117. Lords and Ladies – Terry Pratchett

Witches. Witches. Witches. I really do love the adventures of the witches.

There is something about these grumpy, stand-offish ladies that really tickles me. Whether they are trying to speak ‘foreign’ on a holiday they don’t want to be on, or shouting at wizards for equal footing when it comes to magic. Shortly after the adventures of Witches Abroad, they come back to Lancre. Magrat is due to be married to the once court jester/fool now King, Verence II. But bigger and more terrifying then that, the magical barriers between worlds are weakening which means crop circles are appearing everywhere.

What is trying to get to Lancre has not only been there before but has an unpleasant history which has been glossed over and forgotten. It isn’t anything as harmless as trolls, or plague or ogres or giant spiders or bad wizards, but elves. Not those helpful frolicking sort that you leave a saucer of milk out for and they clean your dishes in return, but the sort that will control you, play with you for sport, and kill you. And why is this happening?

All because some silly girls in the village are playing at being witches and dancing naked under the moon by the magic stones known as the Dancers.

Lord and Ladies – Terry Pratchett

Up with this sort of thing Granny Weatherwax will not put.

Not a woman to be trifled with Weatherwax sets to work in educating these girls into why they shouldn’t be defying witches and has a staring contest with the sun.

Verence has sent invitations far and wide, one of which ends up in the hands of Archchancellor of the Unseen University the wizard Ridcully. Oddly enough he is eager to go as Lancre holds some old nostalgia for him, which is bittersweet, there was a girl whom he almost fell in love with and a path he almost didn’t take. So off he goes with a few hand picked staff in toe, including the Librarian.

Coinciding with the wedding is of course, a lot, because weddings never go to plan.

The ancient standing stones known as the Dancers serve as a portal protecting the Disc from the alternate universe where the elves, or Lord and Ladies, dwell. These elves are known to seduce with magic and glamour before moving in for the kill but are completely vulnerable to iron. And of course through that portal is dun dun dun Granny Weatherwax’s nemesis, the Queen of the Elves. Because who ELSE would be Granny Weatherwax’s nemesis if not a QUEEN OF SINISTER ELVES.

Of course, everyone, EVERYONE, literally EVERYONE in Lancre, including Magrat has the wrong idea about elves. And they are eager to welcome and invite the Lord and Ladies back because they’ve forgotten that elves are nasty creatures who live only to torture their prey.

Granny Weatherwax lives up to her reputation, with Nanny Ogg supporting her, instructing Magrat to go off to be Queen and stop witching. And generally being interfering and telling everyone what is good for them but funnily there’s a bit of love and romance for all three of our witches in this novel.

Nanny Ogg is seduced by a roguish suiter. Magrat is struggling with cold feet with her coming wedding and Granny Weatherwax comes face to face with a childhood sweetheart. Who of course, she gives a good telling off.

But don’t mistake me this is a darker novel, which is balanced out with some really entertaining humour. Not to mention that Granny Weatherwax is rounded out a little more in this novel and we learn a little more about her history as a witch. It comes to no surprise to anyone that Granny Weatherwax was a headstrong young girl, but when she was offered a seductive shortcut to power by a mysterious woman in red who stood at the centre of a stone circle she declined. Rather than taking the easy way out to witchcraft, Granny worked, learned, got crafty, grew older and craftier and decided it was for the best.

I got really invested in Lords and Ladies. Magrat is one of those characters that I tend to ignore and dismiss a little as I favour Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax but in this one she has some WONDERFUL scenes. From struggling with the demure-giving-up-herself-and-disappearing-into-a-wife-queeny role she realises her husband to be is still the same court jester he always was even if he is now king. And that gives her a royal kick up the arse to kick some arse.

But for me Granny Weatherwax is the absolute star of the show. And I am not ashamed to say that a few of the scenes at the end of Lords and Ladies had be welling up and sobbing. Never did I think I would cry at a Discworld novel but here we are, bizarre things happen every day. This is a really enjoyable novel that could stand alone from the other Witch adventures. I find Terry Pratchett a little hit and miss sometimes, but this is up there with my favourites and it is for the unstoppable, glorious force that is Granny Weatherwax. Long may she reign.

93. Raising Steam

It’s been a while since I’ve written about the Disc. So far this is the only Pratchett I’ve read this year and unfortunately I had an accident with a cup of tea and drenched it which is no reflection on my feelings about the novel. Again I just can’t make myself love another Moist Von Lipwig novel as much as I love Going Postal but I have made peace with that. I am a little sad to have completed this trio as it hadn’t been that long since I read Making Money and for a while I wished for more of the trickery and charisma of Moist. But the Discworld still has many unread books in it and I must admit recently I have been pining as it has been a good six months since I read this one.

So! There is always the satirical silliness and cleverness of Pratchett and in some way every book he has written is a little delicious. This one, as you may have guessed from the subtle (sarcasm) cover and title is about steam… and trains and steam… and trains and Goblins and a few other things.

Raising Steam – Terry Pratchett

I love steam. I was raised around traction engines and steam engines and coal and locomotives of one sort or another because my Dad is a Putt-Putt man. If you don’t know what that is, he is a steam enthusiast and also now proudly owns a Stationary Engine (which makes the noise Putt-Putt as it runs). If you’re unsure what a Stationary Engine is the clue is in the name, it is a heavy engine that is fixed or weighted to the floor and designed to drive a belt to make some manual task easier, such as running a saw, running a drill, or making a big hammer bang. But before he owned a Stationary Engine he was a coal guy for a big traction engine his mate would drive. He was a volunteer at the Black Country Museum running the engines there. He’d help his mate with his fairground organ by feeding the music into the box in the back. The heat and the soot and the smut of steam is quite nostalgic for me. As are memories of the long slow journeys of the Severn Valley Railway.

Raising Steam follows a similar ethos to Moist inventing the stamp or paper money and he spends a lot of time negotiating with the world to ensure change happens before Lord Vetinari gets too upset with him and Moist finds his head in the noose again.

The industrial revolution is already well on its’ way in Raising Steam, so naturally, there have been some individuals around the Disc experimenting with steam with mixed results. A scream and an explosion, leaves a son to grow up and decide to master his father’s work. Only Dick Simnel does a better job then his father and once he’s done his inventing he goes off to the big city to make his fortune and shows off his steam engine, the Iron Girder, to the right people. Harry King, takes interest at once, because who wants to be remembered as the guy who buys up and shovels all the shit in the city when you can be a rail baron?

As with the other novels in the Lord Vetinari’s world, sometimes there is an annoyance. An annoyance that can only be fixed by an opportunity and the right charismatic trickster at the reins. The narrative is about building a railway but it is also about Vetinari setting Moist off on a little job because he loathes travelling the long, long, long way by carriage to Bonk.

This novel can feel feel quite long winded at times, it can feel a bit like a long train journey with interludes of entertainment and long periods of description but mostly it is enjoyable. Moist seems to take on the role of dogsbody, being everywhere and anywhere at all times, negotiating land for the rails to be set down on, keeping Harry King and his hygienic wife happy and being crowd control. As with Making Money and Going Postal Moist knows how to entice a crowd’s curious nature and soon there are trainspotters springing up everywhere.

As a nice little social overtone of this novel the Goblins start to integrate into the cities and work for the Clacks. Once you get over the smell, they turn out to be clever creatures with strange names who seem pivotal within the novel’s narrative. But that isn’t all, there are fundamentalist dwarves, the grags, to contend with who are convinced change is bad and have been destroying Clack’s towers on the quiet.

The Grags are upset that young dwarves keep going into the city, and have begun befriending other species – even trolls. And this is apparently very bad form. There are also political undertones and capitalism and just about everyone in the Disc seems to be in this novel and obsessed with trains.

The laying of the steel tracks of the Ankh-Morpork and Sto Plains Hygienic Railway also coincides with a coo to dethrone the King of the dwarves. And Moist of course lends a hand in getting the King back to his throne and people and putting a stop to the fundamentalist ideas that are poisoning his people.

Steam is a thing that Pratchett writes about with great love and he puts the great love of steam into the Disc with ease. Simnel is besotted with his engine and seems to rebuild her and worship her and she in turns kills those that try to harm her (because there would have to be more psychotic objects on the Disc wouldn’t there?). The great love of the people for steam is very apparent with the hysteria (and sometimes fear) for the railways which of course are taken from our own history.

This is a novel of great industry with so much going on that even in through some of those halting slower moments there is something to think about and Pratchett gives us something to pause on. Even if Vetinari is tweaking the strings Moist is the only person who could be at the reigns negotiating this explosive industry for the disc. There’s also a lot of divisions in this novel of people hating people for one reason or another, whether that be species or the circumstances they find themselves with. As usual Pratchett cuts right to the bone of his social commentary and it’s a solid novel with a lot to say for itself.

