Slashdot Mirror
Terry Pratchett's Self-Made Meteorite Sword
jamie writes "Fantasy author Sir Terry Pratchett says he was so excited after being knighted by the Queen that he decided to make his own sword to equip himself for his new status... the author dug up 81kg of ore and smelted it in the grounds of his house, using a makeshift kiln built from clay and hay and fueled with damp sheep manure."
Careful reading of his more recent works, not just the two you mentioned but going back 5-10 years, you do notice some things in his works degrading; not enough to hurt the overall quality of the book, but enough that you can tell something is happening. The largest change is a reduction in vocabulary, but there is also the fact that tend to be more straightforward, with less metaphors and colorful language.
Like I said, the ideas are all still sound, the humor is fun and entertaining, there are no gaping plot holes left unfilled, but I suspect that you could make a pretty interesting study on the effects of Alzheimer's on language by studying his books. And you'd certainly have a good sample of his writing (what is he up to now, 30 books? 40?
Not that I'm any expert, but it was alway my understanding that the Roman Legion favored short swords because they spent so much time fighting the Gauls and other barbarian tribes around Europe who favored long and heavy weapons that needed to be swung for momentum or brought down from overhead, which left them extremely vulnerable to someone who closed in fast with a short blade. I thought the Gauls also favored chain mail armor, which is easier to punch through with a small blade than to chop through with a heavy one. But the main reason was the first one, that it's almost impossible to actually use something like a claymore against someone who's less than two arm's lengths from you despite what it looked like in Braveheart.