The Book Thread

[Batcathat]

Codex Alera is not only not free of cliches it is intentionally cliche central. It was originally specifically started to win a forum argument to prove that good execution mattered more than good ideas. And Jim Butcher didn't even get to choose the ideas, he asked for two overdone ideas and got given "Lost Roman Legion" and "Pokemon".

And turned it into a publishable novel.

Then he added Werewolves and the Zerg.

I know, considering he wrote the first book of the Dresden Files in order to prove his writing teacher wrong but ended up proving her right, I'm not sure Jim Butcher has ever written a book not trying to win an argument.

But if I remember correctly the challenge was to base the book on two bad ideas, not to jam as many cliches in there as possible, so unless proven otherwise, I'm not going to assume that every cliche that is in there (which I would say are fewer than a lot of fantasy novels) is put there intentionally.

[Taevyr]

Codex Alera is not only not free of cliches it is intentionally cliche central. It was originally specifically started to win a forum argument to prove that good execution mattered more than good ideas. And Jim Butcher didn't even get to choose the ideas, he asked for two overdone ideas and got given "Lost Roman Legion" and "Pokemon".

And turned it into a publishable novel.

Then he added Werewolves and the Zerg.

Ok, that sounds so out there, I just have to give it a try.

[Eldan]

He bent the premise quite a bit, of course, but the basic idea is that some of the Romans can bind elemental nature spirits they call "furies" and use them in battle. That's the Pokemon part.

[Ionathus]

I haven't read any of these books (should I? Are they worth it?), but what's being described sounds more like an archetype or a subgenre than an outright "cliché."

Maybe my definition is different. To me, clichés are individual jokes, character beats, or turns of phrase that aren't just popular or broadly used...they're so codified and overdone that they break immersion wherever they're seen.

Most stories are gonna have some element of that "hero's journey" stuff in there, just because there are only so many ways you can insert a character into a fantasy narrative. Occasionally you get something that breaks the mold like "Chinese immigrant laundromat owner has to battle across the multiverse in order to get her taxes done" but often those "cliched" elements are nice to have to streamline you into the story.

I know, considering he wrote the first book of the Dresden Files in order to prove his writing teacher wrong but ended up proving her right, I'm not sure Jim Butcher has ever written a book not trying to win an argument.

What was the thing he was trying to prove wrong?

[Batcathat]

What was the thing he was trying to prove wrong?

I don't really remember the details (and I might be misremembering some of what I do remember) but I think he was basically questioning a lot of what his writing teacher was telling him, so he decided to write a book following everything she said, presumably to show how bad it would be. It ended up being the first book of the Dresden Files, so he had to admit to being wrong, but on the other hand he did get a bestselling series out of it, so he probably doesn't mind.

EDIT: Instead of relying on my questionable memory, I decided to do some actual research but according to this interview I had it mostly correct.

When I started the first book, my goal wasn’t to write a book; it was to prove to my writing teacher [Deborah Chester] how wrong she was about the stuff she was trying to teach me.

This book was just the way I chose to do it. It was a project in line with the things she suggested I try out, one of which was to write in the first person. And I’m like, “Well, how do I do that? How do I create a voice for a character?”

And she’s like, “You know what? The first time, don’t worry about it. Just write. Pretend it’s you talking.”

So that’s what I did.

I also learned that the teacher in question is a published author herself, with one of her books being about writing fantasy with a foreword by Jim Butcher, so I guess he really changed his own mind.

[warty goblin]

Yeah, I've run into a fair amount of more modern books that start to feel like they're more a transcript for the film/tv show that's playing in the writer's head (something which I've bored a number of aquaintances by going on about it over the years).

Yup, it's a real shift in style. And there are some upsides to it, an author with a solid visual imagination and the prose chops to describe it can do some wonderful things. But it also leads to intense word count and some interesting structural limitations because everything has to be shown and described in detail. Stories that require lots of time or travel or action run the risk of getting bogged down because all those things need detailed beat by beat descriptions. Action scenes are particularly prone to this, the worst offender being of course the first person fight scene, where we 100% know the protagonist lives and still have to read like 15 pages of every cut, thrust, parry, reload or whatever because, well, you've gotta show all that.

