You are aware there is perhaps a handful of nazis left alive in the world, and perhaps one or two in all of Germany. I dare say your prejudice is a mirror for theirs. Let it die. Germany did not do anything to you, nor your family. Jackasses who would disrespect you and do horrible things exist in all nations equally. If you want to hate people for their lacking morality, hate them all equally. Stop picking on Germany.
If you are referring to the part where you say you do not expect everyone to act as irrationally as you, that is like me saying I hate all people with red hair, but that I do not expect others to share in my hatred. If it was something other than this then I totally missed it.
First of all, I don't hate German people, I never claimed to nor do I. You read that in, without actually reading what I said. And second of all, You are the person who called NVidia Nazis for not supporting linux, so you are the last person I'd expect to understand, so I'm not going to try to teach you the difference between hatred and and feeling unease. But I will tell you a story. I did volunteer work in a Nursing home, and there was this old lady who would wander the halls of the nursing home talking in German and yelling. I asked a nurse what was going on, and she told me that this particular old lady had been forced to be a prostitute for the Nazis. And many evenings she relives that experience. And she wanders and she screams and she relives it almost every day. I'm sure she's not still alive. But nothing is going to make me forget that.
Soon I'll be going back to Discworld as Corgi are re-releasing the books in the UK in a bigger format and with much improved covers that still use the classic art, and as per normal my attention will almost exclusively be focused on the City Watch.
Not really, it depends on your taste. Discworld is something you throw yourself into. But, typically, the Rincewind novels (starting with The Colour of Magic) are the more popular choice. It's more a case of Discworld is a larger setting in which various series take place. The City Watch ones lampoon police dramas, there's The Witches who lampoon, well, magic and witchcraft, the Rincewind books which are takes on adventure and wizardry, Tiffany Aching is a YA series about a young girl who is a witch (and her eventual rise into womanhood), and so on. But here is a visual reading guide so that you can see what I mean. It's a bunch of series under a larger header. I've not yet read any of the Rincewind (bar Unseen Academicals which I've started, though it's not really a Rincewind novel beyond a cameo he has) nor Death books, but I've read a few of the other linked books along with the whole run of City Watch and Tiffany Aching.
That guide is really nice thanks! I think I'm going to wet my feet with The Colour of Magic then. Wizards are cool adventures are cool that can hardly go wrong eh Tolkien?
I think it's important to state - before you go in - a few facts: 1. Sir Pratchett is British and writes for the British market. Some of the jokes WILL not work for you. Even I face this. 2. The earlier books are fairly weak at times, but they DO get better. Not always, though. He's an inconsistent author. 3. The humour relies a lot of puns and other forms of wordplay. It may be worth mulling over a possible joke as it does sometimes need your brain to work. 4. If you're not getting anywhere, put it down and come back to it later. I find this works rather well with getting me back into his books. A number have taken me a few tries to get into.
Hmm, personally I think the Rincewind novels are some of the weaker ones. They basically have one gag- Rincewind saving the world accidentally because he's running away - and it's just retold in every story. I do enjoy the setting and the minor characters often, but I dislike the Rincewind character. Personally, I reccomend starting with some of the Industrial Revolution books, they give you a pretty decent insight into the discworld and you'll find characters that appear in it in pretty much every other book Pick any of them, they are quite similar Watch books are the discworld equivalent of Doctor House basically (ok, I admit, I have watched about 3 episodes of House...), most of them are quite decent. I love Guards, Guards! though. I just finished reading the Rivers Of London books by Ben Aaranovitch, very enjoyable urban crime fantasy, magic in modern London. Very light tone, with lots of chases, some fireballs and V8 Jaguars. Fun and very readable, don't expect miracles, but snappy one-liners and jolly good entertainment
I swear I've read a series similar to that... Not so much. They're more an equivalent of a British crime procedural. Grumpy leader, eager younger cop, so on and so forth. If you've watched any British show like Midsomer Murders, Dalziel & Pascoe, Morse, etc., then you can definitely see some of that influence creeping in.
