On Tue, 18 Feb 2003, Jim Boutcher wrote: >Personally I'd say that Pratchett has gone from writing decent parody, >through humorous fantasy into shallow philosophy to appeal to the >comfort zone of his market. I am curious as to what yardstick you use to measure the "depth" of philosophy. > To refer to him as a satirist is flattery and unfair on more proper > exponents. Who are these "proper" exponents, please? And how is "Jingo" (for example) less "properly" a satire of militarism than, say, "Lysistrata" or "The War Prayer" or "Gulliver's adventures in Lilliput"? Or do you consider Aristophanes, Mark Twain or Jonathan Swift to not be "proper" exponents of satire either? > Although the actual quality of his writing has improved >despite the mass production, the content has dropped markedly. Could you go into some more detail on what you perceive to be the loss of quality of the content of his writing?