90, WG47, M42, E87 / NG43, F48, NA9, D3, B7, C1

Terry Pratchett, Unseen Academicals

Diesen Band, vielleicht der letzte "echte" Discworld-Band, wollte ich schon länger wiedergelesen haben, schon weil es nicht nur um Fußball geht sondern dieser auch so herrlich erklärt wird, dass selbst totale Fußballmuffel ihren Spaß haben. Leider zum letzten Mal - der ganze Wortwitz und die typische treffene Charakterisierung sind in den Bänden danach einfach nicht mehr da.
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Truth is female, since truth is beauty rather than handsomeness; this, Ridcully reflected as the Council grumbled in, would certainly explain the saying that a lie could run around the world before Truth has got its, correction, her boots on, since she would have to choose which pair - the idea that any woman in a position to choose would have just one pair of boots being beyond rational belief. Indeed, as a goddess she would have lots of choices: comfy shoes for home truths, hobnail boots for unpleasant truths and possibly some kind of slipper for self-evident truth.
...
"We'll eat early," said Ridcully, "and I am told that the pies at the game are just - amazing."
Truth, in front of her huge walk-in wardrobe, selected black leather boots with stiletto heels for such a barefaced truth.
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(Terry Pratchett, Unseen Academicals, 2009)

83, WG42, M38, E80 / NG41, F45, NA9, D3, B7, C1

Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

Ich könnte ja nachzählen, wie oft ich dieses Buch schon gelesen habe, aber es ändert nichts an der Tatsache, dass ich es vermutlich noch mehrmals in meinem Leben lesen werde. Und dass es wahrscheinlich mein Lieblings-Discworldband ist, immer noch dicht gefolgt von 'The Truth', aber doch an der Spitze. Ich weiß nicht, ob es diese Geschichte des Betrügers mit Herz ist, oder die ganze Post versus Clacks Sache, das verrückte alte mit alten Briefen vollgestopfte Postamt mit der Höllenmaschine im Keller, die Golems, besonders Anghammarad, den wahrscheinlich ältesten Postmann der Scheibenwelt, der seit 19000 Jahren auf seine Chance wartet seine Botschaft zu überbringen - egal. Wahrscheinlich alles zusammen, wie so oft.
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Words spilled out of Mr Groat like stashed mail from a crack in the wall. Sometimes the machine had produced a thousand copies of the same letter, or filled the room with letters from next Tuesday, next month, next year. Sometimes they were letters that hadn't been written, or might have been written, or were meant to have been written, or letters which people had once sworn that they had written and hadn't really, but which nevertheless had a shadowy existence in some strange invisible letter world and were made real by the machine.
If, somewhere, any possible world can exist, then somewhere there is any letter that could possibly be written. Somewhere, all those cheques really are in the post.

(Terry Pratchett, Going Postal, 2004)

Wiedergelesen:

Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms

Der Band paßte gerade noch in meine Lesezeit bevor das neue Buch von Julian Barnes auf dem Paperwhite eintrudelte. Immer wieder schön: das ungleiche und unharmonische Team Detritus und Cuddy - schade, dass es nur für dieses Buch reichte, aber im Grunde verständlich.

It was the way he wore the place. You expected him any moment to break into the kind of song that has suspicious rhymes and phrases like 'my kind of town' and 'I wanna be a part of it' in it; the kind of song where people dance in the street and give the singer apples and join in and a dozen lowly matchgirls suddenly show amazing choreographical ability and everyone acts like cheery lovable citizens instead of the murderous, evil-minded, selfcentred individuals they suspect themselves to be. But the point was that if Carrot had erupted into a song and dance, people would have joined in. Carrot could have jollied a circle of standing stones to form up behind him and do a rumba.

(Terry Pratchett, Men At Arms, 1993)

Wiedergelesen:

Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay

Vielleicht hätte ich doch mit 'Men at Arms' weitermachen sollen, aber jetzt ist es zu spät, und wenn man die Serie schon so oft gelesen hat, spielt es auch keine Rolle mehr...

