fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2545 ]

[ SECRET POST #2545 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2545 ⌋

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Everyone tells me that the diskworld books have been going downhill lately. I havent really noticed a trend so I was wondering what the opinion was over here. Do you think the books have been going downhill an from what book?

I don't know if it's going downhill. There's definitely been a pretty massive stylistic change since Night Watch or so. So it's kind of a matter of preference. I guess I'd say the quality started really going down after Going Postal, at least for me. The natural endpoint would be Night Watch but I liked Monstrous Regiment and Going Postal quite a bit, whereas I thought Thud was honestly pretty weak and the ones after have been worse.

I'm certainly a Pratchett fan, but, unfortunately, I did not get to read anything since the Unseen Academicals. I don't want to believe that there was a significant decline in quality; I'd rather think that people simply say that about every prolific writer.

But, if there has been a noticeable decline, I think I'm going to treat the last books much like I treat the last Jeremy Brett episodes...

The last few books haven't been as enjoyable as the older ones, but I can't really pinpoint the exact book where they started going downhill. Snuff definitely had some places where the difference in style was pretty glaring. Don't get me wrong, I've still enjoyed them, just not as much.

I felt like Snuff's issues were more tonal than stylistic, although we're getting into semantics here. It was somber and odd, but it still felt very Discworld despite not quite meshing with what's gone before.

I've noticed they've been different, but ive enjoyed them more than older copies.

The Truth was where the rot really started. He'd had occasional clunkers before that like Sourcery or Moving Pictures, but Children's novels (and maybe Making Money, although it is too soon to say whether its incredibly on the nail message about financial crisis will have staying power in the future --the Cosmo Lavish trying to impersonate the Patrician and the secretly a clown subplot for the bank manager were really not that good) aside, everything since has been varying shades of bland.

UU, Snuff, and Raising Steam have been incredibly confused books though. I would not recommend them to anyone except a Pratchett completest, and even then to get them 2nd hand. They are not worth full price. They have all needed, at very least, a lot more editing than they got and they just don't flow evenly. I'm guessing that having lost the ability to re-read and self-edit has meant a lot of stuff that would previously been worked over before going to the publisher has just gone through on the nod.

I genuinely liked Thud, Going Postal, and Making Money, but I can't decide whether Snuff was an indicator of a downhill slide or just really effing weird in that way he gets sometimes. Think I need to give that one another go.

Isn't his son ghost-writing a lot now or am I mixing him up with another author?

Unless there is a press release I missed, Pratchett doesn't have a son. He has a daughter who is a writer but keeps giving unprompted highly specific denials of writing her father's stuff. If I have missed a press release then she could be his son now I suppose, and still giving those same unprompted highly specific denials.

Well, a lot of it has to do with him having fast on set Alzheimer's and having to dictate his last few books. This is probably where a lot of the tone issues come from.

Yep, verbalized stories sound and work very differently from written stories. You'd hope he would have nominated a ghostwriter to translate from one into the other, but apparently not.

Unseen Academicals was kind of a mess - the structure felt unbalanced, the main characters weren't as developed, and there were more repeated jokes than usual. I think it's enjoyable if you are already a fan of Discworld.

Knowing of his condition and being a huge fan, Unseen Academicals just made me sad. It seemed he had really declined in skill.

Everyone tells me that the diskworld books have been going downhill lately.

Everyone is wrong.

I think it's the simpsons effect. People are changing, their tastes shift, and instead of thinking "I'm not the same person I was at the start" they think "This has changed and I don't like it. I want it to be like it was when I was younger"

Throw into the mix Mr Pratchets health issue that they can blame, and we have all we need to convince ourselves that everything has changed on us.

Much like the simpsons, you will notice "Everyone" agreeing that the quality has dropped, but no-one agreeing on the specific point that happened. If it truly was a quality drop (Like The anita blake books) I think we would all be able to agree on the specific point it happened without much deviation in opinion (See narcissus in chains).

The Simpsons is legitimately much worse, though. And there's a perfectly logical explanation for why we can't agree on a specific point when it happened: because the drop-off was very, very, very gradual.

I disagree though. Apart from the fact that "Worse" is subjective, and it's only the constant circle-jerking of internet culture that has lead to the widespread belief that "Me and the people who agree with me online don't like this so that makes it objectively bad".

When I was a teen, I was one of those snotty fuckers who was "oh so mature" and as a result I did not indulge in such immature activities as watching cartoons (Yeah, don't look at me like that, we were all assholes in our teens) this lead me to never having climbed on the simpsons love train of the 90's. I did start watching them later however, and I generally find the newer episodes to be funnier and better written than the cornball 'modern family is dysfunctional but loving' style of episodes of the earlier series.

so yeah, when I compare my opinion to the opinions of almost everyone who watched the show from or near the start, I conclude that either I am objectively wrong, you are all objectively wrong, or it's a subjective difference based on our own experiences of the show.

Unlike the old man in his rocking chair complaining about how "In my day things were just better" I think it's just a case of people change, culture shifts and people can't deal with things they used to love not affecting them the same way.

I do think the simpsons and Mr P's works have underwent changes in style, but I certainly don't think either have "went down hill."

Everyone is pointing to the same point, give or take a book, in Pratchett's downslide. It is UA. Me, I'd peg it just a tad earlier because the flaws that would later dominate in UA were present in The Truth and I didn't like it so much so I noticed them more. People more forgiving let those flaws slide until they dominate, which is unquestionably Unseen Academicals. The book where the disjointed nature of his writing becomes unmissable is that one. There are a few diehards that will accept no question of a downturn, nor any problem whatsoever, but that is just blind fanlove for you and is present in every fandom.

Oh, and the Simpsons is kinda shit these days too, they've done it all and are just repetitive now.

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[ SECRET POST #2545 ]

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