h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

An Optimist starts the day cheerful and is expecting the day to be wonderful and that they will fly through it in the utmost happiness. Unfortunately for those in that state of mind there is nowhere to go but down.
Pessimists on the other hand expect the day to be horrible and depressing. As the day goes on they cannot help but be pleasantly surprised.
I choose the latter.
In a world constructed specifically to get you down, one must be prepared for the worst and be happy when it doesn't happen. In the words of Elizabeth Haydon;Its not if I'm going to get hurt Its when I'm going to get hurt and what I can do to minimise the damage. But if you are going to go around the place all bubbly and cheerful please do me the favour of not trying to inflict it on me. I can take that sort of thing from my dog but please god! Not from my sugar-high roommate!

An optimist says the glass is half full.
A pessimist says the glass is half empty.
An engineer says the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

But the world *belongs* to those who say, "Excuse me? EXCUSE me? I don't think so. This isn't my glass. MY glass was full. And it was a bigger glass."

(Terry Pratchett)

I'm currently trying to read Pratchett in order and have got as far as Sourcery (the fifth in the Discworld series). I've also done some out-of-order reading, and the best I've come across so far is Night Watch.

What's your favourite? Have you read the Johnny Maxwell series?

TRiG.

check out U204689

I came across Mort before.

Did you notice that in the second Discworld novel 'Mort' is Death's nickname, but in the forth Mort is a completely different character?

I haven't read them in order, but I know I've read a lot of the early stuff and a lot of the later stuff, and not much of the in-between stuff. I think there's something missing in the middle ones; maybe he was trying too hard or something. I started reading a couple of them (I think they were "Guards! Guards!" and "Feet of Clay") and got so bored I couldn't finish them.

"Night Watch" is definitely one of my favourites, as are "Mort", "Reaper Man" and "The Truth". I'm on a bit of a Pratchett buzz at the moment - I've just finished re-reading "Diggers" (from the Nome trilogy), "Night Watch" and "The Truth", and am about to re-read "Carpe Jugulum". (I've only read it once before and can't quite remember what it's about. Apart from vampires, obviously.)

I've read "Only You Can Save Mankind" and "Johnny and the Dead", but it was a long time ago and I don't remember them very clearly. OYCSM was about a video-game that was really another universe, wasn't it? Are there more in that series?

Only You Can Save Mankind (check the publication date and the news archives);
Johnny and the Dead (not his best: it loses direction at the end);
Johnny and the Bomb (back on track: wonderful stuff).