Tag: Terry Pratchett

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Don’t Listen to Terry Pratchett Audiobooks at the Gym

Good Omens Audiobook Saxo

Good Omens Audiobook SaxoI don’t normally listen to audiobooks. I have nothing against audiobooks – hell, I wish I had the attention span to listen to audiobooks, but I’m simply too ADD to pay attention if I don’t actively have to participate in what’s going on. I will listen attentively for about two minutes and then I will start thinking about penguins or something, and before you know it, we’re at chapter 17 and I have no idea what’s going on.

However, I have recently joined a gym.

Don’t worry, I’ve not suddenly become more enamored by health than by laziness. It’s simply getting to be that time again where I’ll soon be going to Poland for another round of Witcher School, and I need to get in shape if I want to survive it with just the tiniest bit of my dignity intact. Anyway, this post is about audiobooks and not exercise.

As mentioned, I don’t normally have the attention span for listening to audiobooks. But the same ADD that makes it hard for me to listen to audiobooks on a normal day also makes being at the gym mentally exhausting. An hour of my mind being idle is far more bothersome than almost killing myself lifting weights. In the past, I have read ebooks on my phone while on the treadmill, but after I realized that the Premium membership I had to my favorite online bookstore also allowed me to listen to audiobooks for free, I figured that might be a better option (it’s hard to scroll through an ebook while lifting weights).

I looked through the selection and found Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. Since I have been wanting to reread that for a while, it seemed like the perfect choice, in case I got distracted and missed parts. It’s easier to keep up when you already know the story.

But I should have considered one thing: Terry Pratchett’s books are really funny, and people who grin while exercising belong in a madhouse.

In my defense I managed to keep it together – until we got to the part where there’s Bohemian Rhapsody lyrics injected in the text and the dignified British narrator suddenly had to go, “Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the Fandango?”.

To summarize: I’m having more fun at the gym and the instructors are only slightly worried about me.

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The Bookish Owl – Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett

Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett

Here we go with Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett.

This was another Discworld reread (surprise, surprise). This one is about witches, wizards, gender roles, and of course, horrible monsters from another dimension.

It also has Granny Weatherwax, who, in the eyes of the wizards of Unseen University, might very well be both a witch and a horrible monster from another dimension.

I want to be Granny Weatherwax when I grow up.

Equal Rites
by Terry Pratchett

On Discworld, a dying wizard tries to pass on his powers to an eighth son of an eighth son, who is just at that moment being born. The fact that the son is actually a daughter is discovered just a little too late. The town witch insists on turning the baby into a perfectly normal witch, thus mending the magical damage of the wizard’s mistake. But now the young girl will be forced to penetrate the inner sanctum of the Unseen University–and attempt to save the world with one well-placed kick in some enchanted shins!

Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett

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The Bookish Owl – Eric by Terry Pratchett

Eric by Terry Pratchett

I bring you… Eric by Terry Pratchett.

That’s the title. Just Eric. Surprisingly, it’s a book about a boy named Eric. Eric tries to summon demons. Eric ends up summoning Rincewind, because this is Discworld, and obviously a cowardly wizard is going to be accidentally summoned by a weird 12-year old.

This is the part of the book that makes the most sense, but then again, I’m rather used to Rincewind books just being one endless line of crazy. We got time travel, lost civilizations, and Hell being run by a bureaucrat.

Good times.

Anyway, look how cute and bright-eyed Artemis looks in this photo! I bet he’s afraid Eric will summon him if he finds out he’s really a demon in owl disguise…

Eric
by Terry Pratchett

Discworld’s only demonology hacker, Eric,is about to make life very difficult for the rest of Ankh-Morpork’s denizens. This would-be Faust is very bad . . . at his work, that is. All he wants is to fulfill three little wishes: to live forever, to be master of the universe, and to have a stylin’ hot babe.

But Eric isn’t even good at getting his own way. Instead of a powerful demon, he conjures, well, Rincewind, a wizard whose incompetence is matched only by Eric’s. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, that lovable travel accessory the Luggage has arrived, too. Accompanied by his new best friends, there’s only one thing Eric wishes now—that he’d never been born!

Eric by Terry Pratchett

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The Bookish Owl – Sourcery by Terry Pratchett

Sourcery by Terry Pratchett

Books. books and more books, and this one is called Sourcery by Terry Pratchett.

This one is about the wizards of Unseen University gaining waaaay too much power and then just trying to blow each other up. There’s also a talking hat bossing people around.

‘I think therefore I am a hat.’

(That’s a direct quote – I’m not drunk.)

Oh, and my favorite character, the Luggage, is trying to find its way back to Rincewind.

‘The Luggage’s lid was set in an expression of grim determination. It didn’t want much out of the world, except for the total extinction of every other lifeform, but what it needed more than anything right now was its owner.’

The Rincewind stories might not be the greatest of the Discworld books, but I feel a deep connection with Luggage.

Sourcery
by Terry Pratchett

Rincewind, the legendarily inept wizard, has returned after falling off the edge of the world. And this time, he’s brought the Luggage. But that’s not all… Once upon a time, there was an eighth son of an eighth son who was, of course, a wizard. As if that wasn’t complicated enough, said wizard then had seven sons. And then he had an eighth son — a wizard squared (that’s all the math, really). Who of course, was a source of magic — a sourcerer.

Will the sourcerer lead the wizards to dominate all of Discworld? Or can Rincewind’s tiny band stave off the Apocalypse?

Sourcery by Terry Pratchett 

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The Bookish Owl – The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett

The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchet

Here’s The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett.

I’m still playing catch-up with these posts. And honestly? I’m not doing well. I’m devouring books at a pace total unheard of for me, so every time I get around to doing a post, I will have read another two books.

This one was another reread. It’s not even purely about being unable to let go of Discworld anymore – I’m reading so much I have to reread some old books, otherwise I’ll run out of books. Imagine the horror!

‘The Light Fantastic’ is the continuation of The Colour of Magic, though it has only slightly more plot than the first book (which doesn’t say a lot), but it introduces Cohen the Barbarian and there’s nothing not to love about an eighty-seven year old barbarian hero with arthritis.

The Light Fantastic
by Terry Pratchett

It is known as the Discworld. It is a flat planet, supported on the backs of four elephants, who in turn stand on the back of the great turtle A’Tuin as it swims majestically through space. And it is quite possibly the funniest place in all of creation…

As it moves towards a seemingly inevitable collision with a malevolent red star, the Discworld has only one possible saviour. Unfortunately, this happens to be the singularly inept and cowardly wizard called Rincewind, who was last seen falling off the edge of the world.

The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchet