Chalkhills and Children
Oct. 18th, 2004 01:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vovatApparently Bush is ahead in the polls again. Why anyone except maybe the richest people in the country would want to vote for him is beyond me, but I guess some Americans still buy the "Bush is the only one who can protect you from terrorists!" nonsense.
Anyway, as I indicated I was going to do in my last post, I met up with my dad and his wife Barbara yesterday after work, and we went out to eat at an Italian restaurant. I had a pizza, and cheesecake for dessert. After dinner, I saw the van in which they drove up from New Mexico, and met their dogs, Graham and Lizzie.
While waiting for my dad to make it to dinner, I finished reading A Hat Full of Sky, Terry Pratchett's third young adult Discworld novel. It's a direct sequel to The Wee Free Men, and I probably liked it better than that or The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents. Hat tells about Tiffany Aching's training to become a witch. It elaborates upon the lives and duties of Discworld witches, and, as in Lords and Ladies, there are some younger witches arguing with how the more traditional ones do things. Unlike L&L, though, this book doesn't see the argument primarily from the viewpoint of the older witches. As with many recent Discworld books, an established character (Granny Weatherwax, in this case) has an important role, but we see her mostly through the eyes of new characters.
I found the hiver, a magical being that takes over living beings' minds and gives them what they think they want, to be an interesting creation, and its defeat was cleverly done. Some amusing ideas in the book included Miss Level's two bodies and the plants with natural writing on them (explained in the Author's Note as a parody on the Doctrine of Signatures). And XTC fans might be interested in knowing that the Discworld's chalk country has its own equivalent of the Uffington White Horse, which appears on the cover of English Settlement.
After finishing Hat, I read the second chapter of Going Postal. So far, I can't see why![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
colleenanne thinks Stanley is similar to me.
Anyway, as I indicated I was going to do in my last post, I met up with my dad and his wife Barbara yesterday after work, and we went out to eat at an Italian restaurant. I had a pizza, and cheesecake for dessert. After dinner, I saw the van in which they drove up from New Mexico, and met their dogs, Graham and Lizzie.
While waiting for my dad to make it to dinner, I finished reading A Hat Full of Sky, Terry Pratchett's third young adult Discworld novel. It's a direct sequel to The Wee Free Men, and I probably liked it better than that or The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents. Hat tells about Tiffany Aching's training to become a witch. It elaborates upon the lives and duties of Discworld witches, and, as in Lords and Ladies, there are some younger witches arguing with how the more traditional ones do things. Unlike L&L, though, this book doesn't see the argument primarily from the viewpoint of the older witches. As with many recent Discworld books, an established character (Granny Weatherwax, in this case) has an important role, but we see her mostly through the eyes of new characters.
I found the hiver, a magical being that takes over living beings' minds and gives them what they think they want, to be an interesting creation, and its defeat was cleverly done. Some amusing ideas in the book included Miss Level's two bodies and the plants with natural writing on them (explained in the Author's Note as a parody on the Doctrine of Signatures). And XTC fans might be interested in knowing that the Discworld's chalk country has its own equivalent of the Uffington White Horse, which appears on the cover of English Settlement.
After finishing Hat, I read the second chapter of Going Postal. So far, I can't see why
colleenanne thinks Stanley is similar to me.
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