MarchMagics 8: Favorite Series

By -

It's a new week in MarchMagics, hosted by Kristen at We Be Reading, and a new day to talk about Diana Wynne Jones and Terry Pratchett!  The prompt for today is to write about our Favorite Series--(or story arc if it's part of Discworld because just to say Discworld would totally be cheating)

In DWJ, it's hard to choose.  I am probably in a minority when I pick Dalemark as one of the best.  I don't think it's hugely popular, but I love the green roads and all the mysterious twisty bits, and how the three earlier books, which aren't all that connected, are brought together in the fourth. 

Of course, though, I also adore the Chrestomanci books.  They're so funny and wonderful, and there's a lot of variety.  Chrestomanci is possibly DWJ's overall best series.




In Discworld, my favorite story arc has always been the witches.  They're my first and permanent love, and now that Tiffany Aching is part of it, well.  There is simply nothing more to say.  I think the Tiffany books are Pterry's greatest achievement, Discworldly speaking.  But Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg (and Greebo), and Magrat were wonderful even before Tiffany came along--especially Granny Weatherwax.

The first Pratchett book I ever read was a witchy one.  In my senior year of high school, I spent spring break visiting my cousin, and I picked up a book that was lying around the house.  It was funny, and kind of like Douglas Adams only with fantasy, and it was just all-around fantastic.  It turned out to belong to my younger cousin, who shrugged and said he'd won it at school and hadn't read it.  I ordered him to read it, went home, and forgot both the author and title of the book completely.  It was terrible.

Then, in my sophomore year of college, I visited a friend's house and somehow found the book again in his roommate's bookcase!  I was so excited!  It was Wyrd Sisters, and since the roommate was a big Pterry fan and had a lot of the books, I dove right in.  And that is how I got to know Discworld.





Comments

  1. LoryMarch 8, 2016 at 10:20 AM

    I would choose Dalemark as my favorite series too if the fourth book hadn't wrecked it for me. (I know, we differ about that one!) It still might be my favorite anyway, with Chrestomanci a close second. I'm reading Wyrd Sisters right now and loving it - I think the witches are great too.

    ReplyDelete
  2. KailanaMarch 8, 2016 at 3:10 PM

    These posts just make me want to read more from both of these authors. I have been so slack!

    ReplyDelete
  3. heatherMarch 8, 2016 at 5:42 PM

    I love the Witches!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Kristen M.March 8, 2016 at 11:15 PM

    I will be reading my second Dalemark this month and will definitely keep my mind open to the chance of it unseating the Chrestomanci books as my favorites -- but I love those so much!

    ReplyDelete
  5. JeanMarch 9, 2016 at 9:40 AM

    Chrestomanci in more FUN, and there are more books to love. Dalemark is more mysterious. :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. jrleekMarch 11, 2016 at 8:55 AM

    We're talking about the Sacramento cousins here? If that's correct I'm planning to make fun of him.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I'd love to know what you think, so please comment!

Popular posts from this blog

The Four Ages of Poetry

By -
Image
  "The Four Ages of Poetry," by Thomas Love Peacock I am becoming fond of Thomas Love Peacock.  Besides his unbeatable name, he was a lot of fun.  Peacock was a minor literary figure of the early 19th century; he tried his hand at poetry but mainly succeeded in satire.  I read his short novel Nightmare Abbey last year, but at the time I didn't know that the young hero of the story, Scythrop, was modeled on Peacock's good friend Percy Shelley.  He and Shelley were quite close and Peacock was the executor of Shelley's will. Thomas Love Peacock Percy Bysshe Shelley "The Four Ages of Poetry," a tongue-in-cheek essay on the history and development of poetry, was published in 1820 in a new magazine called Literary Miscellany , which promptly died.  It would probably have been completely obscure and unknown--it nearly is anyway--but for Shelley.  Peacock sent a copy to his friend, who I guess didn't really have much of a sense of
Read more

A few short stories in Urdu

By -
Image
 Back in August, I got hold of a book of Urdu short stories translated into English.  It's a large book, so I wanted to read just the women authors for WIT, and that would still be a good amount.  August got away from me, and I only read one or two stories back then, but I've continued reading them since.  I've now finished all the short stories in the book that were written by women (luckily for me, there are short biographies in an appendix, since I could only tell from the name about half the time).  I'll just highlight a couple: "The Wagon," by Khalida Asghar, is a hallucinatory, apocalyptic story.  The narrator meets three strange men who are watching the evening sky and point out that it has become red.  No one had noticed until they said so, but the sky is now strangely red.  Then a smell arrives, so offensive and sickening that it causes real pain -- but only once it's pointed out.  And finally, a mysterious wagon, which may be the source of the s
Read more

Faerie Queen Readalong I: Redcrosse, the Knight of Holiness

By -
Image
I did it, I read all of Book I!  My minimum requirement was two cantos a day, but I managed three a couple of times.  I'm hoping to read ahead, because I'll be gone for two weeks in the middle of this event and I'd like to be able to prep a post ahead of time...but the schedule is already pretty demanding.  The reading is not terribly difficult, but it is slow.  I keep thinking that I've read a large chunk, only to look back and realize that in fact I have read six verses.  So here we go with analysis... Each book in the Faerie Queene features a knight, and a story, about a particular virtue.  The Redcrosse Knight, to be known as St. George after he accomplishes his feats, is all about Holinesse .  This does not mean that Redcrosse already exemplifies holiness; he doesn't.  Holiness is what he's working towards and struggling with.  His foes symbolize various forms of unholiness, and he falls into their clutches at least as often as he defeats or avoids th
Read more