As much a celebration of Steam and our love for it, which seems to forgotten by most, as a Discworld novel, social commentary, and satirical chuckle fest. We miss you Sir. We miss you very deeply.

86. Moving Pictures

This is one of the ‘one off’ books by Pratchett. With entirely new characters that don’t quite make the cut for later book (I assume as I haven’t read them all). This novel is quintessentially Pratchett: it could stand alone quite happily if you haven’t read many, but if you ever find yourself in conversation about Pratchett, you may find yourself describing the features of this novel. This novel is one that really hits (what I’m going to call for this post) the Pratchett Swag.

Pratchett Swag is all about distorting ideas or industries or poking fun at things and thoroughly doing a good job while making it funny or humorous or just a little plain weird. PS (yes I’m coining the term), seems to come and go for me, some novels feel really complete in their PS and others seem to drift a little from it. After reading a good handful I feel as if I’m getting the grasp on what PS really is. Moving Pictures is dripping with PS. But – it isn’t my favourite Discworld novel.

I’m not sure what it is that makes a Discworld novel really tick for me but it’s a combination of PS and something else (but what that something else is I’m not sure). We’ve already established my great love for Moist Von Lipwig and Miss. Dearheart in Going Postal, and the Witches and their weird antics in Witches Abroad but Moving Pictures just doesn’t quite get up there for me. It is somewhere higher than the Hogfather which I found slightly disappointing, but alas.

So where were we? There is a remote place called Holy Wood, and an old man dies, and some strange things start happening all at once.

Moving Pictures – Terry Pratchett

A weird sort of alchemy happens, it’s something to do with light and an enslaved demon who paints really fast and a couple of salamanders and is absolutely, not magic. The alchemists have invented ‘moving pictures’ it of course opens up a new gap in the industry for clever people, like Cut-me-own-throat Dibbler, who usually sell questionable sausages to unfortunate customers. But it is also lucrative for a lot of other people who find themselves compelled to go to Holy Wood and mop floors until they work into ‘the clicks’, or simply wake up in Holy Wood and get roped into a job by a scruffy dog who can talk by accident.

The hysteria for the movies causes a wide spread phenomenon in Ankh, even the wizards (who disguise themselves as wizards because who would guess they were really wizards pretending to be wizards) break out of the university to see what all the fuss is about.

Something Pratchett captures really well is the godlike worship of the new film stars. The new actors are at first expendable and ten a penny – until the masses and a little marketing shifts the status quo and the stars realise that without them the film can’t happen. All in all the new film tycoon discovers this is more difficult than he first thinks, because people are terrible at doing what they are told – but he still manages to invent/ put a new twist on advertising (like any good salesman).

Ah but, I’m forgetting. There is always something else going on in a Pratchett novel. While this new industry pops up overnight and the characters are finding their feet and the drama of their roles – something else is lurking beneath the surface of the book. It’s getting happily fed by the new activity in Holy Wood and is doing everything it can to get more – even giving cats and rabbits and mice human voices.

I’m certain that there are film references that I didn’t clock in this novel, but the glaringly obvious I enjoyed. I enjoyed ‘laddie’ the handsome but stupid dog who always wants to please and rescue and be a good boy, while the scruffy, now-managing-an-actor-in-secret, intelligent Gaspode is thoroughly jealous. I think there is also a hint at King Kong in there or other classic monster-grabbing-love-interest-movies. Ginger and Victor have all the dumb luck but are enjoyable characters on and off screen. I wasn’t expecting Pratchett’s twist to be what it was, but will we see them again? I’m assuming not but who knows. Gaspode is a little of an unlikely hero in this novel, but the ending also seemed a little shoe horned and rushed after such a long build up of ‘Holy Wood’.

I’d say it’s worth reading if you’re exploring Pratchett and there are very fun moments but it is not the novel I’d start with if you’re new to Pratchett. But I’m biased for WITCHES AND POST OFFICES! Happy Reading!

82. Making Money

As you all may have gathered, I’m very fond of Moist Von Lipwig. But my guilty secret is it is that Going Postal was the only novel out of the three he features in, that I had read until recently! Making Money is the next instalment of his story. A bright and energetic story about dragging the banks out of the dark ages and bringing paper money into circulation. We start off shortly after we left Going Postal and Moist is bored. So terribly bored he has started breaking into his own office at night, carrying lock picks, and just generally trying to entertain himself in the way that any ex conman, showy, charismatic, smooth talker would. Moist is stuck in a prospering Post Office, Adora is away on Gollum business, and he is desperately bored without an adversary.

