Finding himself alone on a desert island when everything and everyone he knows and loved has been washed away in a huge storm, Mau is the last surviving member of his nation. He's also completely alone - or so he thinks until he finds the ghost girl. She has no toes, wears strange lacy trousers like the grandfather bird and gives him a stick which can make fire. Daphne, sole survivor of the wreck of the Sweet Judy, almost immediately regrets trying to shoot the native boy. Thank goodness the powder was wet and the gun only produced a spark. She's certain her father, distant cousin of the Royal family, will come and rescue her but it seems, for now, all she has for company is the boy and the foul-mouthed ship's parrot. As it happens, they are not alone for long.Other survivors start to arrive to take refuge on the island they all call the Nation and then raiders accompanied by murderous mutineers from the Sweet Judy. Together, Mau and Daphne discover some remarkable things - including how to milk a pig and why spitting in beer is a good thing - and start to forge a new Nation. As can be expected from Terry Pratchett, the master story-teller, this new children's novel is both witty and wise, encompassing themes of death and nationhood, while being extremely funny. Mau's ancestors have something to teach us all. Mau just wishes they would shut up about it and let him get on with saving everyone's lives!

After reading this book myself, I'll turn it into a bookring with these participants:

1) Kiki66
2) elhamisabel
3) erinacea
4) jurmai
5) glglgl
6) UlrikeW
7) Wattgirl
8) Urfin

last) Tiamat-Muc

This was not what I expected. I found this book to be quite unlike Pratchett's other books (not that I've read THAT many) - it is more of an adventure story and though at times very funny, it didn't have me laughing out loud very often.
Nonetheless, I enjoyed reading this book a lot!

I'll give this book to Kiki66 later in the day.

got this from qantaqa this afternoon..

Since I am into T.P at the moment I'm looking forward to this one!

hmmm... I have to admit that I will give up on that one.
It isn't what I expected and seeing that I have the book for such a long time already I think
I will send it on.
I started 'Good Omens' the other day and it is much more fun...

Sorry qantaqa!

Will travel on as soon as I have the next address!

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Hat sich heute auf den Weg zu elham gemacht...

Gute Reise!

Received it, thanks!
As it is a hardcover, I'm probably not taking it on my daily commute so it may take a while until I've finished it.


1st September:
Oops! I just realised I've had this book for an entire month. Sorry, still not finished, rather busy at the moment. But I'll try to be quicker.


7th September:
Finally finished. And about time I'd say. ;-))

Well, it was a slow start to the book, partly because of the novel, partly because of me. It got more interesting and funny as it went but still more dragging along than running, so to speak. ;-) I was never really in love with the story. In my opinion one of the weaker Discworld books by Pratchett.

I've contacted erinacea for her address.


16th September:
Seit gestern unterwegs zu erinacea.

The book already arrived a week ago (sorry about not journalling right away) and I finally read it through last night in one go. As stories go, it was okay, but the high praise on the dust jacket has got me rather baffled. "Razor-sharp satire"? "Excruciatingly funny"? Really?

I liked the idea (though the epilogue left me going "Whuh?") and I adored the wild mixture of scientific thinking and spiritual belief. I quite liked how the scientific Daphne had to get used to the spiritual truths of the island, whereas Mau quickly started doubting his gods and ended up thinking like a true skeptic. Dawkins would have been proud, about the latter part at least. :)

I absolutely love the cover illustration and also the chapter pictures.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Eeep, another month gone by... Sent off today, sorry about that! (Don't you hate it when you have to carry a book to the post office because it doesn't fit into the mailbox slots?)

Received it today! Thanks!

23.11.2009
Definitely not a typical Pratchett! But that was what I expected. Therefore I´m a little bit disappointed. It wasn´t as funny as I hoped and I needed much more time than expected.


glglgl wants to be skipped, because he already bought the book by himself.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Auf dem Weg zum nächsten Leser!

Received it a few days ago.

And now it's in Berlin again :o)

Bought a paperback copy of the book yesterday, it has the same number of pages but is only half the volume (and probably even less than half the weight), so this copy here can travel on, and I will add a comment later after reading the book...
Will mail it tomorrow to Tiamat-Muc.

and here it is...