For particularly sharp contrast, Leigh Brackett crammed an entire planet crossing journey with multiple alien cultures, ecological collapse, war, love, religion and constant peril and adventure into less than 500 pages with the Book of Skaith trilogy. 500 pages total, not per book.

I rather suspect that a lot of this is leached over from film. Movies and TV by construction remove the work of imagining how things look from the audience. With a century or so of habuation to not doing that, books are naturally going to follow suit.

And now of course we're getting bleed over from games. More cinematic prose at least brings us lush and detailed descriptions, game bleed over just brings stupidyingly boring and defined magic and other abilities. I have yet to read a "magic system" that's anywhere near as fun as "due to dark magic the hero is now in dead god hell"

(I could also blame Brandon Sanderson for this, but it's nearly redundant. From the beige prose to the gratingly mechanical notions of power to the tedious obsession with lore and continuity Sanderson is already the literary equivalent of a videogame.)

[Eldan]

What was the thing he was trying to prove wrong?

Something like he wanted to write epic high fantasy and couldn't sell any of his manuscripts, and his writing teacher told him he'd be better writing urban fantasy with a detective. He wrote something enormously clichéd, which apparently wasn't bad and then wrote a semi-sequel to it that become the first Dresden Files novel.

The working title was "Semi-automagic".

[Batcathat]

And now of course we're getting bleed over from games. More cinematic prose at least brings us lush and detailed descriptions, game bleed over just brings stupidyingly boring and defined magic and other abilities. I have yet to read a "magic system" that's anywhere near as fun as "due to dark magic the hero is now in dead god hell"

While I can sort of see your point (though I don't think magic is automatically less interesting just because it's defined), I think the opposite can be just as bad, with undefined magic basically being a thinly veiled Deus Ex Machina (it doesn't have to be, but then I don't think defined magic is automatically more boring either). Magic like that easily ends up being like Silver Age Superman where his superpowers sometimes seemed to be super-whateverthewriterneedsthisweek.

I think the worst kind of magic system is when it's like in D&D, where magic is on one hand rigorously defined and structured, but on the other hand without any clear limitations to what it can and cannot do. Worst of both worlds, I think.

[Ionathus]

I really like well-described action scenes in prose! But they're few and far between. The prose has to keep the intense pace of the fight going, which is a hard thing to do, and it's always in danger of becoming dry stage directions.

To the broader point: I don't think video games or TV have killed our ability to imagine anything, but I do think "show, don't tell" is king right now in a lot of circles, and some people take that very literally without maintaining a tight enough focus on what to show or what emotions/feelings/ideas they're trying to evoke in the reader. "What level of detail should a writer include" isn't a new debate by any means -- doesn't Moby **** involve entire chapters on the logistics and rules of the whaling industry? Apparently one quarter of Les Miserables is basically just essays by Victor Hugo about politics, religion, Parisian sewers, and more.

(I could also blame Brandon Sanderson for this, but it's nearly redundant. From the beige prose to the gratingly mechanical notions of power to the tedious obsession with lore and continuity Sanderson is already the literary equivalent of a videogame.)

I've only read the first Mistborn, but Brandon Sanderson definitely epitomizes the "logistics and stage directions" method of storytelling to me. He spends loads of time explaining character motivations, magic system logistics, political maneuvers, fight sequences...there's a very specific feel to it, where you get the sense the author won't be happy until his mental image is perfectly described in detail and the audience sees it exactly as he imagined it. Like a blueprint of a house vs a watercolor of a house.

I grew up reading books written in this style, like The Belgariad and the Inheritance Cycle, and the first time I picked up The Riddle-Master of Hed in my late teens, I was kind of peeved at the "lack" of worldbuilding. "When are they going to explain how all this magic works??" was my frequent complaint, to which Patricia McKillip said "lol, and then Morgon turns into a Fantasy Reindeer because Magic" But that was the intent of that series - it treated magic as a looser, fairytale-style element. The fantastic can happen and you might not get a good explanation for why, because it's not important to the story the author wants to tell. You don't really get to know the true "power levels" of the characters in Riddle-Master, but you can still tell who's on the back foot based on whether or not they run away.

