"Going Postal" by Terry Pratchett

[DaisyProudfoot]

Don't know how many of you out there are Terry Pratchett fans but I'm just reading "Going Postal" - one of his latest books and in it he features Stanley the pin collector.

 

Stanley is classically AS and a very identifiable character. Great pains are taken to avoid Stanley's "Little Moments" as they are called and his knowledge of pins is fantastic, he often retreats into his pin collection to avoid difficult situations!

 

Well worth a read, if not for Stanley than for a marvellous send up of our own postal service's problems!

 

Edited January 3, 2006 by DaisyProudfoot

[Kerre]

I read that!!!!!111

 

XD

[madmooch]

sounds good, unfortunately i dont get the time to read anything other than the tv magazine

[Bullet]

I've got the book, but not had chance to read it properly yet.

[lindy-lou]

sounds good,ive just bought a copy off ebay.

[bid]

 

Jester made the same comment about Stanley when he read the book recently!

 

Bid

[Auriel]

I just finished the book last night and was about to make a topic on the very same subject...

[OPooh]

Oh my dh loves Terry Practchett so will buy him this thanks.

 

oh he's got it already

Edited January 4, 2006 by OPooh

[Lucas]

I'm a big fan of Pratchett and I'm certain the man himself is Autist. There are cases of Autism in loads of his characters. Rincewind appears to be the one of the few Neurotypical people populating the Discworld(with his strong gift for langauges being one of his only talents) and appears totally bewildered and perplexed by a society that seems to be almost entirely populated with Autistics.

 

Some I thought about:

 

"Cut me own hand-off" Dibbler(The Truth)

Corporal Nobby Nobbs(Guards! Guards!)

Death(The Colour of Magic, it's his love of cats)

Cohen The Barbarian(The Light Fantastic)

Nanny Ogg(Thief of Time)

 

Captain Carrot Ironfoundersson(Guards! Guards!, who is technically a Dwarf despite being six feet tall)

 

Ponder Stibbons(The Last Hero. A parody of Harry Potter, first seen in the graphic novel The Last Hero. Pratchett was annoyed that despite being Britain's most successful living author, he never won a prize in 20 years but JK Rowling was given loads two years before his first award. Typical example of bias against Autistics towards NTs IMHO!)

 

The Prophet Brutha(In Small Gods he's a Savant that can remember everything in every moment since a few second before his birth.)

 

Jeremy the Clockmaker(Thief of Time. Creates a clock that measures time so accurately it records the smallest thing that can happen in the smallest instant of time: The Universal Tick.)

 

Igor and the entire Igor Clan(The Fifth Elephant.)

 

The Unseen University's entire faculty of staff.(The Colour of Magic.)

 

Leonard de Quirm(The Fifth Elephant. Parody of Leonardo de Vinci. When let out of his prison for the first time to save the world, he proves his genius by accidently drawing a perfect circle with his finger.)

 

I could go on!

[Kerre]

Ponder

 

Look, he was first seen in Moving Pictures.

[Lucas]

Ah, I don't actually have all the books. Complicated, I could just go into a shop and buy all the ones I don't have but I reckoned that might look a little odd. I then considered how much money I would actually have at any one time. I also don't always understand what is going on because I have been given and read the books in non-chronological order, the first one I ever read being Small Gods(one of the larger books). I then read The Colour of Magic(the first) and The Light Fantastic(the second) and have been trying to keep continuity but friends and family keep buying me the 'wrong' books: the ones that were not the next in the series to the one I last read.

 

So I don't really have a grasp of who came in where, but nearly all I've listed I placed in the book I first saw them in(with the exception of Guards! Guards! which I've never got to read, but I saw the play).

[Lucas]

By the way, Ponder Stibbons where I first read of him in The Last Hero was depicted as a parody of Harry Potter; the illistrator in the graphic novel even made him look like Daniel Radcliffe.

[MarknotGeorge]

I've got all the Discworld novels - since Soul Music I've bought them in hardback as soon as they come out, and generally read them twice in a row at least. It's fun working out the references.

[elaine1]

will try to persuade my tom to read it although he only reads manu mags and the beano and star wars magazines. <'>