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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   23426 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 1, 2024

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Good Omens is Pratchett book, at least 51% if not more like 80%. I'm not sure what Gaiman ever brought to the book. The four horseman are already in Discworld, although I notice they left out Mr Soak the milkman.

This is praise. Pratchett is one of the best to ever write and the high quality of his prodigious output is astounding.

If you don't like fantasy, the Long World with Baxter is fantastic.

But now we're in the Friday Fun thread, What Are You Reading.

I felt that you could usually tell whether you were reading a Pratchett section or a Gaiman section by the tone of the writing.

Pratchett is essentially a satirist and a humourist, and nothing really terrible ever happens to the people in the Discworld books. Even when people do suffer (like the murdered dwarves in Thud!) it happens offscreen or is skimmed over.

Whereas Gaiman is a dark fantasy / horror writer. When something really grim happens, like the telemarketers being eaten alive by worms or people ripping each other to shreds because War is in the room I'm pretty sure that's Gaiman.

Telemarketers being eaten alive is "I fantasize about my outgroup getting hurt".

Oh, sure. But one of the things that made Pratchett so readable (until he started losing his touch near the end, around or just after 'Going Postal') was that he didn't usually feel the need to indulge in those fantasies. I'm sure he had them - he had a lot of pent up rage against the world - but he was self-aware enough not to let them come out in print. Even Lord Rust, who is usually treated as an absolute buffoon, has a way of dealing with problems that makes Vimes "darkly impressed". He's not humiliated, or cast out from society, or eaten alive.

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