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Terry Pratchett's profoundly irreverent novels are consistent number one bestseller in England, where they have catapulted him into the highest echelons of parody next to Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut, Douglas Adams, and Carl Hiaasen.
In this Discworld installment, Death comes to Mort with an offer he can't refuse -- especially since being, well, dead isn't compulsory.As Death's apprentice, he'll have free board and lodging, use of the company horse, and he won't need time off for family funerals. The position is everything Mort thought he'd ever wanted, until he discovers that this perfect job can be a killer on his love life.
Sir Terry Pratchett's many honors include the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, a Printz Honor, the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, Britain's Carnegie Medal, the American Library Association's Margaret A. Edwards Award for lasting contribution to young adult literature, and the World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award. His books have sold more than 75 million copies worldwide. Knighted for his "services to literature," Sir Terry lives in England with his wife and many cats.
Beloved British writer Pratchett first jump-started his career while working as a journalist for Bucks Free Press during the '60s. As luck would have it, one of his assignments was an interview with Peter Bander van Duren, a representative of a small press called Colin Smythe Limited. Pratchett took advantage of his meeting with Bander van Duren to pitch a weird story about a battle set in the pile of a frayed carpet. Bander van Duren bit, and in 1971 Pratchett's very first novel, The Carpet People, was published, setting the tone for a career characterized by wacky flights of fancy and sly humor.
Pratchett's take on fantasy fiction is quite unlike that of anyone else working in the genre. The kinds of sword-and-dragon tales popularized by fellow Brits like J.R.R. Tolkein and C. S. Lewis have traditionally been characterized by their extreme self-seriousness. However, Pratchett has retooled Middle Earth and Narnia with gleeful goofiness, using his Discworld as a means to poke fun at fantasy. As Pratchett explained to Locus Magazine, "Discworld started as an antidote to bad fantasy, because there was a big explosion of fantasy in the late '70s, an awful lot of it was highly derivative, and people weren't bringing new things to it."
In 1983, Pratchett unveiled Discworld with The Color of Magic. Since then, he has added installments to the absurdly hilarious saga at the average rate of one book per year. Influenced by moderately current affairs, he has often used the series to subtly satirize aspects of the real world; the results have inspired critics to rapturous praise. ("The most breathtaking display of comic invention since PG Wodehouse," raved The Times of London.) He occasionally ventures outside the series with standalone novels like the Johnny Maxwell Trilogy, a sci fi adventure sequence for young readers, or Good Omens, his bestselling collaboration with graphic novelist Neil Gaiman.
Sadly, in 2008 fans received the devastating news that Pratchett had been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's. He has described his own reaction as "fairly philosophical" and says he plans to continue writing so long as he is able.
Discworld is not just the subject of a bestselling series of novels. It has also inspired a series of computer games in which players play the role of the hapless wizard Rincewind.
A few fun outtakes from our interview with Pratchett:
"I became a journalist at 17. A few hours later I saw my first dead body, which was somewhat…colourful. That's when I learned you can go on throwing up after you run out of things to throw up."
"The only superstition I have is that I must start a new book on the same day that I finish the last one, even if it's just a few notes in a file. I dread not having work in progress.
"I grow as many of our vegetables as I can, because my granddad was a professional gardener and it's in the blood. Grew really good chilies this year.
"I'm not really good at fun-to-know, human interest stuff. We're not ‘celebrities', whose life itself is a performance. Good or bad or ugly, we are our words. They're what people meet.
This is the bright candlelit room where the life-timers are stored — shelf upon shelf of them, squat hourglasses, one for every living person, pouring their fine sand from the future into the past. The accumulated hiss of the falling grains makes the room roar like the sea.
This is the owner of the room, stalking through it with a preoccupied air. His name is Death.
But not any Death. This is the Death whose particular sphere of operations is, well, not a sphere at all, but the Discworld, which is flat and rides on the back of four giant elephants who stand on. the shell of the enormous star turtle Great A'Tuin, and which is bounded by a waterfall that cascades endlessly into space.
