• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Terry Pratchett

MorningAngel said:
I think the audiobook can bring something different depending on the narrator.

I loved Monstrous Regiment I think Katherine Parkinson was brilliant in that. The Truth too had Matthew Baynton who was great.
Click to expand...
The narrator is vital not only to the listener but to those making the recording. I used to deal with a library suppplier who also produced unabridged audiobooks.

Inexperienced or poor narrators would require endless stops as they'd misread something, used the wrong voice for a character , etc. A good actor or reader could I was told just sit and read huge chunks with very little need for stops, editing, etc.

Martin Jarvis was apparently really good my source said he sat and listened to him doing one reading, nearly thirty minutes with only one stop as he'd got a voice wrong. He's narrated Good Omens and some other of Sir pTerry's work.
 
MorningAngel said:
I think the audiobook can bring something different depending on the narrator.

I loved Monstrous Regiment I think Katherine Parkinson was brilliant in that. The Truth too had Matthew Baynton who was great.
Click to expand...
I agree that the narrator makes all the difference. Colin Morgan is amazing, and I wish Matthew Baynton would do more audio narration. His voice is sublime (even if I do keep picturing Thomas Thorne reading to me...)
 
Shady said:
My favourite book by Terry (even tho i loved all his books) has to be his hook up with Neil Gaiman with the television series Good Omens, picked the perfect two leads.
Click to expand...
I loved the original. I wasn’t a fan of the second series even though John Finnemore was involved. There is supposed to be a series 3, which I will still watch.
 
catseye said:
I agree that the narrator makes all the difference. Colin Morgan is amazing, and I wish Matthew Baynton would do more audio narration. His voice is sublime (even if I do keep picturing Thomas Thorne reading to me...)
Click to expand...
I agree Matthew Baynton is great.
 
MorningAngel said:
I loved the original. I wasn’t a fan of the second series even though John Finnemore was involved. There is supposed to be a series 3, which I will still watch.
Click to expand...
I didnt know about this, I thought it had ended, but something niggled me, it seemed heaven and hell was bent on having a scrap and what Azriaphael (dont know how to spell this) and Crowely did was just delay it
 
Shady said:
My favourite book by Terry (even tho i loved all his books) has to be his hook up with Neil Gaiman with the television series Good Omens, picked the perfect two leads.
Click to expand...
Interestingly, Michael Sheen is an excellent narrator of audiobooks as well. His work on Philip Pullman's follow-up to His Dark Materials; La Belle Savage and The Secret Commonwealth is amazing.
 
Dinobot said:
Maskerade and Reaper Man are good.
Click to expand...
Yep, I have both of these and I agree. Actually, I'm finding them all good - although I have a version of Wyrd Sisters with Celia Imrie narrating, and I don't like the way she does the witches. I wish that the Audible versions would just automatically update when they bring out an improved version, rather than having to buy the book all over again.
 
Do people know about this?


I’m listening to Wyrd Sisters from the compilation mentioned above but I’m not sure it’s a very good adaption. I’ve been confused about what’s happening a few times. The cartoon helps.

Edit; The video does work if you click to go to YouTube.
 
MorningAngel said:
I want some advice. There’s loads of the Discworld books I love. I’ve read (and listened to in audio book) to various and I generally liked the stand alones I’ve read: Going postal, making money, raising steam, the truth, moving pictures and I loved monstrous regiment. I’ve also enjoyed the Death series. I mostly liked the Watch. I read and enjoyed a few Watch books but the last one I read the Fifth Elephant I found a bit of a drag, I wasn’t that engaged. But I finished it. But I’ve got the audio book of Sourcery which I’ve given up with, I’m just not bothered. It’s put me off a bit. Is it just me?

I’ve got Equal Rites but I’ve not started.

Any idea of ones more like the ones I’ve enjoyed.

Any recommendations?
Click to expand...
I think my favourites (after Colour of Magic/The Light Fantastic) were Lords and Ladies, and Guards! Guards!, Weird Sisters was pretty good too.
 
MorningAngel said:
Do people know about this?


I’m listening to Wyrd Sisters from the compilation mentioned above but I’m not sure it’s a very good adaption. I’ve been confused about what’s happening a few times. The cartoon helps.

Edit; The video does work if you click to go to YouTube.
Click to expand...
Have you read the book? I've read it several times, so I'm not confused, but if it's the Celia Imrie version, yep, not well done at all.
 
