BS: Terry Pratchett - seeking similar author

Subject: RE: BS: Terry Pratchett - seeking similar author
From: Penny S.
Date: 10 Jul 12 - 11:53 AM

Meanwhile, on Radio Four Extra, at 6pm and midnight, starting yesterday, you can hear "Guards! Guards!", and next week, "Wyrd Sisters".

And "The World of Poo" - see "Snuff" - is out.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Terry Pratchett - seeking similar author
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 11:11 AM

Pratchett is unique. However, using a search engine to find readalikes might turn up additional titles. Search "Terry Pratchett readalikes" to see what assorted librarians suggest. Another search might be "If you like Terry Pratchett". The most valuable lists are the annotated ones.
You can, of course, do this for any author.
Marnie

Subject: RE: BS: Terry Pratchett - seeking similar author
From: paula t
Date: 08 Jul 12 - 06:07 PM

T.P. is a treasure. Other authors can manage a little of what he does, but can't seem to manage the whole package.I've always found Douglas Adams amusing and full of insight, but T.P does poignant too - which few can manage. Tom Sharpe manages funny, but is also extremely crude at times - which T.P. is certainly not.Let's just acknowledge a genius at work and value him. Thank you Terry Pratchett!

Subject: RE: BS: Terry Pratchett - seeking similar author
From: Dan Schatz
Date: 07 Jul 12 - 07:18 PM

Try Barry Hughart's Bridge of Birds and it's two sequels. These "novels of an ancient China that never was" combine the cleverness, humor, and fantasy of Pratchett - though if anything I'd say Hughart's books are even better and cleverer. Barry Hughart lived in China and has clearly made an in-depth study of Chinese religion and folklore - enough to write a respectful and hilarious parody.

Dan

Subject: RE: BS: Terry Pratchett - seeking similar author
From: Penny S.
Date: 07 Jul 12 - 04:40 AM

I've just re-read "Dark Lord of Derkholm", immediately afgter re-reading "Thief of Time". Though Wynne Jones is using a Pratchetty sort of plot, a bit, there is something lacking in her style. It isn't bubblingly funny, but she never was, and it isn't without humour. Target audience is probably young adult, late childhood, though there are aspects that probably need adult background to get full benefit from.

By comparison with Pratchett, her syntax seems rather flat and prosaic. I was surprised.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Terry Pratchett - seeking similar author
From: Highlandman
Date: 05 Jul 12 - 10:08 AM

I think a lot of the recommendations were made in despair of finding anyone quite like Pratchett. Humorous fantasy is very hard, because speculative fiction has to take itself very seriously in order not to collapse into parody. Not many can pull it off for long; TP does. My recommendation was not so much as being "like" Pratchett but more along the lines of "if you liked this, you might like..."
I enjoyed Piers Anthony's books for a while. They got to be too much the same. Then I read an interview that totally put me off him... I actually don't remember exactly why; it was a long time ago, but that was the end of my interest in reading him.
I enjoyed the Gormenghast books, but I wouldn't say there' much (any?)humor in them, just weirdness. Dark, gloomy wierdness, but interesting reading. Wordy and bombastic, yes... keep in mind when they were written, and Peake was apparently going for a retro style even then, for the mood.
I had the same reaction to the Thomas Covenant books as some reported upthread. The author was too self important (I often feel the same way about Arthur C Clarke) and the rape was too much. I know it was allegorical but IMO that's no defense; I generally despise allegory anyway.
-Glenn

Subject: RE: BS: Terry Pratchett - seeking similar author
From: GUEST,MandolinPaul
Date: 04 Jul 12 - 11:35 PM

Thanks for the recommendations, y'all. You've given me a lot of material to look through!

Subject: RE: BS: Terry Pratchett - seeking similar author
From: Penny S.
Date: 04 Jul 12 - 05:24 PM

Fforde's funny, but nothing like Pratchett. I'm not sure how one would describe his books. Are they fantasy? Certainly in the sense of an invented world, but it is one that centres on Swindon and Reading. (I like the fake ads.)

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Terry Pratchett - seeking similar author
From: MMario
Date: 03 Jul 12 - 06:30 PM

Jasper FForde

Subject: RE: BS: Terry Pratchett - seeking similar author
From: ClaireBear
Date: 03 Jul 12 - 06:19 PM

My submission would be Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser books -- of which there are gratifyingly many, if you turn out to like them. And, true, nobody is like Pratchett.