Scientists have calculated that the chance of anything so patently absurd actually existing are millions to one.
But magicians have calculated that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.
Death clicks across the black and white tiled floor on toes of bone, muttering inside his cowl as his skeletal fingers count along the rows of busy hourglasses.
Finally he finds one that seems to satisfy him, lifts carefully from its shelf and carries it across to the nearest candle He holds it so that the light glints off it, and stares at the little point of reflected brilliance.
The steady gaze from those twinkling eye sockets encompasses the world turtle, sculling through the deeps of space, carapace scarred by comets and pitted by meteors. One day even Great A'Tuin will die, Death knows; now, that would be a challenge.
But the focus of his gaze dives onwards towards the bluegreen magnificence of the Disc itself,turning slowly under its tiny orbiting sun.
Now it curves away towards the great mountain range called the Ramtops. The Ramtops are full of deep valleys and unexpected crags and considerably more geography than they know what to do with. They have their own peculiar weather, full of shrapnel rain and whiplash winds and permanent thunderstorms. Some people say it's all because the Ramtops are the home of old, wild magic. Mind you, some people will say anything.
Death blinks, adjusts for depth of vision. Now he sees the grassy country on the turnwise slopes of the mountains.
Now he sees a particular hillside.
Now he sees a field.
Now he sees a boy, running.
Now he watches.
Now, in a voice like lead slabs being dropped on granite, he says: Yes.
There was no doubt that there was something magical in the soil of that hilly, broken area which — because of the strange tint that it gave to the local flora — was known as the octarine grass country. For example, it was one of the few places on the Disc where plants produced reannual varieties.
Reannuals are plants that grow backwards in time. You sow the seed this year and they grow last year.
Mort's family specialized in distilling the wine from reannual grapes. These were very powerful and much sought after by fortune-tellers, since of course they enabled them to see the future. The only snag was that you got the hangover the morning before, and had to drink a lot to get over it.
Reannual growers tended to be big, serious men, much given to introspection and close examination of the calendar. A fanner who neglects to sow ordinary seeds only loses the crop, whereas anyone who forgets to sow seeds of a crop that has already been harvested twelve months before risks disturbing the entire fabric of causality, not to mention acute embarrassment.
It was also acutely embarrassing to Mort's family that the youngest son was not at all serious and had about the same talent for horticulture that you would find in a dead starfish. It wasn't that he was unhelpful, but he had the kind of vague, cheerful helpfulness that serious men soon learn to dread. There was something infectious, possibly even fatal, about it. He was tall, red-haired and freckled, with the sort of body that seems to be only marginally under its owner's control; it appeared to have been built out of knees.
On this particular day it was hurtling across the high fields, waving its hands and yelling.
Mort's father and uncle watched it disconsolately from the stone wall.
"What I don't understand:' said father Lezek, "is that the birds don't even fly away. I'd fly away, if I saw it coming towards me.'
"Ah. The human body's a wonderful thing. I mean, his legs go all over the place but there's a fair turn of speed there.
Mort reached the end of a furrow An overfull woodpigeon lurched slowly out of his way.
"His heart's in the right place, mind:' said Lezek, carefully.
"Ah. 'Course, 'tis the rest of him that isn't."
"He's clean about the house. Doesn't eat much," said Lezek.
"No, I can see that.'
Lezek looked sideways at his brother, who was staring fixedly at the sky.
"I did hear you'd got a place going up at your fan% Hamesh," he said.
"Ah. Got an apprentice in, didn't IT'
"Ah," said Lezek gloomily, "when was that, then?"
"Yesterday," said his brother, lying with rattlesnake speed. "All signed and sealed. Sorry. Look, I got nothing against young Mort, see, he's as nice a boy as you could wish to meet, it's just that —"
"I know, I know," said Lezek. "He couldn't find his arse with both hands."
They stared at the distant figure. It had fallen over. Some pigeons had waddled over to inspect it.