This is part of what I adore about Moist, he needs stress and friction to sparkle, and that is just what Pratchett gives him.

Making Money – Terry Pratchett 

Lord Vetinari has a near psychic ability to see through people and is aware of how bored Moist is. But when Vetinari offers Moist an opportunity, Moist refuses. Lord Vetinari than plays a little game to get Moist into his carriage and to display this challenge he is offering before him.

This challenge is that the banks are failing. Vetinari has a loose plan to throw Moist at them and see what happens. So through a clever ploy, Moist gets into Vetinari’s carriage and is toured around his soon to be bank. I imagine the bank in Mary Poppins. Polished counters and strangely elaborate spiral staircases and heavy velvet drapes which serve no purpose than to intimidate any who cross the threshold to make a deposit. This is the cold resistance of the bank, it does not accept small sums or deposits from those without great wealth. But generally the banks aren’t trusted by the general public anyway, they prefer the socks they are wearing, or to hide currency in their mattresses.

The bank’s manager is, of course, a rather stiff man, (perhaps a vampire), called Mr. Bent. An excellent mathematician who has been at the bank for the majority of his adult life. The Chairwoman of the bank, Topsy Lavish is an elderly and suspicious woman with an excitable little dog named Mr. Fusspot. Topsy is a very clever woman who has spent most of her life fending off her terrible in-laws, but when she meets Moist she sees through him for the crook he is and likes him immensely.  She almost presumably sleeps behind her desk which is armed with small crossbows from the distrust of her family.

In a bizarre turn of events, Topsy dies leaving her 50% shares to her little dog Mr. Fusspot, and Mr. Fusspot with his share of 1% to Moist. This leaves Mr. Fusspot with 51% of the shares of the Royal Bank of Ankh and chairman of the bank. But also makes Mr. Fusspot a wanted dog facing assassination everywhere from his cruel and greedy family.  Moist thrown into the thick of it quite by chance then finds him in the situation of having no choice but to save the banks and keep Mr. Fusspot safe from the Lavish Family. Particularly Cosmo Lavish, who has a terrible crush/desire to be Lord Vetinari.

But that’s not all, the bank has a wildly crazy inventor and Igor living downstairs in the basement. Said inventor has created the Glooper with the help of the Igor. It is not certain whether or not the Glooper is controlled by the currency that is moving around Ankh or the other way round. The Igor is a massive source of entertainment, when he successfully removes the depression and bad things from a famous criminal caught for forging stamps (Moist has him designing the new paper money after breaking him out of prison…. naturally). Moist and the Igor discover that all the bad things had made up the artist and criminal and the personality of a turnip is just not adequate for the job at hand. The notes he has designed for them are child like and lack the nuance cross hatching Moist is looking for. Moist of course demands the Igor fixes this and swaps the turnip and the criminal back.

Meanwhile Adora is digging around for Gollums and has bitten a bit more off than she can chew. Sadly she’s not as present in this novel but she does end up flirting with a dead wizard to get his help with translation.

Making Money is fun, there is a lot going on that I haven’t mentioned because this is quite a complicated novel with a lot of balls being juggled. As a cure for Moist’s boredom this novel is excellent, there is a little about Moist’s past revealed, a face from his past reappears and tries to make trouble. He is almost charged with robbing his own bank. He eats some strange food and devotes himself to not letting Mr. Fusspot get poisoned. And like most dog owners Moist learns that if your dog has a toy it will likely not give it back, even if it is a sex toy that has been hidden away in the cupboard by the previous Chairman (Topsy’s husband, Lord Joshua to be precise).

There is also a little bit of corruption in this novel, and the dangers of rejecting yourself and generally this is a good Discworld novel. But it is sadly not quite on par with Going Postal. Very close, but not quite.

80. Going Postal

Hello! Here we are again with one of my favourite Terry Pratchett novels. You may have noticed that a few things have changed around here. New name. New look. What can I say? It’s been overdue, and after a little time of being away I decided it was time. So, now we have acknowledged the change, let’s get on with Going Postal.

Going Postal is a novel about a lovable rogue. Several of my best friends are lovable rogues so I have a bit of a soft spot for them. This is a fun and easy read, it’s comic and has all of the best elements of Pratchett along with a few wonderful names, Moist von Lipwig, Adora Bell Dearhreart, Stanley and Mr. Pump for example. And of course, classic Pratchett twists and turns which feel less jarring in the later novels particularly coupled with his satirist world.

