See buying choices for this item to see if it's one of the millions that are eligible for Amazon Prime.

17 used & new from £19.50

Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
   
Moving Pictures (Discworld)
 
 

Moving Pictures (Discworld) (Hardcover)

by Terry Pratchett (Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (19 customer reviews)

Available from these sellers.


1 new from £157.28 10 used from £19.50 6 collectible from £19.99

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Reaper Man (Discworld Novel)

Reaper Man (Discworld Novel)

by Terry Pratchett
4.8 out of 5 stars (29)  £5.49
Eric: A Discworld Novel

Eric: A Discworld Novel

by Terry Pratchett
3.9 out of 5 stars (31)  £4.79
Witches Abroad (Discworld)

Witches Abroad (Discworld)

by Terry Pratchett
4.6 out of 5 stars (29)  £5.99
Guards! Guards! (Discworld Novel)

Guards! Guards! (Discworld Novel)

by Terry Pratchett
4.7 out of 5 stars (37)  £5.49
Pyramids (Discworld Novel)

Pyramids (Discworld Novel)

by Terry Pratchett
4.3 out of 5 stars (22)  £5.49
Explore similar items

Product details

  • Hardcover: 288 pages
  • Publisher: Gollancz (Nov 1990)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0575047631
  • ISBN-13: 978-0575047631
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 300,664 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Product Description

Product Description
One of the "Discworld" novels. All hell breaks loose when some bright inhabitants of Discworld discover the romance of the silver screen and start selling it to the other inhabitants. As the alien cliches of Tinsel Town pour into the world, the dark secret of Holy Wood Hill must be uncovered.

From the Back Cover
‘Holy Wood is a different sort of place. People act differently here. Everywhere else the most important things are gods or money or cattle. Here, the most important thing is to be important.’

People might say that reality is a quality that things possess in the same way that they possess weight. Sadly alchemists never really held with such a quaint notion. They think that they can change reality, shape it to their own purpose. Imagine then the damage that could be wrought if they get their hands on the ultimate alchemy: the invention of motion pictures, the greatest making of illusions. It may be a triumph of universe-shaking proportions. It’s either that or they’re about to unlock the dark terrible secret of the Holy Wood hills – by mistake… --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Product Description


Inside This Book (Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Search inside this book:

Suggested Tags from Similar Products

 (What's this?)
Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
Check a corresponding box or enter your own tags in the field below
(15)
(14)
(10)

Your tags: Add your first tag
 

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Moving Pictures (Discworld)
82% buy the item featured on this page:
Moving Pictures (Discworld) 4.6 out of 5 stars (19)
Small Gods (Discworld Novel)
6% buy
Small Gods (Discworld Novel) 4.5 out of 5 stars (44)
£5.99
Guards! Guards! (Discworld Novel)
5% buy
Guards! Guards! (Discworld Novel) 4.7 out of 5 stars (37)
£5.49
Mort (Discworld Novel)
4% buy
Mort (Discworld Novel) 4.5 out of 5 stars (60)
£3.99

 

Customer Reviews

19 Reviews
5 star:
 (12)
4 star:
 (6)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.6 out of 5 stars (19 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Chock-full of movie jokes, 14 Jan 2003
With Moving Pictures, Terry Pratchett turns his unique powers of satire and parody to poke fun at the power and history of the movie industry. This book is so full of brilliant in-jokes and sly nods that I'm sure I didn't notice half of them. But as usual, the story is sufficiently gripping and thought provoking that it can be enjoyed even if you don't get all the jokes. Of Pratchett's regular characters, the real star this time is Dibbler, who turns all of his sausage-vending mercenary powers into those of a profit-hungry movie producer with hilarious results. A pre-Watch Detritus the Troll and various Wizards also play cameos. Well worth a read for fans of Pratchett and/or the cinema.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars We Are Such Stuff As Dreams Are Made Of,, 8 Feb 2005
By Leonard Fleisig "Len" (Washington, D.C.) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)      
. . . and our little life is rounded with a sleep." This snippet of Prospero's from Shakespeare's The Tempest, was beautifully ad libbed by Humphrey Bogart during the filming of The Maltese Falcon. It pretty much sums up the experience I took out of reading Terry Pratchett's Moving Pictures. Life in Holy Wood, like life on Prospero's island is one where magical events occur encouraged by a host of spirits. Since these magical events unfold in that piece of the universe known as Discworld, they unfold with wit, humor, and more than a bit of thought.

