Review: Lords & Ladies by Sir Terry Pratchett

Publication Date: November 1^st 1993 (this edition)
Publisher: Corgi
Length: 382 pages

The fairies are back – but this time they don’t just want your teeth…
Granny Weatherwax and her tiny coven are up against real elves.
It's Midsummer Night.
No times for dreaming...
With full supporting cast of dwarfs, wizards, trolls, Morris dancers and one orang-utan. And lots of hey-nonny-nonny and blood all over the place.

Well that was intense.

It’s been well documented here over the last few months, my first foray into the Witches thread of the Discworld books, and I finally made it onto the fourth instalment, which effectively blew me away. Up until now, my favourite had been ‘Wyrd Sisters’ but something about ‘Lords & Ladies’ really clicked for me and it’s now vying for top spot.

I’ve found with past Pratchett novels that the action takes its time to build up, and the first two thirds are generally spent weaving several seemingly random stories that suddenly intertwine and snowball into a brilliant climax. Not so here. The action kicks off right from the start, and whilst there were a few sections that take their time, and storylines that amble along at their own pace, I was thoroughly hooked and engrossed in the story right from the first page.

It features some truly brilliant character development, particularly in the case of Magrat who has a real shift which was fascinating to watch unfold. But also with Granny Weatherwax, who continues to be brilliantly acidic, but with a slightly softer side she likes to keep well-hidden and cowed into submission.

This story takes stories set in motion in previous novels and builds upon them, although a brief summary at the start gives you an overview if you’re coming into this novel without the background laid out in the previous books. It also felt darker and at times scarier than I’ve come to expect from Discworld novels, which kept me on my toes and gave me chills whilst I was reading. This is definitely fairies as you’ve never seen them before, and they are not the nice kind…

All in all this is another fantastic Discworld instalment, offering brilliant character development, more acerbic wit and a brilliant melding of other stories and ideas into one insane yet brilliant whole. Pratchett has definitely found his feet within the Discworld now and it shows in one of the strongest novels I’ve read yet in the Witches thread.

Review: Witches Abroad by Sir Terry Pratchett

Publication Date: December 23^rd 1998 (this edition)
Publisher: Corgi
Length: 288 pages

Things have to come to an end, see. That's how it works when you turn the world into stories. You should never have done that. You shouldn't treat people like they was characters, like they was things. But if you do, then you've got to know where the story ends.'
It seemed an easy job... After all, how difficult could it be to make sure that a servant girl doesn't marry a prince? Quite hard, actually, even for the witches Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick. That's the problem with real life – it tends to get in the way of a good story, and a good story is hard to resist. Servant girls have to marry the prince. That's what life is all about. You can't fight a Happy Ending, especially when it comes with glass slippers and a Fairy Godmother who has made Destiny an offer it can't refuse.
At least - up until now...

I’ve been thoroughly enjoying my discovery of the Witches of the Discworld, particularly ‘Wyrd Sisters’ and I knew that this third outing would have to work incredibly hard to live up to the brilliantly high bar set by the preceding book.

On the whole it succeeds, but it didn’t quite recapture the magnificence of ‘Wyrd Sisters’ for me as I found the earlier parts of the story to lag and not hold my attention in quite the way I hoped. It’s still a brilliant story and Pratchett flexes his truly impressive writing skills to combine a fantastic array of fairy tales, twisting them into something quite unique.

I loved seeing Granny, Nanny and Magrat out of their element and exploring the Discworld. The combination of countries, cultures and languages that Pratchett appropriates is utterly brilliant, and I don’t think anything will ever beat Nanny speaking the local lingo. Unless it’s Greebo in person form, which was one of the best things I have ever seen.

As with other Pratchett’s the threads are set up and the story ambles along at its own pace for the first two thirds of the novel, which is fun to read but didn’t particularly grab my attention and force me to read. As a result I spent quite a while ambling through this novel around other books and didn’t find myself thoroughly hooked by the story until everything starts to snowball in typical Pratchett style. As everything comes together and we flit between view points as the action coalesces into one glorious whole, that is when Pratchett truly shines and I found myself thoroughly engrossed and unable (and unwilling) to relinquish the story until I’d seen it through to its end.

I love the directions Pratchett takes the Witches on their third outing, I love seeing the character development and the masterful twisting of other tales into one brilliant and unique whole. This may not have been my favourite Witches instalment, but it is still a bitingly funny, brilliantly written book.

Review: Wyrd Sisters by Sir Terry Pratchett

Publication Date: November 1^st 1989
Publisher: Corgi
Length: 332 pages

Witches are not by nature gregarious, and they certainly don't have leaders. Granny Weatherwax was the most highly-regarded of the leaders they didn't have. But even she found that meddling in royal politics was a lot more difficult than certain playwrights would have you believe...

