Unseen Academicals

click here for more details, find new or used items	Terry Pratchett Our price £9.78 (£18.99) New from £8.30 Used from £6.75 Pages: 400 (Hardcover) ISBN: 0385609345 Pub: Doubleday Pub date: 2009-10-01 Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 968

Reader Reviews:

Is this sport or war? (0/0 people found this helpful)

Terry Pratchett's books are depending on your viewpoint, satirical, comical, humourous or merely a form of pastiche.
In earlier volumes he has commented on postal services, the forces of law and order, the moving picture industry, rock music and much else besides. Now it it the turn of Football (approximately).
To be honest, it's not quite the beautiful game - we might call it the bootiful game, but until an attempt is made to impose rules it is more akin to guerilla warfare.
The story has all the elements you would expect from the pen of Pratchett.
Well worth a listen!

Injury Time ... (0/0 people found this helpful)

Injury Time is what a lot of people are thinking, I guess. I disagree. pTerry's books are as lucid as ever.

OK we're in Ankh-Morpork yet again, OK you just _know_ the outsider is going to triumph yet again. OK Vetinarii is just too sharp not to cut himself yet again. But that's no problem. You can't surprise all the people all the time and you shouldn't have to.

The gratification for me is the way the old characters grow as pTerry's style grows. After the example of acquired taste that is Monstrous Regiment, the con-man laid bare that is Moist von Lipwig (and the subtle avatar that is his ever-smoking better half) and the gothic governess that is Susan Death, I firmly believe that pTerry can knock Jonathan Swift into a pointed hat. He _is_ English satyr now that Tom Sharpe has slowed down. Seriously, if you don't like him, I challenge any reader of this review - show me better! Come on, have a go ...

Around 1990 or so, my younger brother brought me the still-quite-young The Colour of Magic to read. I think you know the joke that had me bursting out of my skin. You know, the one about wet copper armour? That was an unforgettable moment in British fiction and if you don't know what I'm gabbing on about read the first couple of pages of the book again ...

Since then ... it's been a long climb up Fun Mountain, and pTerry is still climbing. In Unseen Academicals, he tackles football. He's funny, articulate, insightful, clever, a little bit preachy, but not so much as in Small Gods. These are a few of my favourite things.

He keeps his eye on the ball. So what if Carrot already had one in Jingo! He'd been clever with a bladder. This book is different. This time it isn't the King, nor the Guards, nor the nobs who push the creaking wagon of Ankh-Morpork history along. This time, it's not just about the ball, is it? We're all in it together, apart from those who don't like to play, of course. There's always a few.

Thankfully, the Patrician isn't the one-dimensional smart-alec. I'm _glad_ pTerry did that. Much better than his behaviour in Feet Of Clay - casually allowing himself to be poisoned slowly while he waited for others to work out what was happening. Now we have someone who enjoys a drink and a laugh. Oh, and food. So maybe he isn't some kind of eldritch distillation of Sun-Tzu and Macchiavelli after all. Maybe he has a pulse and a stomach. Coo, what next! What fun! People in pTerry books are changing - just like real people! Do try to keep up. It really isn't that hard.

Nutt and Vetinarii were perhaps a little archetypal (sounds better than 'cardboard cut-out-ey, dunnit?) but this is _such_ a silly little complaint when we are in the realm of satyr and allegory. Incidents of gratuitous stereotyping _will_ take place in the genre otherwise It Doesn't Work. The rest of the population of the book were just the biz. Complex, engaging, believable. Glenda and her crabs bring tears to your eyes.

Read it. It's brill. If it doesn't sparkle immediately, read it again. Like the taste of a new single malt, the good stuff often takes a little time to learn to appreciate, right?

Latest Great Discworld Addition (0/0 people found this helpful)

I was, as most Discworld fans, anxiously anticipating this addition in the Discworld Series. I was not disappointed, although I mightn't describe this as his very best work, it certainly deserves its place in the Discworld annals. It's an apt, interesting and succint look at football, and as it happens WAG's! Every Discworld offworlder will want to read this, and steep even more deeply into the Flatworld. Watch as we meet Mr Nut and are enlightened a little more on the inner workings of the Unseen University.

Let there be more (0/0 people found this helpful)

Unseen Academicals is well up to Discworld standard - probably the most entertaining series in the history of publishing. As always there are memorable characters and outrageous situations. READ THIS BOOK PLEASE

such a disappointment. (0/0 people found this helpful)

I so wanted to like this audio cd (abridged read by Tony Robinson) but its just dreadful. I usually love Terry Pratchett books and really like Tony Robinson but it just doesn't work for me. The storylin is just not engrossing in any way and Tony Robinson's shrill reading is just plain unpleasant. Definitely one to give a miss.

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