What do you guys think about E-Readers btw? I am/was pretty sceptic, I like the comfort and flexibility they give, but I really, really miss the haptic of a book. I also like to have tons of books strewn around in my flat, makes me look all smart and educated. Anyway, for my year abroad I got myself a Kindle, since my last year abroad ended with 8kg of books on the return trip (no, I'm not kidding.). I'll obviously take a few favourites with me, but the heavy lifting will be done by the Kindle. The reading is pretty comfortable luckily, I've finished 4 books on it this weekend (Rivers of London). But it is definitely missing something, and from time to time I do notice the screen resolution, mainly because I've set the script to pretty small. Getting E-Books on it has been easy so far, I'm using my parent's Amazon acc with their bought Ebooks, and I have added some more via the magic of USB. Cory Doctorow releases all of his novels under a Creative Commons, and Brandon Sanderson (he's ok, though I don't get all the hype) has released one of his books, Warbreaker, for free as well. There are also the classics, and obviously anything else you can find. I'm still running on the battery charge, it's pretty cool how long those things last. Not having touch is weird in the beginning, because the screen looks like it's touchable, but you get used to it. Same goes for turning pages with a button, it becomes almost natural quickly. Finding past passages is a slight pain though, but that doesn't happen that often, so yeah. Converting PDFs to be a lot more readable is surprisingly easy, it's really worth your few minutes. So, does anyone else have one of these devils and has tips/free ressources/cautionary tales of devices suddenly melting?
As far as I'm concerned, when it comes to the Rincewind books, the real "main character" is the Luggage. Yeah it's the rest of the cast that makes those fun, more than Rincewind himself.
I'm dead set on reading The Colour of Magic so I might not enjoy it (hell I might not even understand it) but I'm going to start reading it but I will have to find a good deal first. If it doesn't tick then I'm going to try the recommendations until morale lasts. Though I'm also eyeing the Death series which might pop into the second place instantly if someone recommends it but no one has said anything about it so it has to wait.
I have a Kindle but I don't use it. iwantto...; My nan is a bigger Discworld fan than me (she got me into it, I largely borrow her copies) and the Death books are her favourites, I believe.
Any particular reason? I know that my sister-in-law has had a few problems with hers (turned out it was due to a magnet on the case she was using -- no joke). But in spite of that, Amazon was really nice about exchanging it. I cannot personally live without my kindle. I bring it everywhere. I've actually lost two separate kindles now and I'm on my third -- ended up getting a name tag, and one of those radio beeper thingies attached to it, with the transmitter attached to my car keys lol. I have a Kindle and an IPad, and the IPad always stays at home. Without it, my house would be exploding with books (it already was, but everything is now so much better organized).
I have somewhere in the region of 150 print books, and with ebook/print pricing being fairly similar, I see no reason to buy the ebook edition.
BTW, I'm now reading "On Stranger Tides" by Tim Powers. I'm not very far into the book, but I will say that I'm enjoying it so far, and it concerns Pirates, and voodoo/black magic in the Caribbean during the early 1700s. I've read good things about Tim Powers in the past, and always thought I should try reading some of his stuff. So I haven't read anything else by him. But so far I like it.
Only one or two publishers have e-Book prices equal to or (on occasion) greater than paper book prices, and they've been getting a whole lot of backlash. Honestly, e-books are significantly less money (10% is standard, but often better, and SO many books FOR FREE!!!). I have the complete works of Mark Twain, Arthur Conan Doyle, H.G. Welles, plus many of the Oz books, Tarzan Books, even Barsoom books, none of which I had to pay a cent for. Plus lots of new books are for free (did I tell you that the first Wool book is free in e-book form???). Every day, practically, they have new books for free. Plus you can borrow books (either from Amazon or friends or even the library if your local library is participating). The reason why they give the books away for free is that they have new authors that have great promise, but otherwise they would not get noticed by the average reader. There are a few authors that I discovered that way that I may never have noticed before. BTW, one of the worst publishers is Penguin Books -- they will have sales on their paperbacks that do not extend to the e-book version. There have been movements to boycott them for this reason.
