I’ve just finished
Pratchett’s “Long Earth”.
gaah.
Why is it that the authors that are brilliant- I mean, truly gifted- at writing seem to not be able to read?
I mean, the book is so extraordinarily well written, and then you start to peel away they layers and it’s so full of bullshit the stench is overwhelming.
Peaceful self governing people go off to start a brave new world where there is niceness and goodness and above all lots of sharing.
Icky guns fall apart if taken to the other worlds.
Ancient, peaceful cultures are accidentally erased from the timeline by messing about with radioactive materials, which no civilized person should ever do.
The new worlds will always have enough of everything for everyone so why bother with territories?
Those stupid Americans just keep fucking everything up.
Freedom is OK for peaceful people but if you have any warlike tendencies your freedoms should be curtailed and you should be re educated.
Anyone who tries to impede progress is bad, because all “Progress” is good. Right?
Its as if the people who write this shit don’t read.
G-d deliver us from the morons who think commusocialcollectivism will work if they just do it hard enough this time.
Read the sequel, Og, it gets better…and worse.
We have had peace in this country for far too long. Of course intercine warfare would give big government more fuel to crack down.
I don’t see commusocialcollectivism working as most humans want to be free to do as they please. Until we put some binders on welfare we will continue down the road we are on.
commusocialcollectivism is something that always sounds good in the big picture kind of way, as we all think we are god.
The only thing that really works to improve our lot is free market capitalism. Not that we have much of that any more.
Socialism only works for insects.
I wasn’t impressed with Long Earth either. Pratchett co-wrote the book, so I’ve no idea how much or what impact he had on it, but it’s not a series I’ll be following.
One of the things I liked about the Discworld series was that it had (relatively) understated (balanced?) political overtones, or maybe they were just less out of sync with my own than most other sf/f stuff. Maybe, but I got the impression that I’d disagree with Pratchett’s politics if he were ever blunt about them.
The Long Earth series definitely breaks the tradition of being politically coy. I’m assuming it’s the other author that’s influencing that. It’s not a change I welcome.
The one book of Pratchetts’ that I had a problem with was the one where some dwarf invented some type of firearm, and great upset was thought over how it was so horrible compared to crossbows and bows and daggers and poison and so forth.
It really bothered me that he’d look at it that way. Sounded like some bits I’ve read in the past from Greece on how the invention of the bow was the ‘death of honor’ and so forth.