And so my Discworld Witches education continues with the second book in the thread, and this one went down even better than the first.
I really enjoyed ‘Equal Rites’ but it still felt like it was very early on in the conception of Discworld, before Pratchett really hit his stride of weird and wonderful awesome. However ‘Wyrd Sisters’ left me with no such feelings and I fell in love with this one, storming through it in one night and frequently cackling out loud at the genius.

Pratchett messing around with Macbeth is quite frankly comic gold. I loved the twisting of the original play, the unfound comedy that comes to light through his shaking and poking and the all-round awesome of the Witches themselves.

As the cauldron bubbled an eldritch voice shrieked: 'When shall we three meet again?'
There was a pause. 
Finally another voice said, in a far more ordinary tones: 'Well, I can do next Tuesday.'

The tone is set from the very first line, this is going to be a book that isn’t afraid to be utterly superbly insane. Whilst I enjoyed all of the different characters and plot threads, any scene involving the three witches was an instant favourite that found me messaging Sarah with particularly superb lines from them as I tried not to lose my place in the book from laughing too hard. Notable favourites are Granny going to the theatre for the first time and the demon summoning.

My only problem is something that I find with most Pratchett novels that things tend to get a little bit meandery in the middle. He likes to take his time, to thoroughly set up and explore all the threads and weave them into the rough shape he wants before suddenly in the last section tugging on everything and turning it into a free for all of awesome. It leaves you feeling thoroughly satisfied with the end, but a little bit less enthusiastic in the middle unless you’re in the mood for a read that is quite happy to take its time.However I’ve now read enough Pratchett’s to expect this slight lag and instead of feeling frustrated I just enjoy the ride knowing we’re going to be in for one hell of a final act.

‘Wyrd Sisters’ has firmly cemented the Witches as favourites. I adore Granny Weatherwax, and I’m loving seeing her evolve from the first book into the character I met in ‘The Shepherd’s Crown’. This book is a favourite Discworld outing and I cannot wait to get onto the next one in the thread.

Review: Equal Rites by Sir Terry Pratchett

Publication Date: October 1^st 1989
Publisher: Corgi
Length: 283 pages

The last thing the wizard Drum Billet did before Death laid a bony hand on his shoulder, was to pass on his staff of power to the eighth son of an eighth son.  Unfortunately for his colleagues in the chauvinistic (not to say misogynistic) world of magic, he failed to check on the new-born baby's sex...

Whilst I was reading ‘The Shepherd’s Crown’ I ended up talking about it with my lovely friend Sarah who also happened to be reading it at the same time, and I had to admit that whilst I have read many Discworld books, I tend to pick a character thread and read along that for a while when I pick up a Pratchett, and horror of horrors, I had not actually read a Witches thread book before.

To which Sarah responded STOP READING THE SHEPHERD’S CROWN NOW, PUT IT DOWN THIS INSTANT AND GO BACK TO THE BEGINNING. And she started telling me about how awesome the beginning was and ended up getting all nostalgic, so we came to a compromise. I would be allowed to finish TSC with the acknowledgement that it wasn’t the best in the Witches thread, and then we would both go back to the beginning and start reading them together.

So I finished, and I read, and I loved.

It has all the incredible weird hilarity that is so typical of Pratchett’s work. The ridiculous names, the oddball collection of characters, the utterly bizarre plots, it’s all there and all at its sparkling brilliance. There isn’t yet the sense of complete ease that comes in later novels when Pratchett has established exactly what he’s doing, but the trademark brilliance is there in abundance. I love the meandering of the plot as it flows along collecting seemingly random characters and moments until suddenly you hit the final stretch of the novel and everything kicks off and it all comes together into one explosive whole. It’s an art form and a thing of beauty to see done so well.

One thing I particularly love about Pratchett’s novels is his ability to take issues that we’re experiencing in the world now and twist them into these utterly absurd parallel situations in the Discworld – a kind of skewed mirror held up so we can see exactly how insane these issues really are. In Equal Rites he tackles sexism and the definition of male and female roles, and he does so spectacularly. I adored the dismissiveness on both sides of how women could only ever be witches and men only ever be wizards and never the two shall meet. I loved how it came out in ridiculously brilliant dialogue and action packed moments, and you know, I think Granny Weatherwax is definitely a new favourite. And that’s just from her first novel, I think when I get back to ‘The Shepherd’s Crown’ at the end of this I’m going to be a wreck re-reading that.

