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In This Episode
The Book Evangelists discuss Dodger by Terry Pratchett
Morning Chatter
In which we briefly discuss the disruptions of tornado warnings and completely fail to warn the listener that Lissa has banana bread baking in her oven.
Dodger by Terry Pratchett
Dodger by Terry Pratchett at Goodreads.
A storm. Rain-lashed city streets. A flash of lightning. A scruffy lad sees a girl leap desperately from a horse-drawn carriage in a vain attempt to escape her captors. Can the lad stand by and let her be caught again? Of course not, because he’s…Dodger.
Seventeen-year-old Dodger may be a street urchin, but he gleans a living from London’s sewers, and he knows a jewel when he sees one. He’s not about to let anything happen to the unknown girl–not even if her fate impacts some of the most powerful people in England.
From Dodger’s encounter with the mad barber Sweeney Todd to his meetings with the great writer Charles Dickens and the calculating politician Benjamin Disraeli, history and fantasy intertwine in a breathtaking account of adventure and mystery.
Beloved and bestselling author Sir Terry Pratchett combines high comedy with deep wisdom in this tale of an unexpected coming-of-age and one remarkable boy’s rise in a complex and fascinating world.
description from the publisher
This blog post is spoiler-free. On the podcast, we discuss Dodger by Terry Pratchett and our discussion is filled with minor spoilers, so please read the book before you listen if you are into that kind of experience. We’ll be here for you when you finish!
- How do you decide to write about real historical people? Or to reuse other writer’s fictional characters?
- Why was Marian so excited to see Joseph Bazalgette show up as a character in this story?
- As a reader, how do you decide whether to still read or like a book if you disagree with the author’s twitter or media reports about their life?
- How much does an editor affect the author’s work?
- What kind of legacy of notes and unfinished manuscripts will you leave behind at the end of your long and prosperous writer’s life? How do those additional materials affect reader experience?
- What now-long-dead authors would you follow on twitter if you could, to see their day to day thoughts?
- How do book recommendations from authors work and why?
- And for all of these things – how do we do these things better as writers for our own potential readers?
Writing and Reading Experiments
Marian recommends: MasterClass, starting with Neil Gaiman Teaches The Art of Storytelling and has branched out to the Dan Brown and Billy Collins writing classes
Lissa panics about the question “What are you Reading?” and will be reading Out Stealing Horses for a book club she leads. She admits she keeps going back to re-read The City in the Middle of the Night instead of reading new books because it is a book “about snuggling” and “about how you figure yourself out.”
Marian recommends All Systems Red by Martha Wells which has a self-aware murder robot.
Next episode: We are reading and listening to the 5-star SF/FF audiobooks and books that we have recommended to each other recently, possibly including The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders and Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett.
Our Show Notes include mentions and recommendations, all linked for your convenience. What else would you like to see here?
Music Credit: The music used during transitions in our podcast is adapted from: Jazzy Sax, Guitar, and Organ at the club by Admiral Bob (c) copyright 2018 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/admiralbob77/58382 Ft: geoffpeters
The Book Evangelists 