Tuesday, January 22, 2008

[books] Monstrous Regiment

I have been reading a lot of Terry Pratchett lately and been loving it. Pratchett's humour and sense of satire and style are unparalleled in the sci-fi/fantasy world. For the uninitiated: most of Pratchett's books are based in a world known as Discworld: the world is a large disc resting on the backs of 4 elephants which stand on a giant tortoise that travels through space. Asking what the tortoise rests on is considered bad form in Discworld. Pratchett's books have several recurring charachters and almost all of them share the desperately-not-trying-to-be-a-hero trait. Most of the heroes would run away from battle, hit their enemy when they're down and turned away and in general fight as unfair as possible, most of them lie, cheat, steal and do whatever is necessary (or sometimes just for the fun of it), almost like in real life.
I keep going on about Pratchett and I haven't said much about this book. Pratchett was definitely feeling pro-feminist when he wrote this one. If you ignore the message at the end, where there lie huge swaths of feminism that are hard to avoid, the book makes for a pretty good read. Generally light and humorous, standard Pratchett fair, and leaves you with a good feeling at the end.

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