Subject: RE: BS: Terry Pratchett - seeking similar author
From: Fossil
Date: 03 Jul 12 - 06:10 PM

My good friend David Morgan has just published a SF novel "The Bend in the Sky" which might fill the bill. I know he's an admirer of Terry Pratchett, and has much the same sense of humour, so it might be worth a try.

Details below:
"The Bend in the Sky" by D.S. Morgan
Distributor: *Orca Book Services. Tel: [phone]. Email: [e-mail]
BIC subject category : FL  Science fiction / FM  Fantasy / WH  Humour…
Paperback 224PP 216x138 mm Portrait
ISBN 9781780881614 pb / 9781780881621 hb

Subject: RE: BS: Terry Pratchett - seeking similar author
From: Raedwulf
Date: 03 Jul 12 - 05:44 PM

Apologies. Guest above was meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Terry Pratchett - seeking similar author
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Jul 12 - 05:43 PM

I'm astonished at the recommendations. None of them are remotely like Sir Terry. Not least because most of them get very same-y after 2-3 books, which TP does not. Holt, Rankin, Anthony (a one-trick pony who has had an astonishing number of books published, all things considered), Asprin, et al.

The gods only know why RB mentions Thomas Covenant; I presume MandolinPaul wants humorous fantsy, which that is not. Mervyn Peake is weird (also not humorous in any conventional sense), but many like him, even if Richard doesn't. If you try Eddison (also not humorous), do so in the knowledge that he is a writer from the 20's / 30's, so the style is very different.

The only author mentined who, in my opinion, operates in TP's off-kilter sideways sphere is Douglas Adams. Which isn't to deny the merits of some of those mentioned. But, in my experience, humorous fantasy palls very quickly. One or two books may work; the only author that seems to be able to avoid beating the style to death after that is TP.

Subject: RE: BS: Terry Pratchett - seeking similar author
From: Highlandman
Date: 03 Jul 12 - 02:23 PM

Joe Abercrombie's First Law series (starts with The Blade Itself) have a lot of humor, but it's more wry and dark than Pratchett's. Nevertheless entertaining.
-Glenn

Subject: RE: BS: Terry Pratchett - seeking similar author
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 03 Jul 12 - 08:38 AM

Must admit to never having read any Terry Prattchett, but I did enjoy Mort when done as a serial, on radio 4e

Subject: RE: BS: Terry Pratchett - seeking similar author
From: Penny S.
Date: 03 Jul 12 - 07:57 AM

As a result of this thread I have found some of my DWJ books missing - must have come out in a poor period and I read them from the library. "Dark Lord" and "Griffin" are out of print, but available on the internet.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Terry Pratchett - seeking similar author
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 03 Jul 12 - 07:23 AM

Not read it for a long time but my memories of Alan Dean Foster's 'Spellsinger' series are good. Can't fully remember but there is quite a lot of humour in the fantasy.

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Terry Pratchett - seeking similar author
From: GUEST,vectis
Date: 03 Jul 12 - 06:38 AM

You could also try Anne McCaffrey's works on Pern and many other series but the humour of Pratchett is missing.

Asprin has got the humour and is the nearest to Pratchett I have read but is nowhere near the same.

Pratchett is the God of his genre

Subject: RE: BS: Terry Pratchett - seeking similar author
From: Penny S.
Date: 02 Jul 12 - 07:38 PM

There are Diana Wynne Jones adult fiction, I suppose.

In "The Tough Guide to Fantasyland", not a novel, she sends up some of the genre something rotten.

In "The Dark Lord of Derkholm", in another universe, she casts aspersions on the Dark Lord sort of literature, as well. Probably best read after the Guide for full effect. It has a following book, "The Year of the Griffin" with a magic university in it.

Two books are set somewhere like our universe, "Deep Secret", and "The Merlin Conspiracy", and there is also "A Sudden Wild Magic".

Actually, quite a lot of her children's fiction is worth reading, as well.

