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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)

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Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!

Nach mittlerweile sechs Jahren wollte auch dieser Discworldband, der erste mit Sam Vimes, wiedergelesen werden, und weil er ein bisschen günstiger war als die anderen Bände lud ich ihn mir auf den Kindle. Bis auf die Footnotes, die bei der elektronischen Version immer hinten angehängt werden und das nachschlagen so fummelig machen, finde ich die Version auch angenehmer. Das war höchstwahrscheinlich auch nicht das letzte Mal, dass ich mir diese höchsteigene Mischung aus Fantasysatire und Noirkrimi zu Gemüte geführt habe. Wäre ja auch schade.

Books bend space and time. One reason the owners of those aforesaid little rambling, poky second-hand bookshops always seem slightly unearthly is that many of them really are, having strayed into this world after taking a wrong turning in their own bookshops in worlds where it is considered commendable business practice to wear carpet slippers all the time and open your shop only when you feel like it. You stray into L-space at your peril.
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'Down there,' he siad, 'are people who will follow any dragon, worship any god, ignore any iniquity. All out of a kind of humdrum, everyday badness. Not the really high, creative loathesomeness of the great sinners, but a sort of mass-produced darkness of the soul. Sin, you might say, without a trace of originality. They accept evil not because they say yes, but because they don't say no.'
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(Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!, 1990)

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Terry Pratchett, The Nightwatch

Und nein, als E-Book war es mir noch ein kleines bißchen zu teuer, darum musste das Taschenbuch nochmal ran, für dieses altbewährte immer wieder lohnende Lesefutter, bei dem es auch beim zigsten Wiederlesen immer wieder wunderbare Sachen zu genießen gibt. Wie z.B. den unvergleichlichen Eid der Stadtwache.

'I comma square bracket recruit's name square bracket comma do solemnly swear by square bracket recruit's deity of choice square bracket to uphold the Laws and Ordinances of the city of Ankh-Morpork comma serve the public trust comma and defend the fsubjects of His ftroke Her bracket delete whichever is inappropriate bracket Majefty bracket name of reigning monarch bracket without fear comma favour comma or thought of perfonal fafety semi-colon to purfue evildoers and protect the innocent comma laying down my life if necefary in the caufe of said duty comma so help me bracket aforefaid deity bracket full stop God save the King stroke Queen bracket delete whichever is inappropriate bracket full stop.'

(Terry Pratchett, The Nightwatch, 2002)

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Terry Pratchett, The Truth

Auf die Gefahr hin mich zu wiederholen: egal wie oft ich den 25. Discworldband (auch noch der Milleniumsband) wiederlese, ich bekomme einfach nicht genug von der genialen Entstehungsgeschichte der Ankh Morpork Times (The Truth will make you Free/Fret/Fred/Fere). Und daran wird sich so schnell auch nichts ändern.

'Yes, Dr Dinwiddie. Er... the Century of the Fruitbat is nearly over, sir. Would you like the city to be dragged kicking and screaming out of the Century of the Fruitbat?'
'Indeed.'
William wrote this down. It was a puzzle why things were always dragged kicking and screaming. No one ever seemed to want to, for example, lead them gently by the hand.
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William stared down at the box of letters again. Of course, a quill pen potentially contained anything you wrote with it. He could understand that. But it did so in a clearly theoretical way, a safe way. Whereas these dull grey blocks looked threatening. He could understand why they worried people. Put us together in the right way, they seemed to say, and we can be anything you want. We could even be something you don't want. We can spell anything. We can certainly spell trouble.
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Despite the fire in his head he took out his notebook and wrote: hlstns bggr than golf blls? and made a mental note to check one against a golf ball, just in case. Part of him was beginning to understand that his readers might have a very relaxed attitude about the guilt of politicians but were red hot on things like the size of the weather.
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(Terry Pratchett, The Truth, 2000)

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Terry Pratchett, Making Money

Ein Discworldband bleibt selten allein, schon garnicht wenn's einer aus meiner Top Ten Liste ist. Der Nachfolgeband von Going Postal scheint sich bei jedem Wiederlesen regelrecht an den ersten zu klammern. Weil er, im Gegensatz zu anderen Discworldbänden knapp unter 5 Euro kostete und ich mein gebundenes Exemplar nicht zur Arbeit schleppen wollte, lud ich ihn mir auf den Kindle. Und es war wieder richtig gut.