As the title suggests, Moving Pictures is Pratchett's take on Hollywood. In a manner similar to his approach to Men at Arms, The Truth, and Going Postal, Pratchett takes the development of the motion picture industry and through the literary equivalent of time-lapse photography compresses it so that the reader experiences in a brief time span that which occurred over decades on our slower-moving planet. The result is hilariously funny and made me shake my head and murmur, how did we let this nonsense happen.

CAST OF CHARACTERS: As a click trailer might say: Introducing Victor and Ginger (think Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers) as the leading man and lady of this epic. Also new to Discworld is Thomas Silverfish (think Samuel Goldwyn of MGM fame), the first big producer on Discworld. As in Casablanca, Pratchett has also rounded up the usual suspects. Cut Me Own Throat Dibbler (can't think of a character on earth that remotely resembles Dibbler!) and Gaspode (think Oscar Levant as played by a stray dog) are featured prominently and hilariously. This is a big step up for these two contract players in the Discworld series! Rounding out the featured players is that zany group of performers known as the wizards, led by their fearless librarian (think the Keystone Kops meets Planet of the Apes). And, as they say, a cast of thousands, including assorted trolls, an overly obsequious dog known as Laddie (think Lassie) and other delightful diverse denizens of Discworld.

THE PLOT: The plot is simple. It is about the power of dreams in a world, as Dibbler might say, "gone mad". Dreams, particularly the dreams of Ginger, play a critical role in the book. A group of alchemists have invented movies or clicks as they come to be known on Discworld. Fearing that such magic might anger the wizards of Unseen University the alchemists move out of Ankh-Morpork to a strange and wondrous place called Holy Wood. In what seems like only days, clicks become the next big thing. People from around Discworld come to Holy Wood for no apparent reason other than a strange compulsion. Perhaps mysterious forces are at work? The excitement level gradually builds, the outlines of an evil, dark plot by the spirit world reveals itself as in a dream, until all heck breaks loose. Victor strives valiantly to save the universe with the wizards following close behind in a manner reminiscent of the Keystone Kops. The climactic fight scene is both dramatic and hilariously funny. Of course, the fun in any Pratchett novel is not the ending but the journey. Hollywood references abound. It is always fun trying to spot some, even those which Pratchett may never have intended. Dibbler's hilarious product placements and his `invention' of subliminal advertising were worth the price of admission.

Some have suggested that Moving Pictures is not as `good' as his other Discworld books. There is an inference, perhaps, that it does not address profound issues relating to life, the universe and everything as was the case in Mort, Small Gods, or Thief of Time. For me, however, the profusion of cultural gods (from Valentino to Pacino) created by Hollywood and its enormous impact on popular culture throughout the world seems just as worthy of the typical Pratchett treatment as small gods in the form of a turtle. I also have to add that it was a pleasure seeing both Gaspode and Dibbler in more prominent roles.

All in all, as I finished Discworld I kept coming back to Bogart looking wistfully at the worthless Maltese Falcon that so many people had died in pursuit of their dreams. Perhaps for his next click, Dibbler can have Victor close by reminding the audience that, like Prospero:

Our revels now are ended: these our actors
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yes, and all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a wrack behind: We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

Th-th-th-that's all folks!!!

