Be Very A Fray-ed (The Carpet People - Terry Pratchett)

Member Name: The Solid Grey

Product:	The Carpet People - Terry Pratchett
Date:	10/03/03 (720 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: An interesting read

Disadvantages: Not quite as good as his other works

I got into reading Terry Pratchett a couple of years ago, and have been reading his books ever since, you may be aware of his incredibly successful discworld series, well I stared to read all of the series from beginning, having read the latest five first. At the moment there are about 27 ish discworld novels, so I've been alternating between Terry Pratchett novels and other fiction.

Now mostly I've been trying to get these novels second hand, having reached a point
where I need the next book and wanting something to read, I decided to read one of his other books, which I'd bought second hand some time ago and as you may have guess it was, The Carpet People.

~~The Carpet People~~
This novel was originally written by Terry Pratchett at the age of 17, and after his
discworld books became popular fans kept asking about this other book - The Carpet People, which had by then, sold out. So a reprint was needed, but Terry Pratchett now aged forty three, thought that a little re writing was needed here and there, and so what you have is a book that's been co written by the same man, only many years apart.

It originally came out in 1971 and this edition in 1991, it cost me £1 second hand but for
new expect £4.99 for 190 pages.

~~Plot~~
Life in the carpet is a fairly uneventful thing for the Munrungs, every 10 years a message is sent for them to travel to the town of tregon marus to be counted. One year though they receive no message, and what?s more Fray is back, and the things that come with it. The people of the village are no longer safe and pack up their belonging to go.....well where will they go?.

~~Opinion~~
Well overall I liked it, but then I like Terry Pratchett novels. Terry Pratchett is a fantasy writer and a humours fantasy writer at that. You've seen Lord of the Rings - a trailer at least, or perhaps the cartoon Dungeons and Dragons?, well stuff like that, The Never
End
ing Story, Labyrinth etc. If you like that kind of genre then this will be good for you.

Terry Pratchett has a way of taking something real and adapting it into a fantasy world.
The film industry, for instance, in his discworld novel, Moving Pictures, instead of camera's tapping the action onto film, it was little demons drawing pictures in little boxes and a whole surreal Hollywood type of thing. The Carpet People is on a similar platform. Its a 'what if there were little people who lived in the carpet....'

Its different to his usual offerings at least in the way of the discworld novels, but then this is to be expected because the way in which it was written. Its not humorous (well not so much anyway), but it is fairly light hearted.

It does take a little time to get going, its more descriptive dotted with little pieces of conversation, had it continued well into the book I doubt I'd of liked it so much. It also seems to have little direction, once you start to get into it, you really wonder where its all heading, of course as soon as things get going your hooked.

The lead character seems to change, first your not quite sure who your rooting for, but minor characters seem to come forward, to be the central drive before making way for another. Characters that seemed to be very important in the beginning seem to almost disappear, which can be a little distracting.

It is enjoyable and succeeds at engaging you, there are parts where you don't want to put the book down, because you want to know what's happening next, this is always a positive thing for a book to do, and I love it. Any book that I just want to keep reading, has some very interesting concepts or is well written I love, and this book does these things well.

I found this slightly more hard to follow than most books I've read, not reading it
everynight/day doesn't help, and I don't take in the information as we
ll as I should, but a
couple of times I had to go over previous chapter to remind myself of what I'd already read.

It is quite pleasing, some of the situations and concepts are quite good, and nicely resolved, another sign of a good writing is not to leave you readers feeling cheated by not giving a realistic or genuine way of getting out of situations. When you remember the people are living in a carpet and all the things are things you find in a carpet, its quite amusing, it adds an extra dimension to the novel, and fantasy situations like this are ones I love.

~~Conclusion~~
Its not a typical example of a Terry Pratchett novel, though it does have its drawbacks, they are only slight ones, and in the grand scale are nothing, I found it to be very enjoyable.

So maybe not a typical example of a Terry Pratchett book but a good one.

The Solid Grey

Summary: