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The Light Fantastic

The Light Fantastic

List Price: $15.91
Your Price: $10.82
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: The Lite Franchise Schtick
Review: Please accept my title in the Pickwickian sense: I love Pratchett and consider him to be the replacement in my life for the loss of Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, and Douglas Adams. Why aren't Americans ever that funny?

Please forgive me, however, for being just a little heretical. I liked the characters of Rincewind and Twoflowers, was intrigued by The Luggage (I want one!), and loved Cohen the Barbarian. I DID miss the richness of the characters in the later Ankh-Morpork Pratchetts: characters such as Corporal Carrot, DEATH (I'm really not shouting), Angua, Susan Sto Helit, Commander Vimes, and The Patrician. Rincewind and Twoflower were both -- dare I say it? -- schmoes at the beginning of the book and and at the end.

I think that Pratchett has a real affinity for Ankh-Morpork, and the farther he strays from it, the less vital his stories appear. (I except SMALL GODS, which is a real tour de force.) So, bring on the Pratchetts, and let's have more of the Night Watch and Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler, more trolls and golems, and lots more of that beauty spot on (or, actually, near) the Circle Sea -- Ankh-Morpork.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Reader's Delight
Review: I didn't want to start the Discworld series but I am totally hooked. Pratchett can spin a tale and now I have snagged as many of the series as I can. I have to wait for reprints of three of them due at the end of this year and even though I have them on order I keep checking used book stores to no avail. This series is a winner, beware if you get one you will get them ALL.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Discworld = Funny
Review: I implore you to leave our boring world behind and enter the loony mind of Terry Pratchett. Come pay a visit to Discworld, where logic and reality are on permanent lunch break. This novel, the second in the Discworld series, continues the adventures of Rincewind and Twoflower (both of whom were introduced in the very first Discworld novel "The Color of Magic"). Follow Rincewind, a notoriously incapable wizard with an amazing knack for survival, and Twoflower, Discworld's first tourist, as they stumble into averting an apocolypse. And there's even a faithful piece of luggage made from magical wood (appropriately named "The Luggage") that follows and protects Twoflower along the way. Get this book! Terry Pratchett's satirical humor and literary one-liners will keep anyone laughing. And when you finish laughing you'll find yourself craving another Discworld book. Maybe you should buy two just to be safe...

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A Trip Through The Light Fantastic
Review: This was the first "Diskworld" novel I read and re-read and re-read again. The book starts with the syrup like flow of light accross a truely fantastic landscape; a flat world that sits uppon the backs of four enormas elephants whom in turn stand on the shell of the impossibley large space swimming sea turtle The Great A'Tuin.

Enter the hero, or rather antihero, Rincewind the Inept, a "wizzard" who has never performed even the slightest feat of magic, and his naive companion Twoflower, the Diskworld's first (and, hopefully, last!) tourist. They are forever followed by the Luggage, a traveling trunk with a bad attitude (and possably one of the greatest literary characters ever imanged). These three companions take us on a wild romp through the lands of the multiverse's only turtle bound world.

You have to read it to believe it. Take a trip down The Light Fantastic and see for yourself. . .

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A good follow-up to the Colour of Magic
Review: This book picks up directly where volume 1 - "The Colour of Magic" - ended. So you have to read that book first, or you'll miss most of the fun here.

Now, other than volume 1 which consisted of several stories building up on each other, this is one continuous novel. I'm sorry to say that it somehow seems as if Mr. Pratchett had taken too large a bite. The first half of the book is just as fun as volume 1. Then, however, it gets a little long-drawn and somewhat dull. The ending is, again, magnificent - quite worthy of Terry Pratchett.

