{"id":5196,"date":"2020-06-05T05:00:59","date_gmt":"2020-06-05T12:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=5196"},"modified":"2020-05-27T12:01:59","modified_gmt":"2020-05-27T19:01:59","slug":"mark-finishes-discworld-qa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2020\/06\/mark-finishes-discworld-qa\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Finishes ‘Discworld’ Q&A"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi, friends. Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s celebrate the end.<\/p>\n

It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been about three and a half years since I did my last Discworld<\/i> Q&A<\/a>, and at that point, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d read 19 books in about two and a half years. This second \u00e2\u20ac\u0153half\u00e2\u20ac\u009d took longer, both by virtue of the Science<\/i> books and the change in my schedule last year, but here we are. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been such an incredible journey for me. This is the longest single series I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve ever done for Mark Reads, and I highly doubt I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll ever top that. I mean\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 forty-seven books. (Because I also read The Amazing Maurice<\/i>, Where\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s My Cow<\/i>, and the four Science of Discworld<\/i> books.) There are many, many things I want to get to on my list, so I think I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll spend a couple years bouncing around and not doing anything bigger than a trilogy for a while. So much to read!<\/p>\n

More on that in a bit. These posts usually serve one chaotic function. I review books in a strange, drawn-out way, and this is how I can reflect on a series from a macro level, since it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s harder for my reviews to capture an overarching sense. But before we get to that, one of my lovely readers (hello, Stevonnie!!!) sent me what I believe is the most Kudos\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d fic on Archive of Our Own to read. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve largely stayed away from Discworld <\/i>fanfiction out of fear of spoiling myself, as I never could know if something\u00e2\u20ac\u201deven a tiny something\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwould bias me against a future book. While I am fully expecting some recs below, I loved the chance to read a oneshot that is so damn clever that I cackled out loud when I reached the big twist.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Mister Vimes\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d Go Spare!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by Lunik<\/a> is written in a style that feels like Pratchett\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s. Which is a hard thing to do in a fic; I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think fanfiction necessitates that anyway. Everything should be written in the style you want, and we certainly don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to imitate the original text. That being said: when someone does it well, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a treat. Sometimes, I want a fic that feels like it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s able to slip right into canon and not feel any different. This fic does that in two ways. On a sentence level, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a lot like Pratchett\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s third-person style. But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the humor that really nails it. Especially because for like the first half of it, I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t sure where this was going! It was all new characters (with tiny references to canon ones), and while it was cool to see what the Watch became, I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t quite get it.<\/p>\n

And then I did, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the kind of joke that Pratchett would play on his own characters.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I kinda don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to talk about the twist openly because it makes this such a fun read, but suffice to say: YES. This was immensely pleasing, especially because OF COURSE VIMES WOULD HATE THIS\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 right up until he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. And it captures the spirit<\/i> of Vimes (ha!) in a really clever way.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

You should check it out.<\/p>\n

So, below this post, let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s have our big Discworld<\/i> free-for-all. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time to celebrate this multi-year journey ending! I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be around today and throughout the weekend (in between writing reviews and preparing the next Patreon commission post) answering questions and reflecting on this massive, massive body of work.<\/p>\n

Starting on Monday is a journey through a NEW series: The Broken Earth<\/i> trilogy by N.K. Jemisin! As a reminder, there are NO videos attached to reviews anymore, so this is just reviews only. I hope you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll join me as I return to the writing of N.K. Jemisin!!! I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m so excited.<\/p>\n

Thank you, Discworld<\/i> friends, for over six years of conversations, conventions, discussions, and joy. I have no reservations about dedicating this much of my life to one body of work, and y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all have helped make that a reality. Please let me know what outstanding adaptations there are so I can begin to plot to do some Mark Watches stuff with them.<\/p>\n

I hope you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve enjoyed this ride.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"