MorningAngel said:
No I haven’t. The radio version has got Lynda Baron and Shelia Hancock.
Click to expand...
Ah, I'm not a big fan of the radio adaptations. It's like the 'abridged' versions of the books. I would LOVE to hear Sir Tony Robinson reading Sir Terry, but the versions he read for Audible are 'abridged', and I honestly can't see the point. And, apparently, it makes the books unintelligible.
 
All the people we want to play DEATH are dead, makes them perfect for the job.
Ted Cassidy or Micheal Lorne would have been good
 
Yithian said:
The Watch: Have you read Nightwatch & Jingo?

Both heavy on the satire, the former is my favourite: very dark toned in places, though it works much better if you're already acquainted with Vimes' story-arc.

Plenty of jokes--a bit of gore--and more world-weary truisms from the mind of Vimes:

"People said things like “Quite possibly we shall never know the truth” which meant, in Vimes’s personal lexicon, “I know, or think I know what the truth is, and hope like hell it doesn’t come out, because things are all smoothed over now.”​
​
Or like this:
​
“Vimes had spent his life on the streets and had met decent men, and fools, and people who’d steal a penny from a blind beggar, and people who performed silent miracles or desperate crimes every day behind the grubby windows of little houses, but he’d never met The People.​
​
People on the side of The People always ended up disappointed, in any case. They found that The People tended not to be grateful or appreciative or forward-thinking or obedient. The People tended to be small-minded and conservative and not very clever and were even distrustful of cleverness. And so, the children of the revolution were faced with the age-old problem: it wasn’t that you had the wrong kind of government, which was obvious, but that you had the wrong kind of people.​
​
As soon as you saw people as things to be measured, they didn’t measure up.”​
Click to expand...
I’ve just ordered the Night Watch. :bthumbup:
 
Shadowsot said:
Nightwatch can be enjoyed on its own. But I really feel like you need the lead up from the previous books for the story to really hit.
Click to expand...
It even mentions Gaskin, first mentioned in Guards! Guards! Continuity on point, there!
 
My librarian book mark matches excellently.
IMG_4556.jpeg
 
MorningAngel said:
I have read the Watch Books with the exception of Jingo (didn’t fancy the sound of it). The last book I read was the Fifth Elephant which I believe is the one before.
Click to expand...
Jingo is ok - the Patrician and Nobby are particularly good in it. It's actually anti-colonial and anti-nationalism. In pTerry's usual way, of course.

I have to admit the Guards books considered as a series are my favourites, although I myself thought Night Watch was the weakest in that series.

My favourite single book of the lot is Reaper Man, closely followed by Hogfather.
 
MorningAngel said:
I went looking for the Night Watch on Amazon and found this which I don’t remember seeing before on Audible.

  • Terry Pratchett: BBC Radio Drama Collection​

  • Seven BBC Radio 4 Full-Cast Dramatisations

https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Terry-...on_code=ASSGB149080119000H&share_location=pdp

Edit: Oh Death is Mr Birling aka Geoffrey Whitehead.
Click to expand...
I’ve listened to most. But I’ve stopped at the Night Watch because I’m reading it and I’m not sure I’ll listen to the last one, Only You Can Save Mankind.

It’s a bit of a mixed bag. Mort was good I have already read the book which helps and I liked Guards Guards which I did read many moons ago in the last century. But then I do have a preference for the Watch and Death series.

I went in a hospital Friends shop yesterday, they had a lot of Terry Pratchett books. Apparently a lot had come from a guy who’d forgotten which he had. He ended up with three of one. I got a couple (quite a few I’d already read, and I am a fan of the latest art work) I figured if if I didn’t read them it was a bit of money for the Friends shop, they were only 50p each. I did notice the original art work books are a fair bit smaller than the latest additions with the new artwork.
 
I saw a book shop in London yesterday with a signed copy of Jingo in the window. I wasn’t brave enough to go and see how much it was. I bet it was a pretty penny as Sir Terry can’t sign any more.
 
MorningAngel said:
I saw a book shop in London yesterday with a signed copy of Jingo in the window. I wasn’t brave enough to go and see how much it was. I bet it was a pretty penny as Sir Terry can’t sign any more.
Click to expand...
If anyone is interested I’ve found one on eBay £50 being sold for a hospice. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/355086415681

(Even better if you’re call Roy).
 
I've two books signed by him - Weird Sisters and Thud! I always recall his humour when I asked 'Can you sign it to ...' He did so, happily, and chuckled "I can't help it - whenever anyone asks me not to dedicate it, I always spell my name wrong. They look so disappointed at the re-sell value!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top