This is a definite must-read for Diskworld fans. If you enjoyed the first book as much as I did, you won't find any peace until you have read the follow-up as well. If you just liked the first book, don't bother reading this one.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One Of The Top Ten of the Universe!
Review: I must admit, I read Equal Rites first, and it was so, so , literal, almost serious, that I had plain given up on the Discworld books! But when this caught my eye..... Here is featured Rincewind, the inept wizard, who, because he stole a look at the most powerful magic book of the multiverse, has a spell stuck in his head that does not only have unbeleivable power, but is also sentient! The only problem is, that not only does he not dare to say this Spell, (Though at every opertunity it tries to take him over so it can get said) it is so poverful that no other ordinary spell dares to stay in his mind for an instant! For involentaraly memorizing a Spell from the Octavo (The book that held the Spell) Rincewind was expelled from the wizard's university, (Unseen University) but now he is a guide to the naive insurance salesman Twoflower and his amazind sapient-pearwood Luggage, which follows it's ower on hundreds of tiny little legs. But now, in the skies of the Disc, a new star has appeared, that looks like a red rabid eye, and the Eight Spells are needed to be said to stop the Disc from crashing into it, but the Octavo has only seven Spells left, and everyone is chasing Rincewind to try to get that Spell! (Which they have a lot of troble with, because to get the spell most try to kill him, and Rincewind's main and prize talent is the ability to run away from any kind of danger that threatens him.) Meanwhile, at the University, a sinister young Wizard, name of Tymon, is seeking to become commander-in-cheif of all wizards, and rule the Disc! After Rincewind (after strange adventures which include talking with trolls, crashing into a flying rock, and having his sprit suffer an out-of body experiance, where for a breif time he lands in the house of Death to claim his simalarily out-of-body experiencing friend, Twoflower, and also for a breif time winds up in the Octavo) gets back to Ankh-Morpork (home of the university) this most inept of wizards must stop the Dungen Dimensions from eptying into our multiverse (whose inhabitants would not only kill people, but innore them, give them the order of the whip, the thubscrews, and who are far worse then evil), deal with an insane wizard, and stop the Red Star from crashing into the Disc!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Colour of Magic II
Review: If you were smart enough to read Colour of Magic (A riot) then you will be looking for more Rincewind, Luggage, and laughs. Light Fantastic is here to the Rescue answering all questions and concluding the story that started it all.

Once again Terry has collected an off-the-wall collection of humorous encounters for our heroes. Rincewind and friends must once again save the world. One of the world's eight most powerful spells is hiding in his head, and the wrong people want it. So he must call upon all his finely tuned abilities... of running away! Twoflower and the Luggage are there to help along with Diskworld's greatest warrior... who is now a ridiculously old man.

-Many people consider this one to be better than CoM... They are both awesome. End of story. However, they are both too short and should have come in one normal sized book.

-F.Y.I- The next book is Sourcery. Equal Rights was written next, but has no Rincewind and is generally not considered one of Pratchett's better works.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: truely, well... fantastic!
Review: The Light Fantastic is a continuation of Pratchett's The Color of Magic (definitly read TCOM first) -- they could almost be put into one novel. I love TCOM, but I think The Light Fantastic was ever funnier and sharper. A few parts towards the beginning do drag a bit and some of the peripheral characters (Cohen, Bethan, the trolls) aren't developed enough, but Rincewind, Twoflower and of course the Luggage are in top form. Pratchett is a master of a wide range of humor from sly satire to puns so bad they're hilarious (a man stealing musical instruments -- must be a luter). If you haven't discovered him yet, give Pratchett a try!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: better than the first
Review: this one was not as confusing as the first one, which made it much more fun! i loved it!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: TEDIOUS, FUZZY AND LOST
Review: This second book of the discworld series isn't sharp as Colour of Magic or Strata (by the way, I recommend you read STRATA before Cof M). Rincewind & Twoflowers endless "run" gets to be quite TEDIOUS to say the very least!

Rincewind himself sums it up, "This sort of thing happens to me all the time. One minute I'm falling off the world, then I'm inside a book, then I'm on a flying rock, then I'm watching Death learn how to play Weir or Dam or what ever it was, why should I wonder about anything." Right.

I came to the point, more than a few times, where I did not care any more and had to put the book down before I became utterly disenchanted (didn't work) It quickly STALLED then staled then slogged on to a exceptionally boring ending.

I found myself skipping pages which is sure sign things aren't going right. Anyway... I was glad it was over, ay! :o)

Being this book is part of a series, I can't actually give a yes/no recommendation. Again, I do (highly) recommend you read STRATA (I really loved Strata) then Colour of Magic (terrific!). LUGGAGE is my favorite "character" :o)

I do believe I'll wait about a month ... before starting Equal Rites (3rd in series)


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