Ripples… (by sarah)
It's the anniversary of the author Sir Terry Pratchett's death, I have been working my way through the Discworld books, it is taking time as I still struggle with reading since the head injury. I've started with what I think of as the Rincewind Books.
The Colour of Magic The Light Fantastic Sourcery Eric Interesting Times The Last Continent Science of the Discworld The Globe
I've probably missed some out - I'm currently reading The Last Continet 🙂
Rincewind is one of my favourite characters, he reminds me a lot of my dad, being an accidental hero - thinking he's a coward etc... being a nice person, having issues with inanimate household objects that refuse to actually be inanimate (in dad's case it's coathangers).
Then I plan on reading the Death Books as I think of them. Death and Susan are again characters I love, especially when Susan has wild hair she can not control!
Reaper Man Mort Soul Music The Hogfather The Thief of Time
Again I am probably missing titles! If you see a glaring omission please comment!
Then The Witches Books (including the Tiffany Books as a subset - this is slightly unfair as Rincewind should count as one of the Wizards but the character sets are all so over lapped that there are many different ways you could divid it all up ie Hogswatch could be seen as a Wizard book as well as Death), followed by Vimes, The Services Books (De Word and Moist), Maurice and then Pyramids, Small Gods and another other miscellany I have missed!
Alaric bought me the graphic novel of Small Gods and I want to work my way through the graphic novels as well, I know there was a copy of The Last Hero that I gave to my brother but I'm not really sure where it ended up!
After that it is time for non-Discworld Terry Pratchett including the Long Wars books.
As you can see from the photo, Ada Lovelace the Puppet is relaxing with one of her favourite book - Equal Rites. This is most apt for the Victorian Maths genius who made the fist computer programme (or would have been if there'd been a computer to actually run it on!). She was educated but that was unusual for a women in her era, especially with maths and science but she excelled at it and this bought (and still does amazingly) a lot of hate.
She had to fight to be accepted academically, Equal Rites is about a young girl who ends up being a Wizard but is initially denied entry to the Unseen University. It seemed apt.
I actually took the photo for International Women's Day but I have included it in this post because apart from the issue of gender equality etc... it represents something else...
Ripples - "No one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away" - this is a quote from the Discworld series.
And Ada in many respects represents a ripple and the on going legacy of Terry Pratchett. Of course it is only one element of how she came to be but it is none the less still an element.
The story begins with me at school - my Chemistry Teacher Miss Scudder tries to explain the Discworld books to me and writes it down in my leavers book. It was given as an example of Sci-Fantasy that I would love - she was right.
So my science teacher introduced me to Terry Pratchett's work, again she was not the only one but she was the most authoritive? If that's the right word.
The books sustained me through my A'levels and stupid amounts of stress that we poor on our young adults in education. Then to university where again the mirrors and parrelles with various books helped me.
And finally the point at which I really felt like jacking the whole science thing in... Science of the Discworld appeared where they look at the geology/formation of our planet (our universe is accidently created by the Wizards). This book reminded me why I was damn well studying rocks!
Then of course things went catastrophic health wise but JK, Pullman and Pratchett where there as my comfort reads (along with the three Annes and "coughs" the point horrors). Reading them took on a slightly more abstract purpose, they showed twisty corkscrews of lives, not the nice neat progressions that is expected.
In short they helped me reform to new paths and to climb around, under and sometimes into the obsticals that got in my way. They showed me that other routes are not wrong routs just different.
In many ways the books helped me think outside the box as it were - Cuddly Science, the art, the craft, the writing etc... all of that and how I use it and fuse it... is a little bit off centre as it were. Terry Pratchett showed me with his mirror worlds that that was great, that was how the world gets changed for the better... little by little by little.
So my science teacher introduced me to the Discworld, the Discworld, sustained my and kept me interested in science, taught me to think squiggly, squiggly thinking lead to me making puppets to teach kids science.
These are RIPPLES.
GNUTerryPratchett.
Education, Events and Outings, Sarah | sarah | 
Sun 12th Mar 2017 8:52 am
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