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Thoughts upon finishing Soul Music, the first Pratchett I've ever read:
The style took some getting used to -- not unlike Douglas Adams filtered through PG Wodehouse, is it? Very British, in any case. Pratchett has a gift for picking out one tiny detail that makes a scene come alive, though he doesn't use it often enough for my taste. Having so little sensory information tends to make me feel a bit detached from the world and the characters; too much telling, not enough showing.
I also found the style cinematic in some of the same ways JKR's writing is. It sometimes seems to come from the mind of a screenwriter, with the visual vocabulary of such. (The skeleton pulling itself together and the characters unexpectedly sitting up from under the mud stick out as examples.) Soul Music is even more cinematic than the HP books: It has an omniscient narrator. That's not necessarily bad, just an observation.
The book made me laugh, and I enjoyed the playful characterizations and allegory. I think I'll lend it to a friend of mine who's in the music industry.
So, I'm not in love, but I did like it, and would like to try more. Any suggestions for a good one to read next? Maybe something with more Vetinari? He's certainly a scene-stealer, but he's barely in this one.
- That was not at all what I expected.
- Buddy né Imp looks like Elijah Wood.
- Lord Vetinari sounds like Jason Isaacs, and I want to read much more about him.
- Wormtail/Death of Rats
- Dude. Lay off the paragraph breaks. Seriously.
- I think I shall read some more of these books.
The style took some getting used to -- not unlike Douglas Adams filtered through PG Wodehouse, is it? Very British, in any case. Pratchett has a gift for picking out one tiny detail that makes a scene come alive, though he doesn't use it often enough for my taste. Having so little sensory information tends to make me feel a bit detached from the world and the characters; too much telling, not enough showing.
I also found the style cinematic in some of the same ways JKR's writing is. It sometimes seems to come from the mind of a screenwriter, with the visual vocabulary of such. (The skeleton pulling itself together and the characters unexpectedly sitting up from under the mud stick out as examples.) Soul Music is even more cinematic than the HP books: It has an omniscient narrator. That's not necessarily bad, just an observation.
The book made me laugh, and I enjoyed the playful characterizations and allegory. I think I'll lend it to a friend of mine who's in the music industry.
So, I'm not in love, but I did like it, and would like to try more. Any suggestions for a good one to read next? Maybe something with more Vetinari? He's certainly a scene-stealer, but he's barely in this one.
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