He could hear his granny speaking, 'No one's too poor to buy soap.' Of course, many people were. But in Cockbill Street they bought soap just the same. The table might not have any food on it but, by gods, it was well scrubbed. That was Cockbill Street, where what you mainly ate was your pride.
What a mess the world was in, Vimes reflected. Constable Visit had told him the meek would inherit the world, and what had the poor bastards done to deserve that?
Cockbill Street people would stand aside to let the meek through. For what kept them in Cockbill Street, mentally and physically, was their vague comprehension that there were rules. And they went through life filled with a quiet, distracted dread that they weren't quite obeying them.
People said there was one law for the rich and one law for the poor, but it wasn't true. There was no law for those who made the law, and no law for the incorrigible lawless. All the laws and the rules were for those people stupid enough to think like Cockbill Street people.

(Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay, 1996)

Wiedergelesen:

Terry Pratchett, Wintersmith

Dieser Band in der Tiffany Aching Serie musste noch sein - aller guten Dinge sind schließlich drei. Und ich wünschte oft, dass Pratchett es bei den drein belassen hätte, aber seis drum. Mittlerweile ist das neue Buch von Jojo Moyes endlich auf dem Paperwhite aufgeschlagen und damit erübrigt sich die Frage welcher Discworldband als nächstes dran ist erstmal für ein paar Tage.

That's Third Thoughts for you. Wehn a huge rock is going to land on your head, they're the thoughts that think: Is that an ingneous rock, such as granite, or is it sandstone?

Terry Pratchett, Wintersmith, 2006)

Wiedergelesen:

Terry Pratchett, A Hat full of Sky

Wie das so geht, Band 1 der Tiffany Aching Saga zieht fast zwangsläufig Band 2 und 3 nach sich. Vor allem wegen der neuen Charakteren darin, hier vor allem die gute Miss Level mit ihren zwei Körpern, und mit dem Hiver eine ganz neue Art von Monster. Mit Band 4 muss ich mir noch überlegen - kann sein, dass mir da ein paar weitere Sam Vimes Bände lieber sind, wie Feet of Clay und/oder Thud.

Do you? Do you know what it feels like to be aware of every star, every blade of grass? Yes. You do. You call it 'opening your eyes again'. But you do it for a moment. We have done it for eternity. No sleep, no est, just endless... endless experience, endless awareness. Of everything. All the time. How we envy you, envy you! Lucky humans, who can close your minds to the endless cold deeps of space! You have this thing you call ... boredom? That is the rarest talent in the universe! We heard a song, it went "Twinkle twinkle little star..." What power! What wondrous power! You can take a billion trillion tons of flaming matter, a furnace of unimaginable strength, and turn it into a little song for children! You build little worlds, little stories, little shells around your minds and that keeps infinity at bay and allows you to wake up in the morning without screaming!

(Terry Pratchett, A Hat full of Sky, 2004)

Wiedergelesen: (nach längerer Zeit)

Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men

Durchaus möglich, dass dieser Band auch in den obersten Fünf meiner Lieblingsdiscworldbände rangiert. Auf jeden Fall gehört er zu denen, die immer wieder mal gelesen werden wollen, auch wenns nur einmal pro Dekade ist. Und die Nac Mac Feegle gehören sowieso seit ihrem ersten Erscheinen in der Discworld für mich zu deren originellsten, faszinierendsten und vermutlich witzigsten Bewohnern.

And I'm in Fairyland, where dreams can hurt. Somewhere all stories are real, all songs are true. I thought that was a strange thing for the Kelda to say ...
Tiffany's Second Thoughts said: Hang on, was that a First Thought?
And Tiffany thought: No, that was a Third Thought. I'm thinking about how I think about what I'm thinking. At least, I think so.
Her Second Thoughts said: Let's all calm down, please, because this is quite a small head.

(Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men, 2003)