Unseen Academicals: A Discworld Novel Terry Pratchett, Doubleday, 2009, 400 pages, hardback, NZ$65.99
Terry Pratchett is the world’s most beloved author. Decades of dedicated after-sales service at author-signings have created an international army of supporters, who love his 36 Discworld novels and are worried that the 37th might not be as good. Alzheimer’s disease means Pratchett can no longer type, so Unseen Academicals was dictated, which explains a slackening of incisiveness in some of the dialogue.
Fans will wince in sympathy when he uses ‘popcorn’ instead of ‘banged grains’ (p.282) but the wordplay is witty, the footnotes are funny and the social satire is as sharp as ever, with Pratchett’s crab-bucket theory of social improvement.
While football and fashion (specifically dwarf micro-mail) offer some Ankh-Morporkians a chance to rise in the world, life seems more complicated for Nutt who is (possibly) a goblin. The result is the ultimate town-versus-gown grudge match. Although Death is strangely absent, many Discworld characters – including Low King Rhys, Dr Lawn, Stanley Howler, Reverend Oats, Hwel, Lady Margolotta and Mr Shine - get brief nods.
Unseen Academicals makes great reading.
Trevor Agnew
This book review first appeared in Your Weekend Magazine, New Zealand 19 December 2009
Showing posts with label 2009. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2009. Show all posts
Monday, 14 June 2010
Saturday, 6 June 2009
The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins
The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins Barbara Kerley, ill Brian Selznick, Scholastic, 2009 (2001), 36 pages, paperback, ISBN978-0-439-11495-0
‘The jolly old beast is not deceased.
There’s life in him again.’
First published in hardback in 2001, this Caldecott Honour Book now returns in paperback to gain a new readership. Barbara Kerley’s skilful text and Brian Selznick’s imaginative illustrations bring to life the amazing Victorian sculptor-lecturer-showman, Waterhouse Hawkins, whose giant dinosaur statues in Crystal Palace Park still have the power to enthral.
We see Hawkins as a boy drawing and sculpting animals, and then as a respected scientist using fossil fragments to create pictures and models of dinosaurs. Queen Victoria visits his workshop full of life-size replicas in clay and plaster, being made ready for display at the Crystal Palace. After his London triumph, Hawkins is invited to New York to create more dinosaur replicas. Political skulduggery (by ‘Boss’ Tweed, no less) destroys his dream for central Park but Hawkins has other achievements to uplift his spirits both at home and abroad.
This large format picture book has a generous feel to it. The fresh and readable text is supplemented with an account of Hawkins’ remarkable life and works, as well the menu for the famous dinner eaten by 22 scientists inside the belly of the unfinished iguanodon statue. The colourful illustrations capture the magic of dinosaurs both as they appeared to Victorians and as we see them today. Some of the pictures seem to flow through time, and all of them reflect the enthusiasm of Hawkins himself. As he walks through London, his sketches of dinosaurs are carried by the wind to amaze passers-by, while Hawkins himself is constantly attended by the spirits of the extinct creatures he loved.
As the scientists sang at his historic iguanodon dinner:
‘The jolly old beast is not deceased.
There’s life in him again.’
‘The jolly old beast is not deceased.
There’s life in him again.’
First published in hardback in 2001, this Caldecott Honour Book now returns in paperback to gain a new readership. Barbara Kerley’s skilful text and Brian Selznick’s imaginative illustrations bring to life the amazing Victorian sculptor-lecturer-showman, Waterhouse Hawkins, whose giant dinosaur statues in Crystal Palace Park still have the power to enthral.
We see Hawkins as a boy drawing and sculpting animals, and then as a respected scientist using fossil fragments to create pictures and models of dinosaurs. Queen Victoria visits his workshop full of life-size replicas in clay and plaster, being made ready for display at the Crystal Palace. After his London triumph, Hawkins is invited to New York to create more dinosaur replicas. Political skulduggery (by ‘Boss’ Tweed, no less) destroys his dream for central Park but Hawkins has other achievements to uplift his spirits both at home and abroad.
This large format picture book has a generous feel to it. The fresh and readable text is supplemented with an account of Hawkins’ remarkable life and works, as well the menu for the famous dinner eaten by 22 scientists inside the belly of the unfinished iguanodon statue. The colourful illustrations capture the magic of dinosaurs both as they appeared to Victorians and as we see them today. Some of the pictures seem to flow through time, and all of them reflect the enthusiasm of Hawkins himself. As he walks through London, his sketches of dinosaurs are carried by the wind to amaze passers-by, while Hawkins himself is constantly attended by the spirits of the extinct creatures he loved.
As the scientists sang at his historic iguanodon dinner:
‘The jolly old beast is not deceased.
There’s life in him again.’
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