guards! guards! - terry pratchett

a funny little book about how sam vimes meets his future wife, Lady Sybil- she breeds dragons, she is from the ankh morpork nobility ['old money'], she wears old clothes but they were fashionable once and still have an aura of 'nobility', she is the only one who seems to have some knowledge of the dragon which is charboiling the city and residents of ankh with its dragon breath.......

the huge fire breathing ['draco nobilis'] dragon is summoned from its 'dimension' by a secret society. the leader of the society is keen on ruling ankh with the support of the dragon. his followers in the society are people in small-jobs with big egos. the followers have been chosen because of their ability to be led like sheep by working on their frustrations and grievances. the magic chant to summon the dragon is in a book in the library of the unseen university, but as the librarian [an orangutan] discovers to his horror: the book had been stolen!

a new recruit to the ankh police is carrot- a human raised by dwarfs. the patrician - the current ruler of ankh- who has been imprisoned by the dragon in his own palace dungeons, extracts a cleverly concealed key in the dungeon and gets back to the remains of his office. carrot's heroics -as well as that of sam vimes and his team of police officers- saves the day and the patrician graciously gives them a more important role to play in policing the city.

since the dragon had burnt down the original 'police hq' of ankh, Lady Sybil has donated one of her huge properties in the city for use as the new police hq.

the 'draco nobilis' is found to be of the female order and is tamed by one of the dragons bred by Lady Sybil.'

so all's well that ends well!!!!

moving pictures - terry pratchett

this is one of the earlier books in the discworld series and the characters are already there with their inimitable traits. the humour however is still a little labored. the caricatures of hollywood with a blend of walt disney - stars in the eyes of the star actors, talking dogs, cats, mice- and directors/producers who promote products in their films so as to get easy finances[harga's house of ribs], king kong, sly refernce to gone with the wind- are there, but a little loud and somehow rather disjointed.

the references to uncle osric, uncle oswald when confronted with the gigantic image of a person apparently guarding the door of the auditorium are amusing, but not greatly so.

then there is the scene when the hero and heroine have to step on to a red carpet welcome, at a theatre in ankh, and they are told that all the people lining the streets till the theatre are their fans and pat comes the innocent reply, " why? are we hot?"

definitely to be read if you are a terry 'fan'.

making money - terry pratchett

this one is on terry pratchett and his most recent contribution to reading happiness - making money
making money is about an earlier hero who was introduced in 'going postal'. in the earlier book he revamps and re organises the postal deptt of ankh morpork after being pardoned - saved from the gallows -by lord vetinari who runs the city.

in making money, the postmaster is asked to do his magic on the city's bank and the mint. so among other things, ankh morpork is introduced to the advantages of paper money.

the style of writing is extra ordinary - in that the reader is obliged to make sense of oblique references to many of our real world practices and is invited to laugh at the illogical procedures that we have. this is true of disc world per se and is not limited to the current book. real life blended with ingenuity into a mythical world...........

in 'making money', there is a long serving clerk -the backbone of the bank- who has been required to systematically reduce the gold reserves of the bank by the past owners and come up with creative accounting processes to hide it from the world.

then there is the formidable chairman - wife of the earlier owner- who owns 50% of the bank. she is a woman who managed to charm the previous owner, when she was a dancer [i think], then marry him, get his share of the bank and convince the husband to provide her dog with a 1% stake in the bank. the dog is hers and she is therefore in charge of the bank....however it doesn't pack as much punch as some of the other terry pratchett novels. the concept of paper money is a little lost in the process of being translated into ankh...and so the satire seems diluted.