[Eldan]

Sanderson has of weakpoints (beige prose, repetitiveness, especially in the characters, attrocious "humour"), but I still like his stuff. I like his worldbuilding, and I especially like the feeling of "this novel has 5000 moving parts, and somehow in the end, they are all coming together to form an unexpected big picture" that he sometimes manages in his better novels.

[Batcathat]

In regards to explaining magic systems, I think it's also important to differentiate between "the author doesn't explain exactly what magic can do" and "even the author doesn't know exactly what magic can do". I suppose it's kind of similar to doing research about a topic important to the story, the author doesn't have to include everything about it in the actual book (and probably shouldn't), but they should know enough about it so what does appear on the page makes sense.

[Ionathus]

Sanderson has of weakpoints (beige prose, repetitiveness, especially in the characters, attrocious "humour"), but I still like his stuff. I like his worldbuilding, and I especially like the feeling of "this novel has 5000 moving parts, and somehow in the end, they are all coming together to form an unexpected big picture" that he sometimes manages in his better novels.

I'm currently stuck on the first few chapters of Mistborn 2. Should I power through, or is there a better series of his I can switch to?

[Eldan]

Depends on what you like. A lot of people, myself included, find Mistborn 2 to be one of his weakest books. The last few chapters set up some interesting stuff and Mistborn 3 is better. Warbreaker is a good standalone. Stormlight is a huge doorstopper, but I find it quite engaging, except for one stretch in the third book, where there's suddenly a crossover with another of his books that makes pretty little sense in context. All his YA stuff I find pretty dreadful, mostly because he tries to be funny and he's just... not.

[Morgaln]

I consider Warbreaker and The Way of the King (Stormlight 1) Sanderson's best books so far. Just be aware that Stormlight as a whole is meant to somewhat tie all his books together, so there are a lot of references to (almost) everything else he wrote. You don't need to understand these references to understand and enjoy the story, but he's not exactly subtle about them, so you will notice the references even if you don't get them.

While I don't find the YA adult quite as dreadful as Eldan and find enjoyment in several of them (except for The Rithmatist, which was terrible), I wouldn't recommend those books to anyone.

[Mx.Silver]

Yup, it's a real shift in style. And there are some upsides to it, an author with a solid visual imagination and the prose chops to describe it can do some wonderful things. But it also leads to intense word count and some interesting structural limitations because everything has to be shown and described in detail. Stories that require lots of time or travel or action run the risk of getting bogged down because all those things need detailed beat by beat descriptions. Action scenes are particularly prone to this, the worst offender being of course the first person fight scene, where we 100% know the protagonist lives and still have to read like 15 pages of every cut, thrust, parry, reload or whatever because, well, you've gotta show all that.

For particularly sharp contrast, Leigh Brackett crammed an entire planet crossing journey with multiple alien cultures, ecological collapse, war, love, religion and constant peril and adventure into less than 500 pages with the Book of Skaith trilogy. 500 pages total, not per book.

I rather suspect that a lot of this is leached over from film. Movies and TV by construction remove the work of imagining how things look from the audience. With a century or so of habuation to not doing that, books are naturally going to follow suit.

Yes, exactly. There's an argument that comics/manga may have some influence as well, but I don't think it's a very strong one since the cultural influence is a fair bit smaller (plus you see considerably less stuff written by people who really want to be writing comics and our using books as 'the next best thing available' ).
I'm also convinced that the shift to writing characters' thoughts in italics (instead of in the speech marks with 'thought' instead of 'said', as used to be common practice) is a reflection of inner monologue voice over in film/tv and how that 'sounds different' to spoken dialogue.

And now of course we're getting bleed over from games. More cinematic prose at least brings us lush and detailed descriptions, game bleed over just brings stupidyingly boring and defined magic and other abilities. I have yet to read a "magic system" that's anywhere near as fun as "due to dark magic the hero is now in dead god hell"

Yeah, although I think this one might actually predate video games a bit. While it doesn't get talked about much, a lot of fantasy writers, since at least the 80s, play or have played tabletop RPGs, and I strongly suspect that this is a factor in why a lot of 'standard fantasy' worlds tend to resemble the sort of worlds those games are set in. But yes, video games becoming a cultural force would also have bleed-over.


Fanfic has also become a more noticeable influence within the last ten years or so, but as that's still in broadly the same medium so is a bit of a different case.

