Weird Era Cont. – Wyrd Sisters

That’s just about land…It’s not the same as a kingdom. A kingdom is made up of all sorts of things. Ideas. Loyalties. Memories. It all sort of exists together. And then all these things create some kind of life. Not a body kind of life, more like a living idea. Made up of everything that’s alive and what they’re thinking.

Oh yes. That’s more like it. After the misstep of Sourcery, where everything good about Discworld was missing amid poor plotting, derivative scenes and (absence of) character, Pratchett hits the equivalent of a 30 yard screamer here.

Many see this as the first ‘proper’ Discworld novel, as Pratchett balances humour, weirdness, social satire and invention with ease. I think that’s unfair on both Mort and Equal Rites – both are flawed but share a lot of the characteristics of what makes his novels uniquely Discworldian. But Wyrd Sisters sings in a way the others to date have not.

Death is not the end – Mort

THAT’S MORTALS FOR YOU. THEY’VE ONLY GOT A FEW YEARS IN THIS WORLD AND THEY SPEND THEM ALL MAKING THINGS COMPLICATED FOR THEMSELVES. FASCINATING. HAVE A GHERKIN.

Everyone has been bored to death in their jobs at some point in their lives but what if your job *is* Death? The Grim Reaper has had enough; he needs a holiday and cover is hard to come by in the underworld. So an apprentice is hired, the eponymous Mort, Death has a lot of fun but Things Go Wrong, as they always do.

Rebel Girl – Equal Rites

That’s wizards for you, he thought gloomily as he waded between the dripping arches, always probing the infinite but never noticing the definite, especially in the matter of household chores.

This one I remember. The tale of how the eighth son of an eighth son was actually a daughter and fated to become a powerful wizard was one of my Discworld favourites.