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Rumors of Pratchett Film
kongjie writes "The BBC reports on the rumored possibility of Terry Pratchett's novel Wee Free Men being made into a Hollywood film, with Raimi attached to it. This would be the first, although in the past his stuff has made the television screen."
Is currently being shown (in the U.K.) on BBC1 on Sunday nights, serialised, for anybody who might be interested.
I think Watchmen would make an excellent film. It's a fantastic story (I think one of the best - haven't read Thud though) and it stands alone so a wider audience could easily enjoy it.
Although, I would also like to see a film version of Mort made.
I'd much prefer to see a film done about another Pratchett book - Mort.
Everyone I know says that's the best of the Discworld books to start with, as it's the most accessible, and the characters are the most recognisable. Everyone for some reason identifies with Mort as he confronts, literally, death. It's funny, it's clever, and you don't need to be a discworld fan to love it - lets convert some people.
I suspect it would have been lost on many of the sophisticated adult readers as it was, if he hadn't had Andre explain it to Agnes a bit before halfway through...
kartune85 : Incapable of reason, observation or learning. A kind of dim, drab, flightless parrot.
I wrote a (not very good) review of 'Going Postal' for Slashdot, because it turns out to be about hackers and geeks and the Internet. The goodies are a secret nderground of 'information wants to be #Free' types called "the Smoking GNU". When I got to that point of the book I switched from thinking Pratchett might possibly be making vague allusions to the popular (public) perception of "hackers"; after reading the Smoking GNU bit I realised that he was actually talking about the "private" sense of "hacker". Anyway I got discouraged with the amount of polishing it needed, then started a new job, so it wsa never finished. Anyway, so - check out "Going Postal", it's jolly good, and as with a lot of his recent stuff is a bit more ambitious than 'send up Tolkein-esque fantasy fiction"
Both Wyrd Sisters and Soul Music were done as animated series a few years back; they're available on DVD now - not at all bad. Judging by the trailer on one of the discs, Reaper Man was seriously considered too.
Mort preceeds "Reaper Man" and is a better starting point.
If you want to work out where to start for each of the various plotlines, there is a diagram of the various streams of thought involved. Check out the reading guidelines for more options.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
As others have written, the Discworld is more of a universe than a series. There are 4 major "plot series" in it, though: The Wizards, The Witches, The Watch, and Death
Some books overlap these "series", some don't mention them, and some have small tie-ins. If you want to start with the standalone books, "Small Gods" is a good pick.
For the others, "The Colour of Magic" is good for the Wizards, "Equal Rites" is great for the Witches, "Guards! Guards!" for the Watch, and "Mort" for Death. My personal preference goes to the Death books and the Watch books, so I'd say Mort is a good place to start.
Or... you can just bite the bullet and start from the beginning: "The Colour of Magic"
I started with "The Colour of Magic" and "The Light Fantastic," which were the first two Discworld books he wrote. They do a good job of getting you started. But you could start with (almost) any book. The reading order guides on lspace should give you a decent overview -- try any of the books marked in orange.
If you're a fan of MUDs, try Discworld MUD--one of the greats. Huge world, nice features, natural syntax, great people, and pretty funny to boot!
I thought you should know 'Kingdom for Sale' is by Terry Brooks (not Pratchett, very different writer) and as far as fantasy-humor goes, is not very good in my opinion though his Shannarra series is entertaining if devoid of any real substance. Good Omens should not be compared to the rest of Pratchett's writing since it was a co-authored project and has a different, more ominous tone than most of his other books, something Gaiman is excellent at. Personally, I think 'Small Gods' is the single best Discworld book due to it being the most 'serious' in that it does take a great look at established religion and has some excellent characters that change throughout the book, and it stands completely on its own. If you want to start off though, the first two books that debued Discworld, 'The Colour of Magic' and 'The Light Fantastic' are also excellent though more in the vein of fantasy parody than the satire of 'Small Gods'.
"What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing." -Bokonon
You're joking, right? Terry Pratchett's been putting out an average of a book a year for maybe 20 years, and continues to do so. Tolkien's entire (salable) ouevre consists of four books that have been on sale continuously for something like 30 years. Sure, those four are insanely great books, but market saturation is by now pretty much complete.
You're only a best-selling author as long as you keep writing things to sell. Stephen King has reportedly stopped writing now. J.K. Rowling reportedly plans to stop after HP #7. If Terry Pratchett keeps turning out books, it is quite likely he'll be the #1 best-selling SF/Fantasy/Horror author in the US in a couple of years.