While I can sort of see your point (though I don't think magic is automatically less interesting just because it's defined), I think the opposite can be just as bad, with undefined magic basically being a thinly veiled Deus Ex Machina (it doesn't have to be, but then I don't think defined magic is automatically more boring either). Magic like that easily ends up being like Silver Age Superman where his superpowers sometimes seemed to be super-whateverthewriterneedsthisweek.

I've never been entirely persuaded by this. If you look at earlier fantasy fiction, folktales and mythology, you don't tend to see that 'flimsy deus ex machinas' as being all that endemic a problem with stories non-systemic magic. Granted, it's possible I've just missed it, but it also might be worth considering why the example you cited, silver age superman's powers, are explicitly not referred to as magic in the first place

To be clear, I'm not saying that systemised magic is inherently (or, indeed, necessarily) bad, just that I don't think this argument has much weight to it.




In other news, finished War and Peace, two days before I have to return it. Got through the epilogue this evening, aka the part where Tolstoy is done with the 'story' stuff and goes all-in on the extended essay about contemporary historiography, the faults with the 'great man' conception of history, and where one can place free will in the face of wider social and historical forces. Thereby pre-empting the efforts of 21st century video essayists who'd want to tackle the book
(to be fair, these are also explicit themes of the preceeding story, especially volume 4).
At the risk of being extremely controversial: overal it's a pretty good book.

Now, I'm going to have to really get my head down for book club homework/penance as I've only got about a week left.

[Batcathat]

I've never been entirely persuaded by this. If you look at earlier fantasy fiction, folktales and mythology, you don't tend to see that 'flimsy deus ex machinas' as being all that endemic a problem with stories non-systemic magic. Granted, it's possible I've just missed it, but it also might be worth considering why the example you cited, silver age superman's powers, are explicitly not referred to as magic in the first place

I suppose it's a matter of taste, but as much as I love mythology and folklore I don't think having vaguely defined magic is an advantage. "A god resolving the situation by using their ill-defined god powers" is pretty much literally a Deus Ex Machina. To be clear, I don't think every magic system needs to be meticulously defined à la Sanderson, but I do think it generally makes for a better story if it's clear (to the author if no one else) what magic can and cannot do.

Not sure what Superman's powers being classified as magic or not has to do with my point, since it's not specifically against magic but against characters having very badly (if at all) defined abilities.

[theangelJean]

I suppose it's a matter of taste, but as much as I love mythology and folklore I don't think having vaguely defined magic is an advantage. "A god resolving the situation by using their ill-defined god powers" is pretty much literally a Deus Ex Machina. To be clear, I don't think every magic system needs to be meticulously defined à la Sanderson, but I do think it generally makes for a better story if it's clear (to the author if no one else) what magic can and cannot do.

Not sure what Superman's powers being classified as magic or not has to do with my point, since it's not specifically against magic but against characters having very badly (if at all) defined abilities.

Vaguely-defined magic doesn't have to result in the Deus Ex Machina situation above, though, does it? It's all about how you resolve a situation, sure, but the presence of magic doesn't necessarily make it a solution. If an author decides that "could the characters solve this problem with magic" isn't actually relevant, it becomes more a matter of choosing a problem that fits in that category.

[Batcathat]

Vaguely-defined magic doesn't have to result in the Deus Ex Machina situation above, though, does it? It's all about how you resolve a situation, sure, but the presence of magic doesn't necessarily make it a solution. If an author decides that "could the characters solve this problem with magic" isn't actually relevant, it becomes more a matter of choosing a problem that fits in that category.

Sure. Like I said, it doesn't have to lead to that, but I do think there's an increased risk of it. Though to be fair, it doesn't just apply to magic but to vaguely defined abilities in general. I suppose it's at least partly a matter of tension. "How is character X going to solve this situation?" is a less interesting question (to me, at least) if there aren't any set limits to what X can do. That's not to say that X can't use their abilities in an unexpected way or pull off some new trick in the nick of time, but I still prefer there to be some sort of framework for what they can and cannot do.

[Ionathus]

Productive two weeks for me!

