Terry Pratchett’s Embuggerance

Elayne Riggs

Elayne Riggs is the creator of the popular blog Pen-Elayne on the Web. She was a founding member of Friends of Lulu, an organization dedicated to increasing the involvement of girls and women in comics, as readers and creators. She is married to inker Robin Riggs, with whom she shares two cats, and has odd love/hate relationship with Hillary Clinton.

You may also like...

11 Responses

  1. Marilee J. Layman says:

    I'd already heard about Terry's brain problems, but I wish someone had mentioned Hogfather earlier. I have the book, of course, but I'd like to see the movie, too. I'm currently reading his Johnny Maxwell Trilogy, his only SF, for bookgroup on Saturday.If you decide to read Discworld, let me know. There are a lot of subsets in the books and many people like only one or two sets. Plus, the first two books are the weakest. I can tell you which you might want to try first. Oh, and there's animated UK video sets of two other books. I don't know if there's DVDs.

    • Rick Oliver says:

      ION will probably rerun Hogfather on a regular basis through the holidays — but I thought it was awful. I love the Discworld books, but the teevee movie was four hours of my life I'll never get back.

    • Anonymous says:

      there's also Dark Side of the Sun and Strata from before he started the discworld if you're looking for Pratchett sci-fi. But start with Guards Guards or Witches Abroad, I reckon – they're the point where he started writing Discworld novels instead of not-that-funny-fantasy

      • Marilee J. Layman says:

        I've read all his books — including the Johnny Maxwell Trilogy and Truckers, Diggers, Wings, plus Good Omens with Neil Gaiman. And since you're replying so much later, I did get the DVD of Hogfather.

  2. mike weber says:

    Personally i'd say start with the Death books (Mort [a tribute to which Mercedes Lackey slipped into her book"The Fairy Godmother"], The Reaper Man, Soul Music…) The Witch books (especially Witches Abroad) might be good, too.

    • Adriane Nash says:

      The Death books is the way that I got into them, quickly followed by the Witch books! Quickly followed by an obession and an overflowing bookshelf. Luckily my folks had plannd a trip to Canada at a time when the Corgi published books weren't so easy to come by in the US and I was able 'complete my run' in one trip to a bookstore (and for some reason I want to say it was a supercheap even for Canada store). Although aesthetically, they clash with the Harper books…But I had orginally discovered the series when Colour of Magic was turned into a comic book in the early 90s.

      • mike weber says:

        I quoted a line from "Witches Abroad" when i reviewed "Pirate's Pantry", a Louisiana Junior League cookbook – that Nanny Ogg had always thought that she was a good cook, but now she realised she'd just been not starving as pleasantly as possible…

      • Marilee J. Layman says:

        All of mine came from the Science Fiction Book Club, including Where's My Cow?.

    • Marilee J. Layman says:

      I like the Guards subset, too, although they tend to be more political satire compared to the other variations of satire. And DEATH makes a brief appearance in Johnny and the Dead.

  3. Adriane Nash says:

    Mom throwingout my comics was a 'classic' childhood trauma I never had to suffer, since my mother had suffered through various forms of having her childhood treasures tossed out on her (including a while she was sleeping raid on her toys AND learning all the stuff they'd told her they'd trown away when she moved out was in fact still in the attic when her grandmother sold the house)

  4. Marilee J. Layman says:

    And I have found out that Hogfather will be shown on ION (formerly Pax) on Sunday, 12/23, at 7pm.