Outside of a Dog: Pratchett, Terry: (30) The Wee Free Men

Elaine

Elaine wrote on May 27, 2003 at 6:57 AM:

Is this a Diskworld novel?

Kate

Kate wrote on May 27, 2003 at 7:39 AM:

Boy, I can't believe I didn't say that explicitly. Yes, like Lords and Ladies, this takes place on the Discworld.

Elaine

Elaine wrote on May 27, 2003 at 9:40 AM:

I thought it probably did: I read your review twice to make sure you didn't mention it. Was too lazy to look-up spelling for Discworld, or even Google it.

Lords and Ladies may be among my least favorite Discworld novels, but I have found that even my least favorite of his books will improve upon rereading. I still haven't read Night Watch: need to put in my reserve for it at the local library.

Thanks for the review. I think we may have similar tastes, since I usually agree with yours where I have read the book.

By the way, in the most recent PN Elrod, Jack gets beat up again, and in a particularly horrific fashion that had me skipping quite a bit to the end. I don't consider this a spoiler for the book, since if you read the series, he obviously gets beat up each time, and it obviously gets worse in each succeeding novel.

Kate

Kate wrote on May 27, 2003 at 9:57 AM:

Hmmm, actually I did mention it, but it was rather buried: "Yes, much of the action takes place in Fairyland, which is a first for the Discworld . . . "

As far as _Lords and Ladies_, I guess it would depend on why you didn't like it as much.

Thanks for the warning about the latest PN Elrod, as well.

Rebecca

Rebecca wrote on May 27, 2003 at 2:11 PM:

I just read it this past weekend and enjoyed it very much. If you've read a lot of Discworld much will be kind of "yeah, yeah, we know already," but it was certainly done well; the landscape of the Chalk was brilliantly evoked, and the Nac Mac Feegle are just plain fun. I'll be muttering "Crivens!" for days now.

I am a bit puzzled by the young adult label - other than the age of the protagonist, nothing about it struck me as YA.

I recently reread Lords and Ladies, btw - there is a tendency I think in the Witch books to have a lot of good moments that somehow don't *quite* manage to hang together as a whole. Wee Free Men does not suffer from this, btw. ;-)

Elle

Elle wrote on May 28, 2003 at 2:22 PM:

I've only just discovered the Discworld books. Do I need to read these in order? I'm intrigued by the one you reviewed. It sound like it's right up my street, but I don't want to miss something I should know by reading previous books in the series.

Kate

Kate wrote on May 28, 2003 at 5:54 PM:

Elle: you certainly don't need to read any other Discworld before this one, which is very self-contained in terms of its plot. There are a few characters from other books, but you don't need to know them beforehand to understand where they're coming from.

Some of the Discworld sub-series do benefit from being read in order, particularly the Watch books. There's a list in the rec.arts.sf.written FAQ that may be of help.

Let me know what you think if you do try it.

Jean Rogers

Jean Rogers wrote on August 24, 2004 at 5:07 PM:

Interesting that the discussion here is about whether The Wee Free Men is a Discworld novel: because although, as you say, of course it is, it didn't entirely feel like one. The Chalk is so completely different and disconnected a place - and so reminiscent of England's chalk Downs (you've been reading Mary Russell, haven't you, Kate?) that I wasn't absolutely certain until Grannies Weatherwax and Ogg turned up at the end. And even then, it felt rather as if they'd been introduced for the purpose of anchoring this errant book into the Discworld. I'm not complaining, mind: I liked it enormously. I'm just remarking...

Kate

Kate wrote on August 25, 2004 at 10:29 PM:

Jean: re: the Chalk: I have indeed been reading the Russell/Holmes books. _O Jerusalem_ and _Justice Hall_ made excellent plane reading, and I have _The Game_ out from the library. Though I got much more of a sense of place out of the non-Sussex books, I have to say. I have to say that I completely thought _The Wee Free Men_ was a Discworld book, down to its core, even with the small overlap in characters and setting and the non-appearance of Death. But that's just me.