8, WG8, M6, E7, / NG0, F2, MF0, D1, Frz0, NA0, C0, B0

Terry Pratchett, Soul Music

Der dritte Death-Band der Discworldreihe und zugleich der erste Band um Susan Sto-Helit rangiert auch irgendwo in den Top Ten bei mir - nicht nur, aber auch weil Pratchett hier permanent aus Blues Brothers zitiert. Und das Wesen, oder eben die Seele der Rockmusik aka Music with Rocks in so genial auf den Punkt bringt. Das letzte Wiederlesen war wirklich zu lange her.
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This was music that had not only escaped but had robbed a bank on the way out. It was music with its sleeves rolled up and its top button undone, raising its hat and grinning and stealing the silver.
It was music that went down to the feet by way of the pelvis without paying a call on Mr Brain.
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Some religions say that the universe was started with a word, a song, a dance, a piece of music. The Listening Monks of the Ramtops have trained their hearing until they can tell the value of a playing card by listening to it, and have made it their task to listen intently to the subtle sounds of the universe to piece together, from the fossil echoes, the very first sounds.
There was certainly, they say, a very strange noise at the beginning of everything.
But the keenest ears (the ones who win most at poker), who listen to the frozen echoes in ammonites and amber, sewar they can detect some tiny sounds before that.
It sounded, they say, like someone counting: One, Two, Three, Four.
The very best one, who listened to basalt, said he thought he could make out, very faintly, some numbers that came even earlier.
When they asked him what it was, he said: 'It sounds like One, Two.'
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'Hah! Well, he'll be sorry later on,' said Glod. 'Later on, people'll talk to him and he'll say: I left, you know, before they became famous.'
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There are millions of chords. There are millions of numbers. And everyone forgets the one that is a zero. But without the zero, numbers are just arithmetic. Without the empty chord, music is just noise.
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(Terry Pratchett, Soul Music, 1994)

7, WG7, M5, E6, / NG0, F2, MF0, D1, Frz0, NA0, C0, B0

Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man

Weiter geht's mit der Death-Serie der Discworldbücher. Bei diesem Band ist es noch länger her, dass ich ihn das letzte Mal las, und seltsamerweise hatte ich die ganze Sache mit den Schneekugeln und Einkaufswagen in einem anderen Band verortet, aber abgesehen davon konnte ich mich ziemlich gut an das Buch erinnern. Vor allem die Teile mit Death aka Bill Door und Miss Flitworth sind immer wieder schön.
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Belief is one of the most powerful organic forces in the multiverse. It may not be able to move mountains, exactly. But it can create someone who can.
People get exactly the wrong idea about belief. They think it works back to front. They think the sequence is, first object, then belief. In fact, it works the other way.
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His business was to the separation of the wheatgerm of the soul from the chaff of the mortal body, and that was usually concluded long before any of the rites associated with, when you got right down to it, a reverential form of garbage disposal.
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It was, indeed, on a skeletal horse. Blue flame crackled over the creature's bones as it trotted forward; Miss Flitworth found herself wondering whether it was a real skeleton, animated in some way, something that had once been the inside of a horse, or a skeletal creature in its own right. It was a ridiculous chain of thought to follow, but it was better than dwelling on the ghastly reality that was approaching.
Did it get rubbed down, or just given a good polish?
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Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.
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(Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man, 1991)

6, WG6, M4, E5, / NG0, F2, MF0, D1, Frz0, NA0, C0, B0

Terry Pratchett, Mort

Nach mehr als 10 Jahren war der erste Discworldband um Death auch schon wieder zum wiederlesen überfällig, wie auch einige andere Bücher aus der Serie. An die erste Hälfte des Buches konnte ich mich tatsächlich noch gut erinnern, danach wurde es etwas vager. Jetzt weiß ich wirklich nicht, warum ich den Band solange vernachlässigt habe, aber das letzte Wiederlesen war es bestimmt nicht. Schon die vielen, oft unübersetzbaren Wortspiele sind neben den vielen Anspielungen und wunderbaren Vergleichen wie immer ein echter Genuß.

Scientists have calculated, that the chance of anything so patently absurd actually existing are millions to one.
But magicians have calculated that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.
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A faint smile hovered around the man's lips. It was the sort of smile that lies on sandbanks waiting for incautious swimmers.
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History isn't like that. History unravels gently, like an old sweater. It has been patched and darned many times, reknitted to suit different people, shoved in a box under the sink of censorship to be cut up for the dusters of propaganda, yet it always - eventually - manages to spring back into its old familiar shape. History has a habit of changing the people who think they are changing it. History always has a few tricks up its frayed sleeve. It's been around a long time.
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It struck Mort with sudden, terrible poignancy that Death must be the loneliest creature in the universe. In the great party of Creation, he was always in the kitchen.
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(Terry Pratchett, Mort, 1987)

