The Light Fantastic: Discworld #2

This book continues the adventures of Rincewind, Twoflower and his luggage. I enjoyed it a lot and it had me laughing out loud at many points. As usual, it never takes itself seriously and pokes a lot of fun at the fantasy genre.

As usual, Nigel Planer's reading is excellent. The audio quality, on the other hand, suffers from "changing tape syndrome," where the pitch of the narrator's voice changes from time to time because the speed of the tape playback wasn't consistent. It's a minor nit, though... it happens infrequently enough that it doesn't annoy for long.

Basically this breaks down to the difference between the story and narration, which are great, and the sound quality and intro, which are bad.

Good: Terry Pratchett is dead funny, and the narrator does a great job.

Bad: I suspect this is a digitization of an older audiobook format. Volumes go up and down from section to section, and they've used a chime noise to designate a change of scene/chapter that's a bit annoying. Listening to the whole book means adjusting your iPod volume up and down every 10 to 20 minutes as the next sections volume will likely be different from the last.

Worst: Just skip the first minute. Terry Pratchett apparently thinks we're all stupid or criminal and feels the need to have someone nag us for the first minute about not sharing/reselling his work by reading us portions of the Audible liscence we obviously already agreed to.

Overall: Good book, worth the audible credit and fun enough you can listen to it more than once :)

This is one of the best Discworld books, and Planer is a great narrator, but for some reason the sound quality on this one is possibly the worst I've encountered in an audiobook. I've tried different formats, and it's just plain tinny...

Terry Prachett is one crazy writter. I can't tell you how many times people stopped and stared at me while I was listening to this book. (Due to uncontrollable laughter at the characters lines.)I view this as my all time favorite type and style of writing. Comedy and Sci-Fi. I can say I got so many laughs from this book that I will continue with the rest of his series. I'm hoping that he continues with the hillarity in the rest of the stories.

This file has various volume changes and some sections sound hollow and echo. I love this series, but I'm disappointed in the quality. There's also an anoying little bell-ring when the scene changes but that's a production paux.

Is it possible to be too clever? Probably not. Unless cleverness becomes your only pitch. I have read a number of Pratchett's later books and enjoyed them thoroughly. His characters are endlessly amusing but they are also deeply human, and his plots are composed of whimsy steeped in wisdom. This book, on the other hand, seemed to be working on only one level with the characters existing primarily as mannequins upon which the author could display his sparkling wit and bantering wordplay. He just seemed to be trying too hard, and in the end it all came off as "cute." That is not Pratchett at his best. Still, even second rate Pratchett is entertaining, and his creation of a superannuated "Cohen the Barbarian" is probably worth the credit all by itself.

This is a good book that continues the series but I have found that listening to what I call page chimes (the tone in children's books that let them know to turn the page) every few "pages" annoying. I can only hope that this is exclusive to this book since it wasn't present in the first book. The Narrator does a very good job reading and gives you the feeling of multiple actors playing the different roles of a play.

How to describe the plot - if Harry Potter had been,

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. If you haven't read it, shame on you. If you have and liked it, you'll love this book.

I'm still entranced by the luggage. It follows its owner everywhere, and eats anyone who tries an unauthorized search. We could balance the nation budget with that feature alone; it would eliminate an entire useless goverment agency.

I would be worried I would miss something if I weren't concentrating enough.

This book was just hilarious. I've listened to half a dozen books in the series. This is my favorite. The sound quality did seem a little off. But not enough to stop me from enjoying the book

The story continues, good fun ripping yarn etc...love it