Satire/comedy helps me cope with the world. For me, his stories are a nice balance of story, pragmatism, stoicism, fantasy, whimsy, and most of all satire. I particularly love his dialog. I have been searching (in vain) for whimsical/clean satire that helps me cope since Pratchett’s passing.
I second the suggestion to give one a go. Pratchett is not for everyone though. I encouraged my office mate to read Going Postal; he liked it so so, but declined to read another. My flight instructor liked small gods at first, but then didn’t; he wanted to dissect it too literally. I think it bothered him that it didn’t validate his view point as an atheist, instead flirting with many of Pratchett’s common satire of organized religions. My son loved every Sam Vimes book, but didn’t care as much for the others. A good friend tried one, was ok with it, and then read Hogfather, after which he said “give me every one of these that has Death in it.” My daughters really enjoyed Tiffany Aching, I had read Maskerade earlier to them, but only when they did finish Tiffany Aching did they really want more of the witches. My opera trained daughter now counts Maskerade as one of her favorites. As others have pointed out, his earlier works are more whimsical (think Monty Python or Hitchhikers Guide). Near the end of his life, Raising Steam was sadly predictable in its plot as a “tying things up” song. Me personally, I didn’t care for the Rincewind novels, until I watched one of the BBC adaptations, the one with Jeremy Irons, and now I even like the Rincewind/Twoflower/Cohan books. My wife thinks they are all eye rollingly silly and wonders why we get so excited about them.
Which is meant to be a long winded way of illustrating that you may have to poke around a little to find the satire and/or personalities that really resonate with you.
If you’re looking for something that has the closest connection with programmer geek culture, then I suspect Going Postal with its satire on who controls the flow of information (e.g. the web), it’s “code shifters” and the “Smoking GNU”.
I second the suggestion to give one a go. Pratchett is not for everyone though. I encouraged my office mate to read Going Postal; he liked it so so, but declined to read another. My flight instructor liked small gods at first, but then didn’t; he wanted to dissect it too literally. I think it bothered him that it didn’t validate his view point as an atheist, instead flirting with many of Pratchett’s common satire of organized religions. My son loved every Sam Vimes book, but didn’t care as much for the others. A good friend tried one, was ok with it, and then read Hogfather, after which he said “give me every one of these that has Death in it.” My daughters really enjoyed Tiffany Aching, I had read Maskerade earlier to them, but only when they did finish Tiffany Aching did they really want more of the witches. My opera trained daughter now counts Maskerade as one of her favorites. As others have pointed out, his earlier works are more whimsical (think Monty Python or Hitchhikers Guide). Near the end of his life, Raising Steam was sadly predictable in its plot as a “tying things up” song. Me personally, I didn’t care for the Rincewind novels, until I watched one of the BBC adaptations, the one with Jeremy Irons, and now I even like the Rincewind/Twoflower/Cohan books. My wife thinks they are all eye rollingly silly and wonders why we get so excited about them.
Which is meant to be a long winded way of illustrating that you may have to poke around a little to find the satire and/or personalities that really resonate with you.
If you’re looking for something that has the closest connection with programmer geek culture, then I suspect Going Postal with its satire on who controls the flow of information (e.g. the web), it’s “code shifters” and the “Smoking GNU”.