Books like The Dark Side of the Sun

I think, for the preservation of sci-fi as a book genre, this book should only be read by either fans of Terry Pratchett himself or of obscure, vintage sci-fi. And I reason thus...Terry Pratchett is an amazing writer. Of fantasy. I know many people would argue, but I don't think he would have become half the writer he was if he had not been writing in the fantasy genre. His ability to write about people is what made him wonderful and well-loved, but putting that in to a fantasy setting made it.The Dark Side of the Sun is a half-decent attempt at sci-fi. It has all the elements of a humorous lark á la Hitchhiker's and has some great imagination when it comes to technology, but there always seemed to be too much happening at once. Terry had a hard time explaining everything in a well-thought out manner.The best thing about this book? If you're a PTerry fan, it is the sheer amount of Discworld references (I say references, but this was a pre-cursor to Discworld so it's more of a starting point). We have Small Gods here, Hogswatch and klatch and probably a couple of character traits in the robots and humans. Widdershins may as well be on Discworld, only a Discworld that is 2000 years in to the future and has more advanced technology than the slide rule.It is a fairly decent yarn, with a good story arc and some great comedy sci-fi moments. The humour was lacking slightly, as if he was just a little apprehensive. The ending was useless in all fairness, but you can see the tiny seedling shoots of PTerry's genius here. I mean, it was published about five years before Discworld, and it's nice to know that a man like PTerry started his career with a slight failure. It makes you feel good about yourself.Imaginative? Yes. Humorous? Fairly. Epic to read about Hogswatch before Discworld had even been born? Totes. It's nice. It's a very quick read. It'll make you chuckle a little, if only at how rubbish it is considering who wrote it. But it's hugely enjoyable because that's what he does to you. He makes you enjoy stuff, the bastard.Blog | Reviews | Instagram | Twitter