I decided to finally dive into Discworld and picked up The Colour of Magic. I enjoyed it a lot. Mostly for the descriptions and the characters -- plot was a little thin, which isn't terrible for the beginning of a series but I would like to sink my teeth into a story in this world with slightly higher stakes. If The Adventures of Rincewind the ****head Coward-Wizard continue to feel like "Arthur Dent but fantasy" I'll probably cool off on it eventually. Speaking of: Pratchett's writing reminds me of both Gaiman and Douglas Adams, which probably isn't a surprise to literally anyone.

Lighthearted good fun, clever as hell, looking forward to reading more, open to suggestions on which one to pick up next.

Currently about 3/4 through The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey, on recommendation from my wife (which is a bit of a vibe, as you'll probably see in a second). It's a fantastically awful premise: "near-future" sci-fi where the workaholic and headstrong protagonist Evelyn invents technology that can customize a human clone's personality, and her husband steals the research and secretly clones a more submissive version of her, with whom he then has an affair.

The cartoonish, thoughtless villainy of that act is what got me interested in reading the book, and it starts as such a soap-opera-level premise, but then the story takes a sharp swerve I wasn't expecting and it delves into areas that I'm finding very rewarding thus far.

Spoiler: Minor spoilers for the first 60 pages, revealed on the back cover, is that really even a spoiler

Show

Surprise, turns out the man who chose to clone his wife instead of go to couples' therapy is abusive and dangerous! The clone kills him in self-defense, and then goes to Evelyn for help. Evelyn helps cover up his death because if the whole situation came to light (the clone wife isn't publicly known) it would obliterate her research and reputation. The story swerves into a character study of these two women, how their personalities differ, and the power of nature vs. nurture. It's a great example of a book that uses its sci-fi premise to its fullest potential.

Funny enough considering the discussion upthread, I have some minor logistics and worldbuilding complaints. The consequences of this specific kind of cloning drive the plot, but those elements aren't explained clearly and aren't 100% thought-through, and I don't think that's a fully intentional choice. Sometimes it's hard to tell what people in-universe think about cloning as a concept, and I'm not yet sure whether or not the narrative is okay with cloning or if Evelyn is just being set up to go "oh yeah wait holy cow this whole thing is morally bankrupt."

All in all though, the worldbuilding stuff is just a minor nitpick. It mostly gets me to where I need to be - a very unique premise that's being used expertly. I'm in the final 1/4 now and really curious to see where it goes, but even without finishing the book, I've already gotten a lot of enjoyment out of the payoff Gailey has extracted from this idea.

[Eldan]

Productive two weeks for me!

I decided to finally dive into Discworld and picked up The Colour of Magic. I enjoyed it a lot. Mostly for the descriptions and the characters -- plot was a little thin, which isn't terrible for the beginning of a series but I would like to sink my teeth into a story in this world with slightly higher stakes. If The Adventures of Rincewind the ****head Coward-Wizard continue to feel like "Arthur Dent but fantasy" I'll probably cool off on it eventually. Speaking of: Pratchett's writing reminds me of both Gaiman and Douglas Adams, which probably isn't a surprise to literally anyone.

For a good long while, every Pratchett book I bought said "The Douglas Adams of Fantasy" on the back.

So, in Colour of Magic, Pratchett very explicitely satirizes Sword and Sorcery short stories. That's of course why he also has a half dozen very obvious expies of Sword and Sorcery heroes that were famous at the time (Conan, Fafhrd, Mouser) show up in the book. He also very quickly realized that that doesn't make for a long-term book series, so over time, he begins to introduce more actual plot and less random whackiness. And while the second book in the series directly continues the Adventures of Rincewind and Twoflower, he starts introducing other protagonists afterwards. Depending on how much he liked them, some of them get to be recurring, too.

After Colour of Magic, there is no reason not to pick read Light Fantastic next. It's the next one written in chronological order and the direct sequel. Starts immediately after the last one ends and finishes that story. And if you started with Colour of Magic, which isn't always the recommended starting point, you might as well go chronologically from there all the way.

[Batcathat]

I decided to finally dive into Discworld and picked up The Colour of Magic. I enjoyed it a lot. Mostly for the descriptions and the characters -- plot was a little thin, which isn't terrible for the beginning of a series but I would like to sink my teeth into a story in this world with slightly higher stakes. If The Adventures of Rincewind the ****head Coward-Wizard continue to feel like "Arthur Dent but fantasy" I'll probably cool off on it eventually. Speaking of: Pratchett's writing reminds me of both Gaiman and Douglas Adams, which probably isn't a surprise to literally anyone.