There is humour, there is major background knowledge, and there are serious issues, which are all things which permeate Pratchett, but she does inhabit another area - the books aren't so full of merriment, and there are more definite bad guys who get their serious comeuppance.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Terry Pratchett - seeking similar author
From: GUEST,amergin
Date: 02 Jul 12 - 04:45 PM

Yes, I was quite appalled as a young teenager when I read the first trilogy of Thomas Covenant and the good hero rapes a young girl. Her mother gets pissed but continues to help him...because well he is the hero.

Subject: RE: BS: Terry Pratchett - seeking similar author
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Jul 12 - 04:06 PM

If you fancy an alternative version of the Renaissance, I enjoyed MacAvoy's Damiano and Damiano's Lute but they are nothing like Pratchett, whereas I can see a sort of similarity with Laumer and Stasheff.

Subject: RE: BS: Terry Pratchett - seeking similar author
From: Charmion
Date: 02 Jul 12 - 03:27 PM

I'm glad I'm not alone in finding Stephen R. Donaldson repellent. My brother was deeply offended when I purged the matching three-volume set of first-edition Thomas Covenant novels that he gave me, but i couldn't continue to give precious shelf space to books I couldn't get more than 10 pages into.

Subject: RE: BS: Terry Pratchett - seeking similar author
From: Penny S.
Date: 02 Jul 12 - 01:51 PM

I would go for Tom Holt, whose latest work I keep looking out for at the library or the bookshop. His people are real and his spirit is similar to Pratchett's. Be prepared to reference G&S. But get the order of reading the Portable Door series right. Earlier books aren't a series.

I'd also go along with Zelazny - I heard someone in an SF shop once commenting that he obviously liked people.

I went off Rankin after a bit, because I felt his women were a bit as if he had peeled them off McGill postcards, and because his Brentford was devoid of the sort of people usually to be seen on its streets. But other people obviously do like them, and if you aren't female, you might be one of them. The titles are good.

I've obviously got something in common with Richard. I tried Peake because my sister was working with his daughter, but didn't get into it - radio and TV worked. And I tried Eddison because CS Lewis regarded him well. Didn't work.

Same as Stephen Donaldson didn't work for me. I had to go to the library with a list of words I didn't know. And they weren't in the 20 volume Oxford. Only in Webster, and there they were marked as archaic. And I didn't like his characters.

There's no-one like Terry. He has a new book "Dodger" coming in September, now on Kindle. It isn't Discworld. And there's "Long Earth" now, with A N Other, more SF.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Terry Pratchett - seeking similar author
From: GUEST,Marianne S.
Date: 02 Jul 12 - 01:36 PM

Neil Gaiman wrote Good Omens with Terry Pratchett. It's well worth reading. Neverwhere is interestingly weird but lacks the humour and what I can only decribe as Pratchettness. I haven't read any other Gaiman - he gets a bit gruesome for me.

While I've enjoyed Fritz Leiber, Zelazny, Peake and others, no-one is like Pratchett.

However, no-one's yet mentioned Harry Harrison's The Stainless Steel Rat

Subject: RE: BS: Terry Pratchett - seeking similar author
From: Bettynh
Date: 02 Jul 12 - 10:13 AM

Some other classics you might enjoy are from Cordwainer Smith, Stanley Weinbaum, Fritz Lieber (Fafherd and Grey Mouser series), and Roger Zelazny (the Amber series is endless, but there are excellent shorter novels and stories).

Subject: RE: BS: Terry Pratchett - seeking similar author
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Jul 12 - 08:31 AM

I found Eddison an unapproachable narrative, and Peake both unbelievably pretentious and unbelievably dull - both went unfinished (which is rare for me) by a very large margin.

Subject: RE: BS: Terry Pratchett - seeking similar author
From: Bob the Postman
Date: 02 Jul 12 - 07:39 AM

Jonathan Stroud's Bartimaeus trilogy is set in a pre-modern fantasy London, features genies and a well-developed magic-based technology, and, like Pratchett's ouevre, reflects a thoughtful, humane value system. Fun read too.

Subject: RE: BS: Terry Pratchett - seeking similar author
From: jonm
Date: 02 Jul 12 - 07:16 AM

In terms of drawing parallels between the real world and fantasy to highlight absurdities, try Tom Holt. Snow White and the Seven Samurai is hilariously surreal, ditto The Portable Door.