It’s a fantastic start to the witches thread, and has left me incredibly eager to get straight onto the next one and fill in all the gaps in my knowledge. So expect a fair amount of Pratchett here over the next few weeks as I fill in the woeful holes in my Discworld reading.

Review: The Shepherd's Crown by Terry Pratchett

Publication Date: August 27^th 2015
Publisher: Doubleday Children’s/Penguin Random House UK Children’s
Length: 344 pages

Thanks to Netgalley and Doubleday Children’s/Penguin Random House UK Children’s for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review

A shivering of worlds
Deep in the Chalk, something is stirring. The owls and the foxes can sense it, and Tiffany Aching feels it in her boots. An old enemy is gathering strength.
This is a time of endings and beginnings, old friends and new, a blurring of edges and a shifting of power. Now Tiffany stands between the light and the dark, the good and the bad.
As the fairy horde prepares for invasion, Tiffany must summon all the witches to stand with her. To protect the land. Her land. 
There will be a reckoning...

This is a really hard review to write, because on the one hand there is a part of me feeling devastated this is Terry Pratchett’s last novel and the bittersweet melancholy and love of Discworld part of me wants to give it a full five stars. But there is another part of me that (reading it objectively) knows that this just isn’t as good as some of his other novels.

It states in the afterword that this book isn’t in the fully finished state that we have come to expect from Pratchett’s works. He had finished writing it, in that it is a complete story with ‘a beginning, a middle, and an end’ but it is not finished finished. Not polished and honed and fully explored. And that shows. There is something missing from this book, some spark or sharpness that I have loved in all of Pratchett’s other works, where yes it is a good story, but it isn’t brilliant.

The writing wavers intermittently between the brilliance we have all come to expect, and something less focused. There were whole swathes where I felt (I hate to say this) a little bored reading it, where the writing ambled at a much slower pace and with less focus or purpose. Which is partly why it was so hard to rate because there were those dreaded parts where I wasn’t enjoying the story so much that it dropped to a three, and other parts where the story picked up and I was laughing and thrilled and loving it where it was a solid four. Those are the sections where it is abundantly clear that this was not the finished story that Pratchett wanted to tell. They read like an outline of scenes and ideas with little character, and so it is a strange read this mix of Pratchett genius with Pratchett thoughts combined into a ‘finished’ piece. There are also several subplots that appear and then disappear randomly and would obviously have had a lot more to them had he had the time he wanted to finish it. As a result the ending feels a little rushed and haphazard, but it is no less satisfying to read.

I don’t want to discuss the plot because I don’t want to spoil anything, but it is very well done. It was bittersweet and a fitting last novel – I’m not ashamed to admit that I was in tears at several parts. It felt at points, as though Pratchett knew this would be the last and is infusing the story with that knowledge.

If you haven’t read any Pratchett novels before I don’t recommend starting with this one. ‘The Shepherd’s Crown’ is not his best novel, and you are far better off starting with one of his earlier ones and coming to it at a later point. However for returning fans of Discworld, of the Witches, of Tiffany Aching, this book (whilst not quite on a par with his usual brilliance) will be a must read. It’s bittersweet with moments of brilliance, and still an incredibly good novel. Just be aware going in that whilst it ‘has a beginning, a middle and an end’ this is not the finished novel that Pratchett most likely would have wanted readers to find. Enjoy it simply, for what it is – the last new outing in Discworld we will have.

Review: Snuff by Sir Terry Pratchett

According to the writer of the best-selling crime novel ever to have been published in the city of Ankh-Morpork, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a policeman taking a holiday would barely have had time to open his suitcase before he finds his first corpse. 
And Commander Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch is on holiday in the pleasant and innocent countryside, but not for him a mere body in the wardrobe. There are many, many bodies and an ancient crime more terrible than murder. 
He is out of his jurisdiction, out of his depth, out of bacon sandwiches, and occasionally snookered and out of his mind, but never out of guile. Where there is a crime there must be a finding, there must be a chase and there must be a punishment. 
They say that in the end all sins are forgiven. 
But not quite all...

“Where there's policeman there's crime, sergeant, remember that.”
 “Yes I do sir, although I think it sounds better with a little re-ordering of the words...”

So Sir Terry Pratchett’s latest Discworld novel hits bookstores today, and I was lucky enough to receive an advance copy of it to review.

Where shall I start? It is classic Pratchett, with all of the fabulous wry humour and characters we know and love. In this particular instance Sam Vimes is back to the foreground and chaffing against the bonds of ‘relaxation’ and ‘holiday’ and you just know that where Vimes goes, trouble will invariably be there to welcome him with a banner and parade. And in usual Vimsey style is not going to go down the route of time off without a fight.