121, WG89, M62, E113, / NG32, F59, MF0, D8, B8, Frz0, NA4, C1

Terry Pratchett, Wintersmith

Der dritte Band paßt natürlich richtig gut zu der derzeitigen Jahreszeit und dem Wetter, so dass man richtig gut nachvollziehen kann, welche Not Tiffany Aching mit dem Wintersmith hat, den sie versehentlich auf sich aufmerksam gemacht hatte. Rolands Reise in die Unterwelt, begleitet von den Nac Mac Feegles, ist auch nicht ohne. Noch schwanke ich, ob ich mir den vierten Band zulegen soll und wünschte, Pratchett hätte es bei den drein belassen. Aber was hilfts.
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People wanted the world to be a story, because stories had to sound right and they had to make sense. People wanted the world to make sense.
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(Terry Pratchett, Wintersmith, 2006)

120, WG88, M61, E112, / NG32, F59, MF0, D8, B8, Frz0, NA4, C1

Terry Pratchett, A Hat full of Sky

Klar, dass zumindest Band 2 und 3 der Tiffany-Aching-Serie auch wiedergelesen werden wollten. Hier freute ich mich vor allem auf den Teil mit Miss Level, der Hexe, bei der sich zwei Körper eine Seele teilen, oder die Hexe mit vier Händen und Füßen. Auch ihr Ordnungsliebender Hausgeist Oswald hat es mir angetan, und der Hiver ist absolut genial.
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The moon was on the way of being full. A gibbous moon, it's called. It's one of the duller phases of the moon and seldom gets illustrated. The full moon and the crescent moon get all the publicity.
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It's always surprising to be reminded that while you're watching and thinking about people, all knowing and superior, they're watching and thinking about you, right back at you.
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(Terry Pratchett, A Hat full of Sky, 2004)

119, WG87, M60, E111, / NG32, F59, MF0, D8, B8, Frz0, NA4, C1

Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men

Dieser Diskworldband um die unvergleichlichen NacMac Feegle, der bei mir definitiv in den Top Five rangiert, taucht immer mal wieder in meinen Gedanken auf und will/muss wiedergelesen werden. Die Nachfolgebände auch, aber der auf jeden Fall. Schon der ganze Hintergrund mit der Landschaft des Chalk, den Schafen und Tiffanys Großmutter Granny Aching, die Granny Weatherwax mehr als ebenbürtig ist, faszinieren immer wieder aufs neue, und wie jedesmal wünschte ich mir aufs neue, dass mir das Buch in Tiffanys Alter untergekommen wäre.
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I'll never be like this again, she thought, as she saw the terror in the Queen's face. I'll never again feel as tall as the sky and as old as the hills and as strong as the sea. I've been given something for a while, and the price of it is that I have to give it back.
And the reward is giving it back, too. No human could live like this. You could spend a day looking at a flower to see how wonderful it is, and that wouldn't get the milking done. No wonder we dream our way through our lives. To be awake, and see it all as it really is ... no one could stand that for long.
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This is a dream, after all, Tiffany told herself. It doesn't have to make sense, or be nice. It's a dream, not a daydream. People who say things like 'may all your dreams come true' should try living in one for five minutes.
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(Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men, 2003)

99, NG22, F50, E98, / WG77, M49, MF0, B9, D1, Frz0, B7, NA3, C1

Jodi Picoult, House Rules

Irgendwann hab ich alle bisherigen Picoults aufgeholt, aber ein wenig wird es wohl noch dauern. Dieser Band über einen Jugendlichen mit Asperger stand schon länger auf meiner Liste. Vom Konzept her ist er wieder sehr typisch für Picoult mit der Mutter, die so völlig in ihrem autistischem Kind aufgeht, dass sie die Probleme ihres anderen Sohnes garnicht mehr wahrnimmt, und mit einem grundlegendem Mißverständnis, das für viele Wirren und Komplikationen und natürlich Spannung sorgt. Und wie alle Picoults wieder sehr nahegehend.
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Here's what I've learned: Dead isn't angels or ghosts. It's a physical state of breakdown, a change in all those carbon atoms that create the temporary house of a body so that they can return to their most elemental stage.
I don't really see why that freaks people out, since it's the most natural cycle in the world.
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Nobody ever asks Superman if X-ray vision is a drag; if it gets old looking into brick buildings and seeing guys beat their wives or lonely women getting wasted or losers surfing porn sites. Nobody ever asks Spider-Man if he gets vertigo. If their superpowers are anything like mine, it's no wonder they're always putting themselves in harm's way. They're probably hoping for a quick death.
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"If I know I feel it, that's what counts. Don't you ever look at someone who's hysterical in public and wonder if it's because they really feel miserable or because they want others to know they're miserable? It kind of dilutes the emotion if you display it for the whole world to see. Makes it less pure."
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(Jodi Picoult, House Rules, 2010)