Lighthearted good fun, clever as hell, looking forward to reading more, open to suggestions on which one to pick up next.

It sounds like you're in for a treat then, as I think most people would agree that the early books are rather light on plot compared to the later ones. As for which one to start with... there are a lot of good options. You could go more or less chronological, but it might be best to choose which sub-series (the most popular ones are probably the books about the City Watch, the ones about the witches or the ones about Death and his family, with the latter probably being my personal favorite) sounds the most interesting and start with that one.

[Ionathus]

For a good long while, every Pratchett book I bought said "The Douglas Adams of Fantasy" on the back.

So, in Colour of Magic, Pratchett very explicitely satirizes Sword and Sorcery short stories. That's of course why he also has a half dozen very obvious expies of Sword and Sorcery heroes that were famous at the time (Conan, Fafhrd, Mouser) show up in the book. He also very quickly realized that that doesn't make for a long-term book series, so over time, he begins to introduce more actual plot and less random whackiness. And while the second book in the series directly continues the Adventures of Rincewind and Twoflower, he starts introducing other protagonists afterwards. Depending on how much he liked them, some of them get to be recurring, too.

After Colour of Magic, there is no reason not to pick read Light Fantastic next. It's the next one written in chronological order and the direct sequel. Starts immediately after the last one ends and finishes that story. And if you started with Colour of Magic, which isn't always the recommended starting point, you might as well go chronologically from there all the way.

Glad to hear it! In that case I'll probably continue the Rincewind books. I'd heard that other stories were considered a better "intro" to Discworld but couldn't find a consensus on which one to do, and decided if I didn't pick now I would just put off reading the series for longer until I could find the "right" one. Perfect is the enemy of good and all that.

Amazing that "The Douglas Adams of Fantasy" was a tagline!

It sounds like you're in for a treat then, as I think most people would agree that the early books are rather light on plot compared to the later ones. As for which one to start with... there are a lot of good options. You could go more or less chronological, but it might be best to choose which sub-series (the most popular ones are probably the books about the City Watch, the ones about the witches or the ones about Death and his family, with the latter probably being my personal favorite) sounds the most interesting and start with that one.

The Death series sounds very intriguing and I do really like that one as a concept! I've read Good Omens and I loved Death in that as well. My main fear is that a Death-focused book would be "too much of a good thing" but that doesn't sound like an issue for you -- is that right?

[LaZodiac]

It sounds like you're in for a treat then, as I think most people would agree that the early books are rather light on plot compared to the later ones. As for which one to start with... there are a lot of good options. You could go more or less chronological, but it might be best to choose which sub-series (the most popular ones are probably the books about the City Watch, the ones about the witches or the ones about Death and his family, with the latter probably being my personal favorite) sounds the most interesting and start with that one.

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!

While The Colour of Magic isn't exceptional, and it has an occassional bit of "boy's club" style humour, there's a lot of good stuff in it. Rinceward's unfortunate reality of "Wizard who's head too full of one spell to really do much actual magic" is a great concept, and the entire "God's do in fact play dice with the universe, they're incorrigible gamblers" scene is the canary in the proverbial coalmine of the sort of writing you can expect.

[Rynjin]

The Death series sounds very intriguing and I do really like that one as a concept! I've read Good Omens and I loved Death in that as well. My main fear is that a Death-focused book would be "too much of a good thing" but that doesn't sound like an issue for you -- is that right?

No, I wouldn't say so. Like all characters he grows and changes so it never feels like too much of anything really.

[Ionathus]

Particular callout I forgot to make in the original post: Rincewind as a character is very fun. I love how inherently selfish and self-preserving he is, and how despite being a failed wizard he is scrappy as hell. He's never described as buff but man, can he hold his own in a combat if he's allowed to get even a single cheap shot in.

Honestly, with his level of expertise and exposition combined with his "get out of any tight scrapes" trait, he also reminds me a lot of The Doctor --any incarnation but particularly the 10th-- that is, if The Doctor was a buzzkill homebody with an overclocked sense of self-preservation

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!