This one is about Ankh-Morpork’s dilapidated Post Office. It’s about a geriatric workforce, the big bad Clacks monopolising communication and of course an angry, smoking love interest fond of using her stilettos as leverage during arguments. But it’s also about the power of words and what happens to hundreds of thousands of letters when they are shut up in a damp, pigeon shit infested building.

Going Postal – Terry Pratchett

My first copy of the novel was ‘borrowed’ but never returned by my Mum, so that might give you a clue as to how much we love Terry Pratchett. This is really a novel I would want to hand to any young person as it has a touch of revolution about it and it is one of the Discworld novels that holds up very well on it’s own.

We begin this novel with one of my favourite characters, Moist von Lipwig, trying to dig his way out of his prison cell because he is due to he hung. Under the name Albert Spangler, Moist has committed various crimes, fraud, embezzling and fake bonds mostly. The kind of crimes, he thinks, that don’t harm people. Unfortunately for Moist, Lord Vetinari the Patrician of Ankh has other ideas about his escape and execution.

Moist wakes shortly after the noose he signed is put over his head. Hung until he was an inch from death, Lord Vetinari begins to tall him about angels and offers Moist a job as the new Postmaster. Moist takes it assuming he will vanish into the night and nothing will come of this. However, it is when he sleeping in a flea infested bed that he is yanked back into reality by a Gollum called Mr. Pump. Mr. Pump is his parole officer, he doesn’t sleep, he doesn’t eat, he looks a bit like a gingerbread man with glowing red eyes, and he will not stop.

Moist relents and so begins to apply himself to his new role of Postmaster. He discovers the two occupants of the post office are an elderly Junior Postman, Mr. Groat, who applies all sort of home made medical remedies to his ailing body and believes hygiene is the route to an early death. And also Stanley, a slightly socially odd young man who collects pins. Moist navigates a difficult social territory, between Mr. Grout with his aspirations of becoming a Senior Postman Groat and Stanely with his ‘little moments’.

The building is full floor to ceiling with letters in some parts of the Post Office Moist discovers that words have magic of their own and have one demand “Deliver us.” Moist is a flashy, charismatic, intelligent man who manages to woo the general public with several stunts and aggravate the wrong people. He discovers he is actually very good at new ideas and wooing the newspapers and also finds himself in a unique position. He invents the postage stamp.

Elsewhere in Ankh-Morpork, Reacher Gilt, the now-owner of the Clacks has made it a more profitable business while slowly eroding the company itself almost exhausting machinery. The safety of the system is questionable and deaths are frequent. Prices go up, while services halt for day at a time for repairs and Gilt himself is a suspiciously pirate like character who has it in for the Post Office. As the only source of competition Moist soon realises Gilt is a threat not only to the Post Office but himself.

While all this is going on Moist has met an unusually angry woman who chain smokes. Adora’s only passions in life are cigarettes and running the Gollum trust to ensure that Gollum’s get the wages the deserve for the work they perform. But as it turns out she is the daughter of the original inventor of the Clacks and her family were bought out by Gilt. She hates Gilt as much as it is possible for someone to hate another human being, and eventually agrees to help Moist put an end to Gilt’s abuse of the Clacks.

This is a novel of many layers, between personal frictions and also the rebels the Smoking Gnu, Going Postal is a thrilling ride that doesn’t disappoint. I am very fond of Going Postal and while it is one of my favourite Discworld novels, it is also very much one of my favourite novels. Perhaps it is the struggle between the common people and the well moneyed big bag corporation that abuses it’s power. Or it is simply Moist himself as one of my favourite lovable rogues, who thinks he is a bit of a villain and a criminal, but really is very good. This is an intelligent novel with wonderful characters. I highly recommend it and cannot find a fault with it (and wouldn’t, even if I was pushed to).

77. Sourcery

Returning to Pratchett always seems like returning to a very comfortable armchair. I am quite comfortable with what I expect from Pratchett and the Discword (the world hurtling through space on the back of a giant turtle). I’m comfortable with it’s slightly slapstick qualities, the humour and the twists and turns and unexpected heroics. It is getting to the point where Pratchett is a necessary staple for travelling, it’s a necessary break between heavy books or anything that takes itself a little too seriously. Sourcery, is a great read and one of the more enjoyable Discword novels I’ve read so far. This one follows Rincewind and tells of the dangers of what happens when a wizard is squared.