'Is Hubert quite ... normal?' said Adora Belle, as they climbed the marble staircases towards dinner.
'By the standards of obsessive men who don't get out into the sunlight?' said Moist. 'Pretty normal, I'd say.'
'But he acted as if he'd never seen a woman before!'
'He's just not used to things that don't come with a manual,' said Moist.
'Hah,' said Adora Belle. 'Why is it that only men get like that?'
Earns a tiny wage working for golems, thought Moist. Puts up with graffiti and smashed windows because of golems. Camps out in wildernesses, argues with powerful men. All for golems. But he didn't say anything, because he'd read the manual.

(Terry Pratchett, Making Money, 2007)

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Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

Ich hatte mir einen wunderbaren Kurzgeschichtenband von Margaret Atwood auf den Paperwhite geladen und auch schon fast zur Hälfte durch, als ganz plötzlich mein Lieblingsband von der Discworldsaga wieder gelesen werden sollte, und das pronto, ohne Aufschub. Das letzte Mal ist nach meiner Liste ja auch schon vier Jahre her. Okay, ich hab einige Teile - alles was nicht mit Moists Plänen und Aktionen und vor allem seiner Beziehung zu Adora Belle zu tun hat - übersprungen, aber trotzdem oder gerade deswegen tat es einfach nur gut das Buch über die Macht der Wörter und der Phantasie wieder zu lesen. Immer immer wieder schön.

Moist couldn't have stopped himself how for hard money. This was where his soul lived: dancing on an avalanche, making the world up as he went along, reaching into people's ears and changing their minds. For this he offered glass as diamonds, let the Find the Lady cards fly under his fingers, stood smiling in front of clerks examining fake bills. This was the feeling he craved, the raw naked excitement of pushing the envelope -

(Terry Pratchett, Going Postal, 2004)

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Terry Pratchett, Small Gods

Ich hatte schon fast - aber nur fast - vergessen, was für eine Wonne es ist Pratchett auf der Höhe seines Schaffens zu lesen. 'Small Gods' habe ich vielleicht nicht so oft wiedergelesen wie The Truth oder Going Postal, aber so wie alle richtig guten Bände - d.h. alle vor, sagen wir mal, Making Money - blieb er mir fast vollständig im Gedächtnis, mit einer kleinen Anregung ab und zu wiedergelesen zu werden. Das schaffen nicht viele Bücher.

Humans! They lived in a world where the grass continued to be green and the sun rose every day and flowers regularly turned into fruit, and what impressed them? Weeping statues. And wine made out of water! A mere quantum-mechanistic tunnel effect, that'd happen anyway if you were prepared to wait zillions of years. AS if the turning of sunlight into wine, by means of vines and grapes and time and enzymes wasn't a thousand times more impressive and happened all the time ...
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People have reality dampers.
It is a popular fact that nine-tenths of the brain is not used and, like most popular facts, it is wrong. Not even the most stupid Creator would go to the trouble of making the human head carry around several pounds of unnecessary grey goo if its only real purpose was, for example, to serve as a delicacy for certain remote tribesmen in unexplored valleys. It is used. And one of its functions is to make the miraculous seem ordinary and turn the unusual into the usual.
Because if this was not the case, the human beings faced with the daily wondrousness of everything, would go around wearing big stupid grins, similar to those worn by certain remote tribesmen who occasionally get raided by the authorities and have the contents of the plastic greenhouses very seriously inspected. They'd say "Wow!" a lot. And no one would do much work.
Gods don't like people not doing much work. People who aren't busy all the time might start to think.
Part of the brain exists to stop this happening. It is very efficient. It can make people experience boredom in the middle of marvels.
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That's what happens, Om thought. Being a small god was bad, except at the time you hardly knew that it was bad because you only barely knew anything at all, but all the time there was something which was just possibly the germ of hope, the knowledge and belief that one day you might be more than you were now.
But how much worse to have been a god, and to now be no more than a smoky bundle of memories, blown back and forth across the sand made from the crumbled stones of your temples ...
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It had been like this when his very first believer had been stoned to death. Of course, by then he had dozens of other believers. But it had been a wrench. It had been upsetting. You never forgot your first believer. They gave you shape.
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'I like the idea of democracy. You have to have someone everyone distrusts,' said Brutha. 'That way, everyone's happy. Think about it.'

(Terry Pratchett, "Small Gods", 1992)