monkeysvsrobots.com » Terry Pratchett

A couple of weeks ago, I finished Terry Pratchett’s Reaper Man. Since then, I’ve been trying to think of witty and intelligent ways to say how great this book is. I can’t do it. Terry Pratchett’s wit is more intricate and humorous than anything I could whip up without one heck of a lot of coffee and a little luck. The puns and sarcasm crash into these pileups on the pages, and your attention is required and is frequently rewarded. This is the first book of his that I’ve read, and I’m looking forward to many more.

This adventure of Pratchett’s Discworld series starts with the all-seeing Auditors firing the embodiment of Death from his job of delivering dead souls to the afterlife. Death is given a short span of time in which to live before he must meet his end at the hands of a new Death. While the new Death is getting settled into his new office, the rest of Pratchett’s Discworld. characters experience the dreaded aftereffects of Death’s dismissal. Ancient wizard Windle Poons is unable to cross into the afterlife and the surplus of living energy creates a strange infestation of frighteningly useful wire trolleys in addition to inexplicable amounts of stuff flying around. It’s up to Windle and his new undead friends at a Dead Rights group to figure out the mystery of the trolleys, while Death holds down a day job on a farm awaiting his inevitable show down with the enigmatic ‘new kid in town’.

Pratchett satires religious and popular fantasy icons to give us a world that is part Lord of the Rings, part Ringling Brothers Circus. The work excels as a fantasy/comedy that actually strains your brain a little in the background. What is most amazing is that Pratchett somehow manages to make a reader feel a certain degree of care for his characters even though they are mostly humorous stereotypes and bizarre twists on popular fantasy figures. It’s neat to invent a group of doddering wizards, but it’s truly amazing when a reader can find them as loveable characters through the reading of their ridiculous attempts to bury their undead friend out of decency.

With a cast of characters including, a she-werewolf, a vampire “by marriage”, and a Banshee who sends letters rather than screaming, this book is filled with irony of a silly kind (not the stupid-ass Alanis Morissette kind).

If you like to laugh, you should get this book. If you are tired of prose that are marred with drawn out over-done descriptive language, get a nice ice tea, find a good lounge chair, and read this book. If you like fantasy, but don’t want to be depressed by the plight of warring man, you should get your hands on this book and get a puppy. If you suffer from profuse anal bleeding, try to find something other than this book to use to stop the flow. You’ll be sorry if you did, because this book is great!

I had no real big problems with this book. A lack of descriptive language is refreshing. A farm is simply a farm. A bar, a bar. Everything you think would be there, pretty much is. Still, it means you have to use your imagination more, and that can be hard for some people who rely on every word in order to fully see the action. This is not D.H. Lawrence. This is good clean fun. Enjoy it. The only way I could have enjoyed this book any more, I’d have to have my own copy. I borrowed it; see, and that meant I couldn’t take it into the shower or flip pages with one hand while I scratch my nuts with the other. It just wouldn’t have felt right, ya know?