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Hooray for Holy Wood, 8 Jan 2003
By Daniel Jolley "darkgenius" (Shelby, North Carolina USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
Moving Pictures is a delightful farce that introduces us to some of the Discworld�s most interesting citizens. The evil forces of Holy Wood have lain buried under the sand for countless generations, but then, in the kind of luck typical of life on the Discworld, the guardian is rendered incapable of guarding the power. As the non-wizard magic of Holy Wood quickly escapes from its timeless sleep, inhabitants from all over the Discworld find themselves drawn to the spot out in the middle of nowhere, and they all want to be a part of the new moving pictures (or clickies) business. The alchemists delight in sidestepping the authority of wizards by coming up with some non-wizard magic of their own. To make a clickie, you just need a box full of little imps, and when you turn the handle the imps draw what they see in front of them, and they do it very quickly because there are whips connected to the turning handle. Most people have a hard time figuring out just what these clickies are and how they work, but the citizens of Ankh-Morpork instantly fall in love with them, lining up in droves for the chance to see little five-minute long, soundless clickies of historical and educational interests�at first. Then none other than Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler, famed salesmen of sausage in a bun and other pseudo-culinary tidbits (whose fame comes from the fact that he can actually sell his sausages in a bun to people on more than one occasion) gets the calling, basically takes over the whole business, and starts making epics filled with danger and fighting and romance, some of them taking the better part of a whole day to film. The milkmaid Ginger and Victor Tugelbend (a student wizard who is generally acknowledged to be the laziest person on the Discworld) find themselves the leading lady and man of cinema and they are the first to figure out that something is terribly wrong in Holy Wood. Holy Wood magic is not really real, and what it is actually doing is wearing away the barrier between reality, always in rather short supply on the Discworld, and the Dungeon Dimensions, where all kinds of terrible entities sit waiting to come in. The first person to really figure out the danger is not a person at all, but rather Gaspode the Wonder Dog (not to be confused with the ingratiatingly obedient and thus wildly popular Laddie the Wonder Dog). He�s a mangy little mutt of a dog really, but he does something most dogs can�t do�he talks. He talks a lot, grumbling about life as a talking dog and constantly warning Victor about all the �boding� going on up on the hill. Well, things all come to a head when Dibbler makes the most lavish moving picture ever, Discworld�s version of Gone With the Wind, and the evil that Victor, Ginger, Gaspode, and the Librarian must ultimately contest is a Lovecraftian being from the outside, with all kinds of tentacles and other nasty bits.

There are more unforgettable characters in this novel than I can describe here. For me, though, the senior wizards pretty much steal the show. After seeing a poster of the scantily-clad Ginger�s newest and biggest movie, they decide that they need to find out what all this clickies nonsense is about. Of course, they can�t let anyone know they are wizards so they come up with the brilliant idea of putting wire in their beards to make them look like fake beards (ingenious, really, in my opinion). A special delight is old Windle Poons; he may be the oldest, most deaf wizard still alive, but he behaves quite like a youngster when he goes out on the town. This tenth book in the Discworld series sorts of takes the reader in a new direction, centering on brand new characters but incorporating a few familiar faces that manage to keep things lively from start to finish. Looking back, it may have dragged a little in the middle, and the ending wasn�t overly spectacular, but it was a pure joy to read. There is wit galore here but not too much satire, making this a fairly carefree book to be read strictly for the pleasure of it. There are numerous references to popular films, and I was really delighted to see Pratchett give the horrors from the Dungeon Dimensions an obvious Cthulhuian cast. Moving Pictures would be a great book with which to introduce yourself to the Discworld universe; you can enjoy it immensely without having read the previous nine books, and there are laughs to be found on every single page.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars The book of the film(s)
The one where Tinseltown comes to the Discworld, Gaspode the Wonder Dog takes a bow, and film starts to seriously and adversely affect the nature of reality. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Jeremy Bevan

5.0 out of 5 stars Smile Please and Again and Again and Again . . .