Sourcery – Terry Pratchett

Yes, that was my terrible attempt at a math joke. If you are familiar with the novels you should also be familiar with the rule that the eighth son of an eighth son becomes a wizard. But this novel explores what happens when a wizard has an eighth son, who as it is a wizard squared, must be a Sourcerer.

Sourcery is a terrible thing in the Discworld. It is pure creation and power and unlike wizards who spend their lives committing books to memory, a Sourcerer will create without effort (and perhaps without knowing how).

Rincewind, the hero from the Colour of Magic, and the Light Fantastic, is the first to realise something is amiss in the magical world when he places his head against the wall of the Unseen University and hears it screaming. The Sourcerer (a young boy who is being bullied by his dead father’s spirit who occupies the staff he inherited from the living father), arrives at the University and divides the staff almost immediately.

The Orangutang Librarian, sneaks away into the library and locks himself in with panic stricken books. While some of the staff begin to form a mutiny against the Sorcerer-come-tyrianical-overlord, which of course will result in perhaps the worse fate for the disc, another magical war.

Rincewind (our very unlikely hero/coward) and the Luggage, the wonderful many legged box who possess a tendency to eat people it doesn’t like once again find themselves on an adventure to save the world. And this time, poor Rincewind is armed only with a brick in a sock.

This is certainly not my favourite Pratchett, but it is an enjoyable ride with some silly humour. Some find it the weaker out of Rincewind’s three novels so far, but actually I found it had gained a little more depth and traction because of the novels it follows. The wizards of the Discword aren’t my favourite, but they are fun and a little silly and have their own quirks that can only be Pratchett through and through.

The narrative of this one is simplistic and at the end seems to get a little tangled to the point that it can only really end one way. I always seem to enjoy Pratchett throwing very unlikely wannabe heroes at me and in this one there is a barbarian second or third day on the job wearing long underwear beneath his loin cloth and carrying a guidebook.

Sourcery takes similar themes to Equal Rites, and the idea of self restraint, and the resolution implies that sometimes over indulgence in a thing is short sighted. But it doesn’t quite have the charm of the Witches. The Luggage of course has it’s own story arc and seems to have a bit of an existential crisis ultimately finding itself quite bewildered at one point and knowing that it needs to find it’s owner.

This is a good staple Pratchett read and it builds on existing tropes that ultimately become the wider Discword Universe. I would say though that it is a novel that doesn’t shine as brightly as some of the others for me personally, but is still worth reading.

61. Witches Abroad

While enjoying my time road tripping through Uruguay, weeks ago now, I decided to start this little gem. Terry Pratchett has long been a soft spot for me and I don’t intend to grow out of fantasy any time soon, particularly this brand of silliness. Within a few pages I was hooked and I spent a lot of a ferry back to Buenos Aires in stitches and pestering my mate so I could read him snippets. This novel sort of works in two halves, it’s witches on the move and the havoc they cause in their wake, and then a sort of retelling of Cinderella. And this one is of course also about Fairy Godmothers.

Witches Abroad – Terry Pratchett

Luckily, or unfortunately, (I haven’t decided) – Magrat Garlick inherits a late fairy godmother’s wand and the job with it. Weirdly, she is also given instructions to keep a princess turned scullery maid in Genua from marrying a Prince. You must remember that in the Discworld every fairytale cliche is about to get turned on it’s head and is about to have it’s ears well and truly boxed.

Where Magrat goes, Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg go to, insisting on chaperoning the newly fledged Fairy Godmother (who unfortunately is having trouble producing anything but pumpkins from her wand). Weatherwax and Ogg insist that as they have had longer ‘not knowing’ what they are doing when it comes to Fairy Godmother-ing they are more qualified than Magrat to do Fairy Godmother-ing in the first place. But as we have well come to learn from the Discworld, all witches are stubborn so Magrat has little choice but to let them come along and they have little choice but to let her keep the wand. So off they all go, after an argument or two, flying away on broomsticks.

We spend a while entertaining Nanny Ogg who has brought along her cat Greebo along for the ride (an old, one eyed thing that terrifies everything that comes into his path and isn’t satisfied until he has maimed and raped anything of his choosing) and her attempts at speaking ‘foreign’ while sending postcards home. Granny Weatherwax at one point has to save the day when playing cards to win back all of their possessions which Nanny Ogg has accidentally lost in another game of cards. And of course, like all good holidays, they all get roaring drunk on absinthe, eat the local food, frighten the local children and complain loudly.