In terms of vivid descriptions of worlds and situations which are both similar to and totally different from our own, with emotional involvement and genuine humour, try Neil Gaiman. Neverwhere or Stardust are good starting places.

Subject: RE: BS: Terry Pratchett - seeking similar author
From: GUEST,CrazyEddie
Date: 02 Jul 12 - 07:04 AM

As someone previously said there is no one like Pratchett.
However, you might try Robert Rankin. Start with The Brentford Trilogy. He has a similar way of presenting the "normal" in a different kight.

Much darker, but well woth reading, is Neil Gaiman, who co-wrote "Good-Omens" with Pratchett

Subject: RE: BS: Terry Pratchett - seeking similar author
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 02 Jul 12 - 07:02 AM

Oh, and you might enjoy the Gormenghast books, of Mervyn Peake

Subject: RE: BS: Terry Pratchett - seeking similar author
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 02 Jul 12 - 07:00 AM

The Zimiamvian Trilogy, and The Worm Ouroborus, all by E R Eddison

Subject: RE: BS: Terry Pratchett - seeking similar author
From: Mo the caller
Date: 02 Jul 12 - 06:21 AM

I'm not sure that reading an imitation Pratchet would be satisfying.

Subject: RE: BS: Terry Pratchett - seeking similar author
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 02 Jul 12 - 04:36 AM

Wireless keyboard seems to be missing letters and spaces.
Oh Well!

Subject: RE: BS: Terry Pratchett - seeking similar author
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 02 Jul 12 - 04:32 AM

As has been said - nobody is another Pratchett, but others may suit your style of book.
As wella the Hich Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams wrote about Dirk Gently (Random Page on Amazon).
One author that I haven't ever got around to reading, but recommended by a friend is Tom Holt - (short extract from first book).
If you are into Sci-fi, Stanislaw Lem wrote some humorous and weird stuff as wellas "serious" SF.
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: BS: Terry Pratchett - seeking similar author
From: nickp
Date: 02 Jul 12 - 04:25 AM

Start again from the beginning - I do - at least once a year! There's always something you javben't noticed that sneaks up and bites your ankle. Woof bloody woof!

Subject: RE: BS: Terry Pratchett - seeking similar author
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Jul 12 - 03:57 AM

There is nothing quite like Pratchett, but I second the thought of Piers Anthony, and his less flippant "Sos the Rope" series is well visualised. For fun and phony(ish) magic, you could try The Myth Adventures by Robert Asprin (later novels in the series with Jody Lynn Nye). For fun and sharp political observance, try Keith Laumer's "Retief of the CDT" series. Also with politics, magic, and humour there is Christopher Stasheff's "Warlock in Spite of Himself" series.

If you are an SF/fantasy reader you have of course done Tolkein. You should also try the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever. No longer current, but a foundational author you should have read is Asimov, particularly the Foundation series. Some of CJ Cherryh is worth a look.

Other thoughts may occur to me as I walk by my bookshelves...

Subject: RE: BS: Terry Pratchett - seeking similar author
From: GUEST,Marianne S.
Date: 02 Jul 12 - 03:03 AM

There is no-one like Terry Pratchett. Fortunately his books stand repeated re-reading.

Subject: RE: BS: Terry Pratchett - seeking similar author
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Jul 12 - 12:50 AM

I enjoyed several of the Xanth series, but after a while there is a sameness. And a odd story - My dad and a friend went to hear Piers Anthony speak in Seattle years ago - they were so appalled by his talk that they simply set aside his books. I don't remember if it was sexist or racist or just potty-mouth - and they are both quite liberally minded consumers of fiction and give the author a lot of latitude - but they were NOT impressed by the man in person. I don't think such a thing can be said about Pratchett.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Terry Pratchett
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 01 Jul 12 - 11:50 PM

You might like Piers Anthony's Xanth series.

Subject: BS: Terry Pratchett
From: GUEST,MandolinPaul
Date: 01 Jul 12 - 11:17 PM

Hey y'all.

I'm in the process of reading the most recent Terry Pratchett book. That means I will have read everything he has written, and that makes me sad. I've been googling all over, trying to find an author with a similar style -- in the same genre -- but have had no luck.

Can you please name a similar author?

Thanks,
Paul