"He's not stupid, mind," said Hamesh. "Not what you'dcall stupid ."
"There's a brain there all right:' Lezek conceded. "Sometimes he starts thinking so hard you has to hit him round the head to get his attention. His granny taught him to read, see. I reckon it overheated his mind...
This was the first Discworld novel I read. My expectations were really high, since I've heard great things about the series, and I loved the movie adaptation of Hogswatch. The style of Pratchett's writing is exactly what I was looking for, and the humor in his writing is amazing! I only gave the story 3 stars because I wasn't crazy about the actual story. I didn't care about Mort. His character just didn't interest me, and I groaned each time the novel switched from Death's storyline over to Mort. I wanted more Death! Despite my issues with it, I'd still count it as a good read.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted May 31, 2001
Mort is, quite simply, a work of comic genius. Mort's apprenticeship to Death is what really makes this book funny. Putting Death, the tall, somber enigma, with Mort, the clumsy, slightly dim assistant, together makes a lot of trouble for the real world. But what I want to know is, how did Death learn to cook like that?
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted March 1, 2000
This book was easy to read and didn't have any of those annoying 'dull moments' that have made me stop reading on page 2 of other books. This was the first book by Pratchett that I've read, taking the advice of a friend saying that it was funny and exciting. All in all, I'm glad that I asked to borrow it from her after she told me how good it was.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted January 28, 2012
HILARIOUS. GET IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
lovetoreadAR
Posted September 25, 2011
Wow. This one was crazy. Death is fun as always, but he's also more creepy and superpowerful than the past books let on. This is the guy no one wants to mess with. So naturally he takes an apprentice and it's a smackdown battle of 'Deaths' to see who gets to keep the title. Not to mention the other issues, like a princess who may or may not be dead, a world on the verge of collapse, you know, an average day on the disk. lol. Loved getting to know Mort and Death's daughter and the wizards. Great fun and one heck of a ride. The details of how Death works, right down to the details of the hourglasses, the sound of the sands, and the biographies kept me thoroughly immersed in the story.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Lorax_451
Posted March 4, 2010
Pratchett is satirical genius. Mort and DEATH are hilarious. I have only read a few of Pratchett's Disc World books, but this was one of the best (next to The Truth).
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Posted December 28, 2004
his books are so funny, if you havent read any, i strongly suggust that you do - especially if the main character is Death!!!
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Posted December 30, 2002
this was the first of terry pratchetts books i had read and it was so good. Death is very well developed. i'm 14 and this is one of my favorite books. It's really funny the way terry pratchett makes death into a person(of sorts) and adds things to him as the book goes on, instead of leaving him as a skeletin on a horse.
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Posted October 28, 2002
Death is one of Pratchetts' best characters within the Discworld series(the other being Rincewind). Death is funny in an eccentric kind of way definately a must buy.
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Posted January 23, 2002
I've read a good partion of the Discworld Series, and this was one of my favorites. I loved Death, he was such a funny (but you wouldn't expect that)character, in a mysterious, cryptic sort of way. If you're looking to start reading Terry Pratchett (or if you already have) this is the book.
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Posted October 19, 2001
I cannot stress enough how great the character of Death is...no really! Definately not one of Pratchett's best books, but well worth the $6-something to buy it. ...Go POKES!
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Posted October 10, 2001
One of the best books in the Discworld series.
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Posted August 25, 2001
This is my favorite of the discworld series. It has lots of funny and page-turning suspensefull moments. This book really is Terry Pratchett's best.
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Overview
Terry Pratchett's profoundly irreverent novels are consistent number one bestseller in England, where they have catapulted him into the highest echelons of parody next to Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut, Douglas Adams, and Carl Hiaasen.
In this Discworld installment, Death comes to Mort with an offer he can't refuse -- especially since being, well, dead isn't compulsory.As Death's apprentice, he'll have free board and lodging, use of the company horse, and he won't need time off for ...