We spend a little time chasing well recognised fairytales, fleeting characters who just suddenly decide they want nothing else but to eat red riding hood. And a few other peculiarities that seem to cascade the closer the witches get to Genua. Granny Weatherwax also runs into an unfortunate family member and reveals a little bit of a soft centre beneath those hard outer edges covered in many vests and black lace.

I am quite a fan of Granny Weatherwax. I really enjoyed seeing a little bit of character development, a little bit more than all of those pointy edges and seemingly callous deflections. That outer layer is actually just hiding something a little more tender underneath.

I could just boil this novel down into a talking mirror and witches not letting a young girl kiss a frog. But I could also boil it down into some very entertaining old ladies wrecking utter havoc on the general public. This is a melting pot of a lot of well loved fairy tales turned upside down and stitched together in a new pattern that I believe works very well.

In short I really loved this novel! I would absolutely read this one again and Witches Abroad has shot up to the very top of my list of favourite Discworld novels. And I must add that this is also a very very good novel to take abroad, particularly if you don’t mind laughing hysterically to yourself in public.

54. Equal Rites

“Women can’t be Wizards… it’s in the Lore…” 

I am determined to read more Terry Pratchett this year and I have recently made it my private mission to liberate as many Pratchett novels from charity shops as I can. I was recommended this one a few years ago by a friend who happened upon it while he was travelling for three months. The Discworld is always a light easy escape, it’s silly place, it’s a fun place, and a good pallet cleanser between books. It is probably unsurprising how much I enjoyed this one as Equal Rites is the struggle for a young girl to rightfully become a Wizard, no matter how many Wizards laugh at her.

Equal Rites – Terry Pratchett

In this one, we meet Granny Weatherwax. Weatherwax is now one of my favourite characters, alongside Death (yes, the skeleton with the black cloak, gravely voice and flying horse). She is very much a Witch who has lived in the same part of the world for a long time and is suspicious of anything or anywhere new and she doesn’t like to admit she is lost when she is, nor does she like Broomsticks very much. And she is a force to be reckoned with.

This novel is focused on the life of Esk, a young girl who is the 8th daughter of an 8th son. We start the novel with a Wizard coming to Esk’s birth, insisting on passing on his Staff and magic to the child in question. Of course the Wizard assumes Esk is a boy and doesn’t check the gender of the child before the ritual.

In the Disc Wizards are always men, and Witches are always Women and that is the way it is has always been. This is a terrible turn of events as Wizardry and Witchcraft are very different kinds of magic that are supposedly, not interchangeable. Wizardry is about words and books, Witchcraft is more to do with the forest and herbs and fortune telling. Supposedly women just aren’t supposed to be Wizards or given Wizard’s magic… until Esk, anyway.  At the birth Granny Weatherwax scolds the Wizard for his foolishness before he dies, and she hopes all of this mess will some how go away of it’s own accord.

Of course, life is never that simple in the Disc and although things are quiet for a time Esk ultimately learns she can turn her brothers into pigs when she wants to and that her Staff has a tendency for violence on her behalf. Granny Weatherwax does her best to instruct Esk in the ways of Witchcraft, much too Esks frustration as this is simply not enough and they decide to go to the Unseen University. Weatherwax writes ahead without response, hoping to convince the Wizards to accept Esk and provide training that she cannot provide.

The novel is fast paced and flutters all over the place, into magic, into the brewing and spoiling of ales and into some of the mystic of the Unseen University itself. I am a big fan of objects that have a mind of their own in the Disc, Twoflower’s Luggage being the most important example of this. I enjoy knowing a Staff has a will of it’s own and will beat people who upset it, just as much as I enjoy a chest that runs around of its own accord eating people that upset it.

What starts out as a simple journey to the city very quickly turns into protecting the disc from being invaded by slimy things that aren’t sure what animals are so buckle lots of horns and claws and wings onto themselves to appear menacing but in fact, look rather comical. But I’m not going to spoil it any further, you should experience the fun for yourself!

This is one of the better Discworld novels and I really enjoyed it! Equal Rites is a better balance of character and narrative and it is one of the better paced novels with a satisfying ending. This also gave me a good laugh at times, and I’d recommend it if you need a bit more fun in your life!

42. Hogfather

It has been an unfortunately ill few weeks so I am slightly behind on my posts! Hogfather is the last novel I’ve pulled off the shelf from this year’s designated ‘reading challenge‘. If you’ve been with me the entire year, I would just like to say well done and thank you for the patience you’ve given me while I’ve really been figuring out how it is I blog. It’s been an odd year and I have well and truly not read the 24 novels I intended to but I have read a great deal more than I anticipated.

