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Jul. 29th, 2013 09:21 pmOKAY GUYS, I DID IT. I have read Snuff and, almost exactly two years after I began it, I am FINALLY DONE with the Great Discworld Reread!
(Okay, I accidentally skipped The Amazing Maurice And His Educated Rodents, but I'm not going back for it because I don't care all that much.)
It is a shame, then, since this is the final achievement of a forty-book journey, that I did not actually like Snuff all that much.
I mean, on the very basic plot level, I have two fundamental questions:
1. Can we ever, please, please, please escape the cycle of "you thought humans hated THAT species? BUT WAIT, now humans think that species is pretty okay! But wait until you see what humans think of THIS species!" Orcs was JUST LAST BOOK. JUST LAST BOOK, orcs were the most hated things in the world!
And, you know, at least that book was actually, protagonist-wise, about an orc. And not about how what these goblins need is some humans to prove to some other humans that goblins might maybe be people, because, when taught, they can do some artistic people things.
2. So Vimes and Sybil are in Sybil's country house together, and there is a mystery to solve, on Sybil's home turf . . . and the book is about the development of the relationship between Vimes and Willikins? WILLIKINS is the other main character here?
I mean I guess you could argue that the book is equally as much about Vimes' relationship with Random Country Policeman #2, but in that case SAME COMPLAINT, EVEN MORESO.
Then of course there is the weirdness of ( late-stage Vimes )
There is one bit I want to call out, though. The two pages in the middle, with Angua and Carrot, where we get a fleeting glimpse of Angua being bitter about how everyone comes to Ankh-Morpork to become Ankh-Morpork's version of human -- those two pages were doing something that really doesn't happen in the rest of the book, where instead we're getting yet another iteration of "This Fantasy Race, Also People! WHO WOULDA THUNK."
. . . also, a sidenote: I thought after I read this book I would understand why several people thought Young Sam was going to be Vetinari's successor. I do not yet understand. (Team Glenda-Nutt forever!)
(Okay, I accidentally skipped The Amazing Maurice And His Educated Rodents, but I'm not going back for it because I don't care all that much.)
It is a shame, then, since this is the final achievement of a forty-book journey, that I did not actually like Snuff all that much.
I mean, on the very basic plot level, I have two fundamental questions:
1. Can we ever, please, please, please escape the cycle of "you thought humans hated THAT species? BUT WAIT, now humans think that species is pretty okay! But wait until you see what humans think of THIS species!" Orcs was JUST LAST BOOK. JUST LAST BOOK, orcs were the most hated things in the world!
And, you know, at least that book was actually, protagonist-wise, about an orc. And not about how what these goblins need is some humans to prove to some other humans that goblins might maybe be people, because, when taught, they can do some artistic people things.
2. So Vimes and Sybil are in Sybil's country house together, and there is a mystery to solve, on Sybil's home turf . . . and the book is about the development of the relationship between Vimes and Willikins? WILLIKINS is the other main character here?
I mean I guess you could argue that the book is equally as much about Vimes' relationship with Random Country Policeman #2, but in that case SAME COMPLAINT, EVEN MORESO.
Then of course there is the weirdness of ( late-stage Vimes )
There is one bit I want to call out, though. The two pages in the middle, with Angua and Carrot, where we get a fleeting glimpse of Angua being bitter about how everyone comes to Ankh-Morpork to become Ankh-Morpork's version of human -- those two pages were doing something that really doesn't happen in the rest of the book, where instead we're getting yet another iteration of "This Fantasy Race, Also People! WHO WOULDA THUNK."
. . . also, a sidenote: I thought after I read this book I would understand why several people thought Young Sam was going to be Vetinari's successor. I do not yet understand. (Team Glenda-Nutt forever!)