“Commander Vimes's badge Sir, as delivered to me by Captain Carrot.”
“Sealed?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then it doesn't have Vimes's badge in it.”
“No sir, a careful examination of the envelope suggests it contains an empty tin of double thunder snuff...”

In this case the holiday involves finally going to the countryside to see Lady Sybil’s family estate, which involves plenty of opportunities for Vimes to be thoroughly grumpy about country ways, the lack of streets for a copper to walk, and to also drag it (kicking and screaming) to keep up with Ankh-Morpork.

“It's customary to give Mr Coffin a penny. In the old days my father kept a little charcoal brazier in the coach, you know, in theory to keep warm but mostly to heat up pennies before picking them up in some tongs and tossing them out for the gatekeeper to catch. Apparently everyone enjoyed it, or so my grandfather said, but we don't do that anymore.”

Vimes has gotten older, has has Young Sam since we last saw him in ‘Thud’ with ‘Where’s my Cow?’ every evening like clockwork. He’s now progressed to reading to Vimes, and books invariably filled with poo and other bodily functions. It was great to see him grow up, see how Vimes is coping with juggling work and family, and to see what sort of person this baby is turning into.

The Vimes’s would not be complete without Sybil, who I personally hero worship. She’s strong and feisty and absolutely fabulous. Who else would keep Vimes in line and eating salad? Salad?...

“You would have found that she has at her command a considerable amount of weaponry and, knowing the temper of the Ramkins, she would have quite probably done things to you that would make Wilikins say ‘Whoa that’s going a bit too far.’”

And let’s not forget Wilikins, who I hadn’t really gotten a feel for in previous books (bearing in mind that I only became acquainted with Sam Vimes in ‘Nightwatch’ and I know I have some history to catch up on at the earliest possible moment. So Wilikins, didn’t know much about him, but he seemed quite cool, and handy in a tight spot. He completely owned it in this book, I love him. Can I be team Wilikins and Sybil? Because between them I think they could take over the world.

“She says it makes me look dashing,” said Vimes morosely. “Do you think it makes me look dashing? Am I a dashing sort of person, would you say?”
“I’d put you down as more the sprinting sort, sir,” said Wilikins.

So yes, we have old characters, we have new characters, all explored and introduced with the brilliant skill we’ve come to expect from Pratchett.
And we have plot which you know is going to be awesome – how could it not be? And innuendos and pithy lines galore.

“Well dear, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a man with a lot of wood must be in want of a wife who can handle a great big – ”
Lady Sybil interrupted sharply: “Sam Vimes, I believe that you intend to make an indelicate remark?”
“I think you got there before me,” said Vimes, grinning. “You generally do dear, admit it.”

My only complaint is that the first third to half of any Pratchett book I read is good, funny, very well written, but it doesn’t grab me. I don’t have that urgent need to pick up the book and keep reading. As a result it can sometimes take me a while to get going, whereas normally I’d be done with a book in a matter of days.

However, there is always a point where things really kick off, and I get this rush of adrenaline and a feeling of ‘yes, this is it, here we go!’ and from that point I can’t stop, it’s fabulous, and it’s got me, and by hell I want more. I want to finish this one and go away and read all the other Discworld books now, at once, altogether please.So whilst there is nothing wrong with anything in the first half, it did take me a while to really feel invested in the story.

We also have Pratchetts fabulous satire of the world part 39. I’m really pleased to see that the themes explored in this book were a lot darker. They’ve been getting darker as the series has progressed, and it’s really exciting to see where he takes the character’s. After all with this many books in the series, it seems hard to keep the momentum going, but this book is just as strong as some of his earlier ones. He blends humour and day to day activity, with high terror, thrills and excitement, as well as a healthy dose of philosophy,

“Do not seek perfection. None exists. All we can do is strive.”

exquisite writing Vimes also indulged in a rare cigar because, well, what good is a snooker room without smoke twisting among the lights and turning the air a desolate blue, the colour of dead hopes and lost chances?

and a long hard look at the world around us.

“Of course we went on trying, because that’s the military way!”
“You mean, pile dreadful failure on top of failure?” said Vimes.

It’s magical and fun and an absolute must for all Pratchett fans. Sam Vimes is a personal favourite of mine, and I love any chance to go and see what he’s getting up to next – I just hope we get to find out what happens after.

“How went your holidays, apart from lawless actions, ad hoc activities, fights, chases on both land and sea and indeed freshwater, unauthorized expenditure, and, of course, farting in the halls of the mighty?”
Vimes’s gaze was steady and just above the Patrician’s eye line.
“Point of detail my lord: didn’t fart, may have picked nose inadvertently.”