Talk:Book:Nation

Nation was picked as the first choice in children's books for Christmas in yesterday's Toronto Star. --Old Dickens 22:55, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Constant Readers may have noticed that I'm on a Nation kick. What boggles the mind is the apparent unpopularity of this book here or in general. Isn't this a better book, on the grand scale, than Making Money? Is it not the hottest prospect in the whole catalog for a movie deal? (Yes, the cigar-waver who wanted to "lose the Death angle" would say that the two-kids-on-the-desert-island has been done, but it's not the same.) Can anyone suggest what this book lacks, or has too much of, to be so neglected?

I do allow that it's a book for very bright children only; the Author's Note suggests that thinking about it may be necessary. It's probably even harder than Tiffany's darker moments. --Old Dickens 02:50, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

I ,for one , really enjoyed Nation. However I've only read it three times so far, unlike Pyramids, Wyrd Sisters and Intresting Times which are well into double digits. It's simpler to write quality material on stuff you know well.

But, as has been pointed out, Nation seems underrepresented at this L-space wiki. I'll make an effort to contribute material (all camels and all opera has been covered so I should have time). Iron Hippo 22:59, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

First order of buisniess. 1: Learn to spell. B: Bring my copy of Nation to my mindnumbingly boorring shift as signalman at Almunge tomorrow. 3. Re-read it, 4:Make some sense Iron Hippo 21:33, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

There is a good interview with Terry Pratchett on the subject of Nation in the Telegraph. These are some quotations from it, but the whole thing is worth reading:

"As it happens, this one rather wrote itself. I began with the initial image of a boy standing on the shore, screaming at the gods, and from that point, I kept writing just to keep up with the images in my head."

"I knew there had to be a ship, I knew one passenger had to survive, and I knew that the passenger had to be a girl," says the author. "Not only do she and Mau not understand each other's language, but there is the gender barrier between them as well. They come from completely different backgrounds, completely alien cultures, with no point of reference between them, not even symbols."

"If I've learnt nothing else about writing fantasy, it is that to do it successfully you have to keep at least one foot in the real world," says the author. "To be really effective, fantasy should be no more than a micrometer from the truth."

"There has to be some kind of understanding that the world is not governed by Walt Disney," insists Pratchett. "As the aftermath of the waves recedes, and they put all their effort into rebuilding the nation, both Mau and Daphne are presented with these huge challenges. Both in their way are irrevocably lonely, and they only gradually come to understand that, on the whole, they prefer to be lonely with each other."

In a 2009 National Theatre publication, Terry Pratchett said, "My inspiration for the book came about six or seven years ago, before the Asian tsunami actually happened. It then went on the back-burner for a while because I didn’t want people to think I was picking up on real-life events. In the end I felt that I had to write this story and the narrative really unrolled itself so it was a case of me keeping up with its progress. It is not unusual for a book to come in a burst such as Nation did. The first novel I ever wrote was for children and I find that children’s books really fly."

He put other things aside to work on Nation. It took him a year.

There is currently (November 2009) a production of Nation as a play, adapted by Mark Ravenhill, at the National Theatre in London. Nation will be be broadcast to cinema audiences as part of NT Live in January 2010.

The National Theatre has teamed up with The Guardian newspaper to launch a competition for 10-17 yr olds to create their own short film based on an extract from Nation, with the winners films screened before the NT Live broadcast on 30 January 2010.

There are good interviews with Terry Pratchett about Nation on Youtube:

7 minutes

[3 minutes: Part of the National Theatre competition]

synopsis

Are we going to write synopsis' for these books? --ArchchancellorJoe 16:18, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

We haven't before and I hope not and there's a fine for greengrocers' apostrophes (no apostrophe). --Old Dickens 17:35, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Missing Pages While looking around the pages linked to this book I found that there are three pages that existe but are blank when opened; should they be deleted or left as they are? The pages are Pilu, Raiders and Polegrave. --Zdm 19:43, 14 June 2011 (CEST)