Well, now I'm even more excited to keep going! I've seen Hogfather mentioned for years as a favorite for many people, I'm really looking forward to that one.

While The Colour of Magic isn't exceptional, and it has an occassional bit of "boy's club" style humour, there's a lot of good stuff in it. Rinceward's unfortunate reality of "Wizard who's head too full of one spell to really do much actual magic" is a great concept, and the entire "God's do in fact play dice with the universe, they're incorrigible gamblers" scene is the canary in the proverbial coalmine of the sort of writing you can expect.

That's good to hear too -- I knew beforehand that Pratchett is known for usually keeping it pretty classy vis a vis casual fantasy misogyny, and I noticed some off moments here but subconsciously gave him a pass for it being his earlier work. When those jokes do come up, their tone reminds me of early Order of the Stick comics: you can tell that the author isn't really trying to punch down, they just hadn't fully considered their writing from that angle yet.

[tyckspoon]

That's good to hear too -- I knew beforehand that Pratchett is known for usually keeping it pretty classy vis a vis casual fantasy misogyny, and I noticed some off moments here but subconsciously gave him a pass for it being his earlier work. When those jokes do come up, their tone reminds me of early Order of the Stick comics: you can tell that the author isn't really trying to punch down, they just hadn't fully considered their writing from that angle yet.

The source material he's very directly parodying in the first two books (and especially in the first) is also kinda just full of that stuff - it's hard to avoid entirely and still be recognizable what you are riffing on. Later books that are more distinctly Discworld and less Pratchett-tinted Humorous Fantasy handle it differently.

[Ionathus]

The source material he's very directly parodying in the first two books (and especially in the first) is also kinda just full of that stuff - it's hard to avoid entirely and still be recognizable what you are riffing on. Later books that are more distinctly Discworld and less Pratchett-tinted Humorous Fantasy handle it differently.

When the dragonriding princess wore a literal chainmail bikini:

And then when all the other male dragonriders also wore chainmail thongs:

[Eldan]

To be fair, that wasn't super rare on S&S covers, males in just loincloths, boots and maybe armbands. (The women were still considerably more sexualized, of course.)

[Wookieetank]

Particular callout I forgot to make in the original post: Rincewind as a character is very fun. I love how inherently selfish and self-preserving he is, and how despite being a failed wizard he is scrappy as hell. He's never described as buff but man, can he hold his own in a combat if he's allowed to get even a single cheap shot in.

Just wait till you see what he can accomplish with half a brick and a sock.

[Mx.Silver]

While The Colour of Magic isn't exceptional, and it has an occassional bit of "boy's club" style humour, there's a lot of good stuff in it. Rinceward's unfortunate reality of "Wizard who's head too full of one spell to really do much actual magic" is a great concept, and the entire "God's do in fact play dice with the universe, they're incorrigible gamblers" scene is the canary in the proverbial coalmine of the sort of writing you can expec

Yeah, indeed. Colour and Light may not be as good as some of the later Discworld books, but they're enititely acceptable parodic fantasy books.

I suppose it's a matter of taste, but as much as I love mythology and folklore I don't think having vaguely defined magic is an advantage. "A god resolving the situation by using their ill-defined god powers" is pretty much literally a Deus Ex Machina. To be clear, I don't think every magic system needs to be meticulously defined à la Sanderson, but I do think it generally makes for a better story if it's clear (to the author if no one else) what magic can and cannot do.

Not sure what Superman's powers being classified as magic or not has to do with my point, since it's not specifically against magic but against characters having very badly (if at all) defined abilities.

It's related to your point, because the argument went that the problem with unsystemised magic in fiction is that it can easily end-up a deus ex machina but the only specific thing mentioned was Silver Age Superman. To wit: if this is a noticeable problem with unsystemised magic, then you'd expect arguments in favour of systemised magic would be able to present specific examples of this. Which they don't.

I brought it up not because I'm challenging you to compile a list (and even if I was, I'm just some faceless nobody on the internet; you don't owe me homework), but to highlight an issue with this 'avoiding the deus ex machina' argument. Because I've run into formulations of this argument repeatedly over the last couple of decades and they consistently do not have examples of this 'common problem' of unsystemised magic.