The Book Thread

[Batcathat]

The thing everyone forgets about "The Colour of Magic and Light Fantastic aren't as good as his later works" is that "his later works" are some of the greatest pieces of fiction ever written. "Not as good as Hogfather" isn't a sin!

Very true, even the worst Pratchett is certainly better than a lot of authors. And yeah, Hogfather is pretty damn good, the reason I mention Death as my favorite sub-series is probably like 60 percent thanks to that particular book.

Yep. Even if the rules of magic are uncertain, the rules of drama are still the same. Even a story with a hazily-defined magic system needs to tell a satisfying sequence of events, resolving conflicts in ways that don't feel like a cop-out. The lack of definition doesn't prevent that.

Sure, there are obviously lots of works with undefined magic without a trace of Deus Ex Machina as well as the opposite (for example, the bending in the Avatarverse is fairly well defined, but that didn't stop the Deus Ex Turtle which I hate with the power of a thousand exploding firebenders...), but I'm still convinced that "magic does whatever" leaves more room for lazy resolution by authors than "magic does X, Y and Z".