Timewaster's Guide Archive

My question 3: Which is your favorite Pratchett novel and why?
 
The Truth is my favorite.  As a writer, and one who likes to explore the nature of the truth in his works, a novel that deals with someone trying to publish a newspaper in a fantasy world mixed philosophy and laughs in the way only Pratchett can.  However, Guards Guards the book where I suggest people new to Pratchett start.  (I suggest avoiding the Colour of Magic as your first experience, even though it's technically the first book in the series.  They are all stand alone novels, really, and Guards Guards can be seen as the beginning of the best sub-series within the series.)

Your favorite movies?
 
Gattica.  The Fifth Element, actually, is up there too.  The Prisoner of Azkaban movie.  Empire Strikes Back.  Sneakers.  Jacky Chan's Operation Condor. (I know, I know.) The Emperor's New Groove.  Star Trek: First Contact.   
 
To be honest, that's probably not a great list.  Those are the movies I watch over and over, but there are a lot of movies I love, but have only seen a few times.  I'm not generally a 'watch it over again' type of guy, so it's hard to pick favorites.  I come back to the genre films or things like Jacky Chan because they're quirky and rewatchable, but that doesn't actually mean they're my favorite--or that they've influenced me as much as other films.  For instance, Laurence of Arabia blew my mind, and The Sting influenced how I write quite a bit.  But I've only ever seen those films once.  But I do keep coming back to Gattica as one of the movies I think does what storytelling should do, when done perfectly right.   
 
Your favorite music?
 
Depends on the month.  Right now?  Daft Punk.  Before that?  Anything by Harry Gregson Williams. (Often, his music is better than the film it is in.)  Metallica has been a long-standing favorite of mine, though I've been listening to a lot of Desprez lately.

"You did well, Spook."

Yes, that's Kelsier's voice at the beginning. As I said in a previous annotation, he can't help but meddle.

There is an afterlife in this cosmology I've built, and Kelsier's in it. He never has been able to leave well enough alone. He saw, here, that a piece of the puzzle needed to be put together, so he stepped in and tried to get through to Spook about it.

Spook was the only one in the crew he could speak to. That's because Spook truly has faith in Kelsier as a deity—which, for these few weeks between Preservation's death and the coming of the Hero of Ages, Kelsier is.