My current Discworld journey is following Rincewind (and Luggage) for now and this was a nice follow-up to the first two books, though not something that really swept me up. I do think Rincewind continues to show growth (while also still being a cowardly, charming, idiot) and it was nice to meet a new character related to one we've met before. This book could have used more Luggage though! This is another "stop the world from ending" book, but I feel like the "how" of how it could happen brought a fresh perspective. I'm happy to continue my Rincewind journey. ( )

Making a vague attempt.to read all the Discworld books, very vague. I e read a bunch of them. It hopelessly out of order. That said...

Really enjoyed this book, it was a first time read for me. Pratchett was so far ahead of the curve on understanding and writing about equal rights, concepts of poverty and inequality in general society, and so much more. But he did it all with a sly smile and a side eye, and humour, so the lesson is there but you enjoyed the getting of it. Amazing author. ( )

Carino, per carità.
Ma come fantasy è troppo demenziale per essere credibile, e come libro umoristico è troppo inglese per strappare più di una risata una, e qualche debole sorrisino qua e là.
Se ci si aggiunge che assolutamente non tira, se non nelle ultime 10 pagine... Boh. E' il (secondo e) credo ultimo libro di Pratchett che leggo. ( )

Such fun! The more I read the Rincewind books, the more I love the Luggage. ( )

I love reading Pratchett as he builds his world full of characters that let him shift from one to another and write stories from different viewpoints. Years ago I didn't see it and out of the first five books, three were centered around Rincewind and his uncanny ability to get out of trouble while being so rudely inserted into trouble. Rincewind reminds me of a comedy bit Ron White performs when he talks about being arrested for being drunk in public. In the bit he talks about how he was actually drunk in private until they threw him out of the bar into the public.

I was wavering between 3 and 4 stars and I originally gave it 4 but I've revised it to 3 stars. I was listening to the Radio Morpork podcast on the book and they nailed what I had difficulty focusing on. I like the characters but they don't seem to mesh well with the story. Individually they rock but I didn't get the same meshy feeling like I did in Mort.

On one hand I'm proud to write that I now know how to pronounce geas. On another hand I'm a little perturbed to write that for over 40 years I'd pronounced it wrong and it took Pratchett's wordplay in this book for me to figure it out. As in recently figured it out. As in what time is it now?

I almost forgot to write about the cover! Back in the 70s when I was devouring fantasy, I loved Darrell K. Sweet's (DKS) covers and learned to recognize them. They often drew me to books while I was cruising the local bookstore looking for something to read. Flash forward many years when I get this book. Now the first four have Josh Kirby covers while this one has a DKS one and I don't like it. DKS was an incredibly prolific cover artist and did the covers for many books I've read so why don't I like it?

Maybe it's because of the Kirby covers? I'm not really sure. So I start hunting around online because it's easy to do and do I find a lot of likes and dislikes on Pratchett covers! And it's all over the place. I see people who hate DKS covers and love Kirby covers. Wowee but people don't hold back their negative thoughts online (shocking, I know). I read (I forget where) that Pratchett almost felt like DKS hadn't read the book when he created the US covers. But then I read a lot of dislike for Kirby's covers. One person wrote about how they were so hideous it put them off reading the books! And while I haven't read anything about Pratchett not liking the Kirby covers, I did read that the Paul Kidby covers were his preference and he found it amazing that the Kidby character designs were more like what he imagined for his characters. ( )