Terry Pratchett has become one of the most popular authors alive today and his popularity is richly deserved. Read more
Published 17 months ago by J. Chippindale

5.0 out of 5 stars Moving Pictures review.
Moving Pictures is an extremely hilarious book.In Moving Pictures the alchemists guild have invented films and now the oddest civil war film ever made is being shot in Holy... Read more
Published on 19 Feb 2006

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant Entertainment!
IF you dont like this book, then theres something wrong with you. This novel is one of my favourite Pratchett's so far. how does he dream this up? Read more
Published on 29 Jan 2006 by smeghead1978

4.0 out of 5 stars Imp-powered cameras, what ever next?
A stray idea leaks into the discworld through a portal that had been sealed and guarded for hundreds of years, until the last guardian passed away. Read more
Published on 6 Jan 2006 by Sally-Anne

4.0 out of 5 stars Almost perfect....
Moving Pictures, the 10th Discworld novel, finds Pratchett continuing to move away from satirising the fantasy genre, and marks the first occasion where he uses the device of... Read more
Published on 5 Jun 2005 by dogbarkssome

5.0 out of 5 stars Illusions of grandeur . . .
. . . are best accompanied by some "banged grains", which, with butter and salt added, taste just like "salted butter". Read more
Published on 17 Dec 2004 by Stephen A. Haines

5.0 out of 5 stars Hilariously funny!
This is the tenth book in Terry Pratchett's series on the Discworld--a flat world, supported on the back of four massive elephants riding on the back of a planet-sized turtle,... Read more
Published on 14 Sep 2004 by Kurt A. Johnson

5.0 out of 5 stars Holy Wood magic by Terry Pratchett magic
Victor Tugelbend ("Can't sing. Can't dance. Can handle a sword a little") and Theda Withel ("I come from a little town you've probably never heard of")are the... Read more
Published on 29 Dec 2001 by rui.pedro.leite@ntc.pt

5.0 out of 5 stars Holy hilarious Wood
The alchemists are on it again. Moving pictures, a satire about Holy Wood and Holy Wood dreams where anyone and everyone can become famous. Read more
Published on 4 Jun 2001 by csot@rocketmail.com

Only search this product's reviews



Customer Discussions

 Beta (What's this?)
This product's forum (0 discussions)
  Discussion Replies Latest Post
  No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
  [Cancel]


   
Related forums


Listmania!


Look for similar items by category


Feedback


The Light Fantastic

The Light Fantastic

Another "Discworld" novel. In this episode, the Discword is moving... Read more
£7.99 £4.79

Find similar items

 

More From Terry Pratchett

Unseen Academicals

Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett

Football has come to the ancient city of Ankh-Morpork - not the old... Read more
£18.99 £11.99

 

We've Got Converse

Converse
Stock up on your favourite styles with great deals on Converse shoes.

Shop Converse

 

Treat Someone

Amazon.co.uk Gift Certificates--available in any amount from £5 to £500 With an Amazon.co.uk Gift Certificate, you can get them what they want (even if you don't know what that is).

Learn more about Gift Certificates

 
Ad

Where's My Stuff?

Delivery and Returns

Need Help?

Your Recent History

  (What's this?)
You have no recently viewed items or searches.

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.

Look to the right column to find helpful suggestions for your shopping session.

Continue Shopping: Top Sellers
The Girl Who Played with Fire
Breaking Dawn (Twilight Saga)
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
The Host
The Host by Stephenie Meyer

amazon.co.uk Amazon Home
International Sites:  United States  |  Germany  |  France  |  Japan  |  Canada  |  China
Business Programs: Sell on Amazon  |  Fulfilment by Amazon  |  Join Associates  |  Join Advantage
Customer Service  |  Help  |  View Basket  |  Your Account
About Amazon.co.uk  |  Careers at Amazon
Conditions of Use & Sale |  Privacy Notice  © 1996-2009, Amazon.com, Inc. and its affiliates