Like a basketball circling the hoop before falling in, the Wheel of Time has spun ’round to Teaser Tuesday. Continue reading “Teaser Tuesday: The Bane Chronicles”
The Quotable Pratchett: Equal Rites
No one is actually dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away.
Teaser Tuesday: Anna Karenina
Like a child riding a carousel reaching for the coveted brass ring, the Wheel of Time has spun ’round to Teaser Tuesday. Continue reading “Teaser Tuesday: Anna Karenina”
The Quotable Pratchett: The Light Fantastic
No-one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away.
Continue reading “The Quotable Pratchett: The Light Fantastic”
The Quotable Pratchett: The Color of Magic
No one is actually dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away
With the passing of Sir Terry Pratchett and the publication of The Shepherd’s Crown, I embarked on an epic re-reading of all 41 official Discworld novels, with the goal of finishing by 31 December, 2016.
Famous for its wit and wisdom, the series offers countless quotable quotes on a variety of subjects. The quotes I share should not be considered the whole of Sir Terry’s excellent prose; indeed, there are the tasty appetizers to a succulent, nourishing meal.
About The Color of Magic
This is the first published Discworld novel; it is also the first in the Rincewind Cycle – the series of books that follow the misadventures of the “WIZZARD” Rincewind.
In this novel, Pratchett introduces us to the workings of the Disc – its mechanics, metaphysics, morality, etc – through the eyes of the Disc’s first Tourist, Twoflower.
If you’ve seen the film The Color of Magic, this book contains the first half of the film [of course there’s more in the book than in the film; there always is] while The Light Fantastic relates the events from the second-half of the film.
The Goodreads Blurb:
The Color of Magic is Terry Pratchett’s maiden voyage through the now-legendary land of Discworld. This is where it all begins — with the tourist Twoflower and his wizard guide, Rincewind.
On a world supported on the back of a giant turtle (sex unknown), a gleeful, explosive, wickedly eccentric expedition sets out. There’s an avaricious but inept wizard, a naive tourist whose luggage moves on hundreds of dear little legs, dragons who only exist if you believe in them, and of course THE EDGE of the planet…
And Now: On to the Quotes!

The Librarian as he appears in The Discworld Companion, illustrated by Paul Kidby
Magic never dies. It merely fades away.
Some pirates achieved immortality by great deeds of cruelty or derring-do. Some achieved immortality by amassing great wealth. But the captain had long ago decided that he would, on the whole, prefer to achieve immortality by not dying.
Being Ymor’s right-hand man was like being gently flogged to death with scented bootlaces.
Promotion in the Assassin’s Guild was by competitive examination, the Practical being the most – indeed, the only – part.
Let’s just say if complete and utter chaos were lightning, then he’d be the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armor and shouting “All gods are bastards.”
Tourist, Rincewind had decided, meant “idiot”.
You’re just as dead if you fall from forty feet as you are from four thousand fathoms, that’s what I say.
When one’s foot is stuck in the Grey Miasma of H’Rull it is much easier to step right in and sink rather than prolong the struggle.
Rincewind often suspected that there was something, somewhere, that was better than magic. He was usually disappointed.
Lightning is the spears hurled by the thunder giants when they fight. Established meteorological fact. You can’t harness it . . . and even if you could get a harness on it, how could you get it to pull a cart?
It was all very well going on about pure logic and how the universe was ruled by logic and the harmony of numbers, but the plain fact of the matter was that the disc was manifestly traversing space on the back of a giant turtle and the gods had a habit of going around to atheists’ houses and smashing their windows.
[Octarine] is said to be a sort of fluorescent greenish yellow purple.
A man who owned a needle made of octiron would never lose his way, since it always pointed to the Hub of the Discworld, being acutely sensitive to the Disc’s magical field; it would also miraculously darn his socks.
Everyone has gods. You just don’t think they’re gods.
The Patrician of Ankh-Morpork smiled, but with his mouth only.
I assure you the though never even crossed my mind, Lord.
Indeed? Then if I were you I’d sue my face for slander.
. . .
Next: The Light Fantastic
The Complete List
Teaser Tuesday: Heretics and Heroes
Exam week is here; time to test my students’ knowledge of the last eighteen weeks.
Boethius’ Wheel may bring my students low (I sincerely hope not), but it has brought me Fortune, with the Wheel of Time turning to
Just in case you don’t know, Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by A Daily Rhythm. Anyone can play along! All you have to do is grab the book you’re currently reading, open to a random page and share a few sentences from that page. But make sure you don’t share any spoilers!*
*I wish I could take credit for this introduction, but I shamelessly stole it from Heather over at bitsnbooks. To help me make amends, you should go check out her blog.
In regards to last week’s question regarding the ethics of gaming the Goodreads Challenge, I decided to keep reading at my normal pace and then adjust my reading challenge just before it ends on 1 January.
I’m currently reading Heretics and Heroes: How Renaissance Artists and Reformation Priests Created Our World, part of Thomas Cahill’s “Hinges of History” series. I’ve heard good things about Cahill’s series, particularly How the Irish Saved Civilization, but this is the first of his books I’ve actually read.
The Truly Random Number Generator sends us to page 310:
In the seventeenth century we come upon
extraordinary examples of believers who
have internalized their faith so personally
and deeply that it has lost all comradeship
with the combative religious assertions of
the partisans who waged the Thirty Years' War.
In these later figures there is also no verbal
indirection, no hiddenness. Their faith is boldly
stated, yet utterly lacking in aggression.

This particular excerpt interests me as I just finished teaching the German Wars of Religion and the overarching effects of the Peace of Westphalia. I can hardly wait to read the 309 pages leading up to it.
In Retrospect
Station Eleven earned 4 stars. I found the characters somewhat flat and the driving plot a tad underwhelming; however, the cardinal sin was the lack of books. For a novel based on the survival of Shakespeare post-apocalypse, almost nothing is said of libraries and the written word (aside from the eponymous Station Eleven – a comic book existing only in the novel [for now] – and some allusions to a vampire series I haven’t read). Instead, people moan about the lack of electricity and, therefore, the internet. Come on people, libraries still exist! Plagues don’t kill books! I mean, maybe people burned the books for fuel, but nowhere did I see this mentioned. Anyway, there had to be people who’d rather die that burn human knowledge. So, why did it still get four stars? I gave it four stars because I felt it accurately portrayed what the world post-apocalypse would be like: largely boring with brief periods of intense excitement. And, despite it’s faults, I really liked it. So there.
Coming Soon
My library continues to surprise me. I returned V for Vendetta, The Buried Giant, and Station Eleven; when I checked the New Arrivals shelf, I found a copy of The Relic Master, a work of historical fiction by Christopher Buckley featuring one of my favorite Northern Renaissance artists, Albrecht Dürer, and a plot to forge a relic for his patron – a relic known to us as the Shroud of Turin.
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