I'm done reading and I really loved this one. The first 80 pages or so are hard to read but then the story unfolds. I won't write much about this book but here are my best liked citations - and there are a lot because Pratchett is a socio-ethnological genius: my literary hero:

">You didn't want to be a warrior?< >Never. It takes a woman nine months to make a new human. Why waste her effort<" p.46
"So there are still rules, he thought. I brought them with me. They're in my head..." p.64
"(...)and it was amazing what you could overhear when you were being a good little girl(...) The secret was to wear ribbons in your hair and skip everywhere. It completely fooled people." p.88
"She thought that being foreign was a crime, or at least some sort of illness that you could catch by being out in the sun too much, or eating olives." p.166
"Besides, you had to be scientific about these things, and test one bit at a time." p.176 (often forgotten)
"There was something in the brain that said: Sinister-looking valley + half-dead trees + ominous doorway = skulls in a bowl, or possibly on a stick." p.239 (someone has watched too much cannibal-movies *g*)
">I wish I was dead (...). No, I wish I was in a nice warm bath, with proper soap and towels. And after that I wish I was in another bath, because, believe me, this is a two-bath head. And then I wish I was dead.<" p.243f
">We have bread and wine at home,< she said, and thought, Oops, I won't try to explain that one. They have cannibals down here. It could get ... confusing." p.245 (you should never forget how the christians look like to other people)
"Even our fears make us feel important, because we fear that we might not be." p.261
">I can't deny what I see, but I can question what it is.<" p.264
"They obeyed, as wise men do when a woman puts her foot down(...)." p.267
"It would have been nice if she'd heard thousands of little voices fading away as the cloud of dust was scattered to the wind, but to her regret she didn't. Reality so often fails when it comes to small, satisfying details." p.269
"In the end, she'd accidentally broken two of his fingers (...), told him she'd put a wasps down his trousers (...) and then burst into tears when people came running. You didn't come from a family of ancient fighters like hers without at least a pinch of ruthlessness." p.296
">I must organize people better,< sighted Mau. >No!< said Daphne. >Tell them to organize themselves! (...) Make them think. Tell them what's got to be done and let them work out how.<" p.324
"The strongest man led. That made sense. At least, it made sense to strong men." p.330
">(...) And then it's all off to a nice island for a big coronation feast. An' don't you look at me like that - I had the fish.<" p.333
"They had learned over the years that the top was not a happy or safe place to be. One rung down, that was the place for a sensible man." p.333
">You are very clever (...). I would like to eat your brains, one day.< For some reason the books of etiquette (...) didn't quite deal with this. (...) Daphne, cursed with good manners, settled for, >It's very kind of you to say so.<" p.342
">He's got two guns and you've got one spear. You'll run out of spear before he runs out of gun"< >Yes, but his gun will run out of bang before my knife runs out of sharp.<" p.243f
">Those others I mentioned, who have been shown the glittering path? They all said the same thing as you did. They saw that the perfect world is a journey, not a place.<" p.354
">No, it's science. 'Could have' isn't good enough. Nor is 'might have'! 'Did' is the trick. But when you announce this, a lot of people will try to prove you wrong. The more they fail, the more right you will become.<" p.370
">I can prove that no European has been into this cave before me. (...) See the gold on the gods and the globe and the big door? (...) It's still here.<" p.371

8,5 stars for it was a hard piece of work at the beginning. And the end is a typical Pratchett-one. It's realistic through and through

my mom will read it too and then send it back to qantaga

Cause I'm on vacation I had time enough to read this amazing children's book. I found it easy reading from the very start. The story is rather a background for thinking of the same things from different ways (spiritual and scientific).
All in all: encouraging to think even harder and don't believe in everything. But at the core of it there is always another question: who started this all and who mad who?
I wish my grandchildren could read English books, because for a ten year old this is exactly THE book! (which now returns to qantaga)

Schon lange wieder zuhause.

So this book is here again :-)
Taken from qantaqa's "I_need_more_space" box..

Will see where it will go!

Vielen lieben Dank für diesen Wishlist-RABCK! Und die schöne Karte.

Und im Mai habe ich es dann gelesen: Ein nettes Buch, witzig, ein paar Fantasy-Elemente, und am Schluß bringt er dann doch noch die Wissenschaft unter. Ist ja ein Jugendbuch, muß also auch ein Bildungsanspruch rein ;-)

.... und geht weiter an die nächsten Pratchett-fans.

Got the book from d-vineland. Thanks for thinking of us!