Discworld thoughts

[robotech_master]

In recent days, spurred by watching the Hogfather Christmas special, I have obtained and been devouring all of Terry Pratchett's Discworld books, from start to finish. I remembered enjoying the first couple of books in the series a long time ago, and finding the odd one or two books every now and then, but I hadn't ever tried to tackle the comprehensive series as a whole. And now I'm wondering why I waited so long. It's amazing! I thought the first couple were rib-ticklers, but compared to the later books in the series they're just mildly funny.

For Christmas, I bought my Dad a copy of Wyrd Sisters. I just got an email back from him tonight, and he's really enjoying it. I think that it speaks volumes about my Dad that one of his criteria for a good book is how few infinitives are split by the writer, and happily Pratchett passes that test with flying colors.

Lately, I've been deriving additional enjoyment from the books by reading along in The Annotated Pratchett, which has a file for each book containing a lot of clever information about the references Pratchett sneaks into the books. And I've been deriving considerable enjoyment out of spotting references that the reference files miss, and mailing them in. Lots and lots of references. I'm particularly proud of noticing that the Patrician has a "Syncopated Clock," and that Leonardo of Quirm discovered supercavitation. I also chased down a number of Biblical references, like the significance of the Shambles in Feet of Clay, and so on.

Anyway, the maintainer of the annotations, Leo Breebart, can't respond personally to every email—he has a form letter that he sends out—so I decided to give him a call to make sure that he got them okay. He's in Delft, the Netherlands, but that was all right. I had been itching to try out FreeCall on an actual overseas call. FreeCall is a free VoIP-to-standard-phone application that allows 300 free minutes per week—and unlike Skype's free calling promo (which ended Dec. 31) its minutes are good for overseas calls as well as domestic. So I did a quick WHOIS lookup and tried to figure out how to reach him.

I soon discovered that the phone number listed for the site that hosted the annotations was incorrect. It was one digit too short, as I found after twenty minutes of messing around. Fortunately, a bit of googling turned up another site registered to Breebart, and it had the correct phone number on it. Five minutes of twiddling with FreeCall later, I was talking to a rather startled Netherlander over a connection that was crystal clear. He was surprised but quite pleased to hear from me, and we talked for about twenty minutes before we really ran out of stuff to say.

I have to admit that it's a funny feeling to consider that here I am talking to someone thousands of miles away from me, on the other side of the world, clearly hearing everything he says and he hearing me likewise, and not paying a single penny to do it either. It wasn't so long ago that those twenty minutes could have cost me $5 or more (and believe me I know about international phone rates, given that I used to work at MCI).

Incidentally, if any of my friends on the east side of the Atlantic or west side of the Pacific would like to hear from me, get in touch; I'll be happy to give you a call.

Well, onward to more Pratchett, then!

Comments

[gwox.livejournal.com]

I've been rereading my Pratchett over the past few years -- I'd read all the books at least once, but this was my first time in order, about eight books a year. It's very interesting to see his evolution as a writer, and how he develops characters.