skill into making her the best 'good person who's almost bad but good by sheer effort of will because it's the right thing to do' that I could possibly imagine.

My big brother gave me Equal Rites when I was about 10, he said Esk reminded him of me. The start of a literary love affair :) When I was 10 the witches were a revelation - there weren't that many books with such amazing, hilarious women as the central characters.. I must say Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic would be right at the bottom of my list of faves, possibly because Rincewind is fun but not that interesting to me, whereas women like the witches, Susan Death/Sto Helit and so on, are just bloody amazing. I could read Pratchett writing about them doing laundry and find it amusing and inspiring!

blackcurrants I think the problem with the first two Discworld books is that TP was trying to do parodies of well known sword and sorcery/science fiction stuff - Anne McCaffrey's Pern series is obviously in there, so is Conan the Barbarian. It's OK, but it just isn't him. It's only when he finds his voice and his own ideas that he comes into his own.

And Night Watch is one of the best things he has ever written, I don't read it often because it's emotionally draining, but it is amazing. Granny Weatherwax is a similarly complex character. Both she and Sam Vimes seem to illustrate TP's belief that it is hard to be a good person and that you have to work at it. It's a belief I share very strongly, and it's one of the foundations of my atheism. TP has a lot to answer for, but in a good way.

I think Sam and Esme are a great antidote to the Disney/Hollywood idea that you are bad or good and it is effortless and innate. Children should know that as true bravery is doing something despite being scared, true goodness is doing the right thing even though you are tempted to do the wrong thing.

I think this thread is reassuring because my DH hears, "like in one of TP's books..." every five minutes. I feel like a right nerd.

Does anyone else find they are amazed by TP's encyclopedic knowledge of everything? I hear news or read something and think, 'that's from x book'. Recently, the Magdalene laundries stuff reminded me of Monstrous Regiment and the girls that had come from the work houses in it. Also a book with a mine of great female characters.

MrsTP I agree with everything you've just said, right down to referencing TP to DH once a day at least!

Miow

I am impressed by TP's encyclopaedic knowledge of everything, yes. Including the turtle supporting the world! How I laughed when I started reading Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" and discovered the anecdote about the old lady and the world being supported by turtles "all the way down". (I never got beyond the third chapter though )

I think he must be a very widely read man; and of course must have done research as well but only to bolster what he'd already come across.

I don't tend to reference TP's books though - DH wouldn't have a clue. He's not a great reader himself, apart from biographies of certain "rock gods".

If anyone has the new edition of Good Omens, the foreword by Neil Gaiman about TP is great. He basically says the same, that TP knows everything about everything, reads wildly obscure books voraciously and, I think the quote is, 'likes writing as much as Douglas Adams hated it'.

I don't want to put a downer on my new home this thread, but it must be awful for someone like that, who us so clever and well read, to be losing his abilities. Luckily he seems to have so much humour, happiness and love in his life, he is dealing with his diagnosis well.

He's using his skills to find as much information out about Alzheimer's as well, and trying every new treatment to halt the regression. Did you see the documentary he did on it?

I didn't. Is it on YouTube?

I think the work TP has done on raising the profile of Alzheimer's disease is almost as amazing as his literary merits are. I couldn't believe how long it took for him to finally get a gong, there was a 'what took you do bloody long?' feel about it for me.

I do think much of his work since his diagnosis has been darker - think 'Snuff', think' Unseen Academicals', think 'I Shall Wear Midnight' - but he never loses the warmth, the compassion and the sense of humour. He's a treasure, I hope he will be taught in schools one day.

And the first thing he did when he was knighted was make a sword from thunderbolt iron. What a man.

I must also confess to referencing tp to innocent, unsuspecting audiences. My absolute favourite stand alone quote being
" as nervous as a long tailed cat in a rocking chair factory"
The abundance of strong female characters is fantastic as is the whole theme of stereotyping and self determination (think black ribboners, dwarf fashion shows)
The struggle between traditional old attitudes and bright new ideas (think new dwarves and old dwarves, the changing face of the watch) and most especially his dealing with class issues ( think the Sam vimes boots theory of economics and the glass is half full/empty/mine was a bigger glass/people whose glasses are served to them/glassless)
I have also decided that I am going to believe in his afterlife (whatever you believe, fucking genius!)

He really is incredibly intelligent and well read, did anyone else not really love the wizards until science of the discworld