Okay, clearly a fan. Depth of philosophy would be a personal perception based on whether someone appeared to be repeating something they'd read in a book, or heard someone mention down the pub. I've not read Jingo. I have not offered any criticism of the other authors. As a satirist I believe he lacks a sharpness to his vision which works fine in fantasy, but the parallels are not sufficiently piercing to stand up next to, for example, Swift or Flann O'Brien. Or even Harry Harrison if you want a satirist on militarism As for the content, again my opinion, I'd say that he could easily become a single idea author - one per book - milking to its logical or illogical conclusion. I'd rather see him take longer, mix more ideas in, run them through each other and possibly reduce the humour. As I have said, his use of language seems to be improving with the years, and I'd say a masterpiece would be well within his reach. Fair? Jim --- David Silberstein <davids at kithrup.com> wrote: > 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? > http://mobile.yahoo.com.au - Yahoo! Mobile - Exchange IMs with Messenger friends on your Telstra or Vodafone mobile phone.