Reaper Man - Terry Pratchett

Terry Pratchett's Discworld series started out as a collection of gosh-wow humourous adventures on a flat world carried through space on the back of elephants. As Pratchett has matured as a writer, the characters have grown deeper, the plots have grown stronger and the themes have started to verge on the literary. Reaper Man marks a bit of a watershed in the series as, although it is full of wizards and undead and animated compost heaps, it also contains a lot of thoughtful prose about fate, time, life and the erosion of community spirit due to out-of-town shopping centres. No, really. The novel is routinely described as 'one of the Death ones'. ...  Read the complete review

Terry Pratchett is one of this country’s most successful authors, in fact his series of books based on the fictional fantasy world, called Discworld has spawned its own cult following, with figures of the characters being produced, spin off books and a big fan club, with its own conventions. Now I have dabbled in these books before and thought yes these are Ok quite funny in places, but why all the fuss. So, having read three reviews on this book all spouting its greatness, I thought that I would give Reaper Man a try. In fact I have had this book finished for a week now and was stuck as how to review it, or what exactly I thought. So lets get on shall we? ...  Read the complete review

Although fan-favourite Death had cropped up in a number of previous Discworld novels, Reaper Man was the first in which he took centre stage. So here's the big question: is he strong enough to support a whole plot or is he simply a support player? Let's find out. The main plot is typically absurd in the traditional Pratchett way. Death is made redundant and moves to the country. But with no-one to take over, Discworld inhabitants are not dying properly, causing a surplus of life. This sparks all sorts of strange events mainly surrounding wire baskets on wheels... Don't even bother trying to understand the plot. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, ...  Read the complete review

I guess I feel like a tree at the moment. No don't go, let me explain. There is a passage in this book concerning a conversation between a group of trees. This conversation has been going on for seventeen years. To illustrate my opening statement I would like to present a brief snippet of the conversation :- 'Wow. That was a sharp one.' 'What was?' 'That winter just then.' And that's exactly how I feel at the moment. It seems only five minutes ago that I posted my previous opinion on Dooyoo yet somehow it's been almost three years. Thirty-six months! Where the hell did they all go? The trouble is that ...  Read the complete review

Discworld is a place where myths are real, where people are… well, people… where anything can happen… and where Death exists as an anthropomorphic personality, complete with black robes, scythe, and TALKS LIKE THIS (so you can always tell from a quick glance at the page if Death is on it or not!). He has a thirst for new experiences though, so he does all sorts of things that anthropomorphic representations aren’t really supposed to do. One of these was to adopt a daughter. Another was to take on an apprentice. (These both happened in the afore-mentioned Mort). He also journeys down to earth on occasion when not on business, for example to find out what this alcohol ...  Read the complete review