Pippakin a Critic

I  suppose the truth is I’ve always been a bit of a critic quite an acerbic one but I can also if and when the spirit moves me be constructive. Regrettably I have not felt so moved for the last several years and to be honest I can’t see that changing anytime soon.

I’ve written before both of how much I enjoyed the Discworld series of books by Terry Pratchett and also of my disappointment in his book The Dodger.

Dodger is a fascinating character and so is Stooge both are survivors any knocks they experience along lifes many strange and inconvenient paths would one has no doubt be brushed aside or possibly walked right over.

I was disappointed in Dodger but not surprised. In 2007 Terry Pratchett announced he had a form of Alzheimers and frankly whichever form you have is to me kind of irrelevant. Alzheimers deprives us of our memory but not before its deprived us of our independence, ability and our dignity, and it makes no difference if we are cared for by loved ones except perhaps it makes it harder for the sufferer and almost impossible for the carer.

I have some experience of dementia I cared for someone with the disease and a member of my family had it. You might say I’ve done my research.

Which brings me neatly to someone who didn’t do theirs.

Or did they …Any book by Terry Pratchett was always meticulously researched up to and including Dodger. I didn’t find Dodger hard going because it was poorly researched I found it almost impossible to get through because whoever wrote it lacked the legendary Terry Pratchett talent.

Raising Steam.

I honestly don’t know where to begin. Some of it, the subject matter was well researched and the idea, the introduction of steam to the discworld was brilliant however other significant to me parts were not.

Whoever, lets not call it ghost writing, guided the telling of the story may or may not lack talent. On reading the book it looks as though there is a total absence of the ability to so much as write their own name and address without turning it into something one simply has to bin by the second line.

But that’s unfair. The ability to write as someone else when you so obviously lack their imagination and wild talent is, must be very different to writing in your own style and on your own subject but there are people who apparently make a career of imitating other writing styles I’ve read a few someone even did a Robert Burns style poem to prove a point to say it was piss poor is to ignore the stench.

Maybe in such a situation changing the character and dialogue style of major characters is understandable and impossible to avoid but helpers should try because  changing a successful character had better be because the change is better not because the helper hasn’t a clue.

So, that was me the critic not exactly making excuses for the inexcusable and unforgivable.

By 2012 when The Dodger was published Terry Pratchett had to be suffering prolonged lapses caused by Alzheimers and by 2013 when Raising Steam was published he may well have been in a very serious condition. He died in March 2015 which probably means that for much of The Dodger Terry Pratchett had to rely on his helpers and by the time Raising Steam was ready for publication he must have had to rely on those helpers twenty four hours a day and perhaps been unable to properly supervise their work.

What Pippakin cares about

For the record I’m not one who minds being a laughing stock I’m sixty five years old, is it possible anyone of that age has sailed through life without slipping on one  and probably a dozen or more of lifes notorious banananana skins? I doubt it., even rich and powerful people the kind who have someone sweeping every smallest piece of rubbish including people from their own garlanded paths onto the dung heap laden tracks of the poor, and when it comes to the rich and powerful we are of course talking plurality of paths ,but even so some still occasionally go arse over tit into the noisome mire.

What gets my back so far up it would take a cruise missile to even attempt to bring it down?

Cruelty is the answer. I care about the kind of assault that leaves permanent if invisible scars, I care about those who find the actual pain someone else is suffering amusing, and I care about those who take advantage of an understanding empathic nature to hack and thieve, to take illegal pictures and share them possibly among the entire internet were any helpers among the recipients? If they were it confirms the reason for my style and commitment to stopping all such attacks particularly any further attacks on me. I care so much that in pursuit of them I’m like a dog with a bone I won’t let go and I do bite.

I think in his day Terry Pratchett would have been intrigued, oh he may have laughed may have been angry with me and others but he had a wild imagination and he would have looked for the sub plot.  His imagination would have taken it further would have wanted to know who was the real villain what was the motive and how many variations are there to the ending.

I doubt any research beyond the merest outline of railway history was done by the person or persons who had control of the research, the writing and the publication of Raising Steam.

Oh, and if you can’t ‘do’ original characters? Create new ones.

Feel free to sue I’d like nothing more.