So, the Hogfather. My copy of this has been kicking around the house for a long time. I’m sad to say that in my brief waltz with Pratchett when I was younger I started this but never finished it. But this time was very different and I am happy to say that recently I started rifling around in my favourite charity shops after the rogue Pratchett novels.

Hogfather – Terry Pratchett

I do love a little silliness in my day to day. I love a little mischief. I love Death roaming around the skies of the Discworld pretending to be the Hogfather.

Maybe I should explain if you aren’t familiar. The Discworld is a world hurtling through space on the back of a giant turtle. It is home to a vast array of peoples, wizards, vampires, fairies and of course include anthropomorphic personifications such as Death and the Toothfairy. Death is of course a very gravelly person, he is a walking skeleton with a big black cloak and tries very hard to understand what it is to be human.

The Hogfather is very much like Santa Clause, and Hogswatch, yes you guessed it, is very like Christmas. And for some terrible reason the Hogfather has gone missing on Hogswatch’s eve and to stop everybody noticing, Death is filling in with his trusty assistant Albert (who is assisting by drinking the Sherry and eating the pies).

Meanwhile a previously undiscovered bathroom has appeared in the Unseen University so naturally, the wizards are prodding around that while some very strange things are going on, such as an appearing Verruca Gnome. Mr. Teatime a paid assassin is doing something quite shady with a group of thugs in a very odd place. Susan, who as it happens is Death’s granddaughter, is dragged in because she is specifically told to stay out of it by Death. Which of course, never works.

Hogfather is a really good balance of storylines. It’s not exactly a quick read but it’s some stellar world building which keeps giving and for something to get you in the Christmas spirit I’d recommend it! Who doesn’t like a group of Carol Singers who will only NOT sing for money? Brilliant fun and I’m pretty sure I’ll read it again next year.

HO HO HO.

25. The Colour of Magic

“Wizards, adventures, and bloody tourists getting into trouble.” 

Hello! Yes I’ve been away for a while, mostly because I spent a glorious week in Spain and honestly didn’t get much reading done as I was so busy getting up to mischief, making friends, and drifting in the sea (mostly at the same time). I am pretty certain that stealing a week has done me the world of good, never the less I am still recovering and have been at home for two days now.

Before I left the UK, I slipped this little beauty into my rucksack – which didn’t get read on either plane, as on both of them I dozed and had very weird dreams about rooms of cake (yes, be jealous). The Colour of Magic was my introduction to the Discworld all those years ago and it is the first in the Discworld series – for those of you that don’t know the Discworld is a disk shaped world that is floating through space on the back of a giant turtle. Lately I’ve felt a distinct lack of comic fantasy in my life so this was a really perfect pick for travelling.

 

The Colour of Magic – Terry Pratchett

So, it was quite fitting to pick up and take travelling as the Colour of Magic follows Twoflower a very oblivious and naive tourist who is discovering the city Ankh-Morpork. Who by some strange circumstances meets and employs the ragged failed Wizard, Rincewind. The pair are forced to flee the city and travel across the disc after a bartender sets fire to his pub after Twoflower sells him insurance. Unknown to them their journey is actually part of a game that the Gods of the Disc are playing. Twoflower and Rincewind are the champions of the Lady, and are pitted against the champions of Zephyrus, (the god of slight breezes), Fate, and Offler the Crocodile God.

Within the Colour of Magic is also perhaps one of my favourite characters of all literature, Twoflower’s Luggage. If you’ve not read this novel you may be wondering what I’m talking about, but Twoflower’s Luggage is made from a particularly potent magical wood and this box follows him around regardless of how or when they get separated. It is also a man-eater, it has lots of tiny legs, and is usually very, very angry.

This is a winding story, where Rincewind is forced to rescue Twoflower and vice versa, from the most terrible forces on the Disc and also from their own shortcomings. It is a book that contains imaginary Dragons, wizards, powerful spells trapped in places they shouldn’t be, questions about the sex of the great turtle the Disc rides on, Gods making mischief, and also is generally a pleasure to read and a lot of fun and humour.

Even if you’re only a tiny bit interested in fantasy, read it. It’s great fun and Terry Pratchett is an awesome writer and for all of the winding changes in the story the narrative maintains a rich sense of self. It’s playful, it’s engaging, it’s an addictive world! I can’t say enough about it, just go and read it. Go and find out why the Luggage is just amazing!