Review: Mort by Terry Pratchett

What happens when Death takes an apprentice? Utter mayhem, that's what. The forth novel in Sir Terry Pratchett's beloved Discworld series tells the story of Mort, a young man who isn't terribly well suited to the family business. A turn of events leads to Mort being taken on by Death--a character who is essentially the Discworld's Grim Reaper. And though his job might be morbid, it turns out that Death is a lovely, quirky character who has a genuine kindness about him. It's just a pity that Mort cannot get along with Ysabell, Death's adopted daughter. And that Mort has just foiled an assassination attempt on a princess, and now there are a number of consequences that the young apprentice was not expecting ...

Filled with clever dialogue and Pratchett's insight into human nature Mort is a cracking, humorous adventure about Death's young apprentice. I'm pretty sure that Death is now my favourite character. (Particularly now that I have learned just how much he likes cats.) In particular, I enjoyed the scenes where Death tried to become a little more human, there's something hilarious about the idea of him going out to a party and then taking up a kitchen job in a restaurant. There's also a lot to love about young Mort, who grows from being a fairly ordinary kid into a strong young man over the course of the novel, thanks in part to making a few mistakes, and being a part of the team who fixes them.

Although Mort is the fourth novel in the series, it would be an excellent place for readers to start if they have not read a Pratchett novel before, as this is, arguably, much better than the earlier novels featuring Rincwind, and is on parr with Equal Rites and Wyrd Sisters which are both excellent. The great thing about the Discworld novels is that they don't necessarily need to be read in chronological order to be enjoyed by readers.

Overall, an excellent read, one of Sir Terry Pratchett's best.

Highly recommended. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Peppermint Patty: I Cried and Cried and Cried

Image
Unrequited love is a common theme in the Peanuts Comics and is one that I have previously explored on this blog. We know that Lucy loves Schroeder, Sally loves Linus and Charlie Brown has a crush on the unseen, unnamed and utterly unattainable Little Redhaired Girl. But perhaps the saddest unrequited love stories from the comic is that which ran in late June 1972. It was the series of strips where the usually self-confident Peppermint Patty came face-to-face with the Little Redhaired Girl with the intention of thumping her and then something surprising happened: Here we have a usually self-confident girl, who is funny, unashamedly herself and talented at sports reduced to tears by the realisation of who she is not and never can be. I really feel for her in this series of comic strips. She knows that Charlie Brown can never love her, when he is so hung up over a girl who represents a supposedly ideal feminine beauty. Fortunately Linus, the most spiritual member of the Pean
Read more

Charlie Brown, Lucy Van Pelt and the Football

Image
One of the longest, and arguably, most infuriating, running gags in Charles Schulz's otherwise brilliant Peanuts comic strip, is where Lucy promises to hold a football for Charlie Brown and then pulls it away at the last minute, causing Charlie Brown to fall flat on his back. A typical strip looks like this: Source: Go Comics The gag is one of the darker themes in the strip. It works on the concept that every year, Lucy promises to hold a football for Charlie Brown. Every year, Charlie Brown is initially filled with doubt but is eventually pushed on by a kind of optimism that perhaps, this time, Lucy might just let him kick it after all. As a metaphor for life, it is pretty simple. It talks of the moments when we choose to put our trust in people who have let us down only to be taken by surprise when they let us down, again. Lucy is, arguably, one of the crueller characters in the comic. Described as crabby by the other characters, she is often selfish, takes delight in wilfully hu
Read more

Phrases and Idioms: Tickets on Himself

To have tickets on himself: (Australian slang.) To be conceited or vain. To have an overinflated opinion of oneself.  He's got tickets on himself if he thinks that any woman would fall for that. I was thinking about this particular bit of Australian slang the other day, after my boss said, "He's got tickets on himself," to describe the actions of a particular individual. At the time, I smiled, knowing exactly what the boss meant. Later on, I started to ponder on this unusual phrase and wondered where it might have come from. A search on google helped me find the definition, but that was about all. There are no references to it being used in pop culture or literature (if you find one, let me know,) and at the time of writing this post, Tickets on Himself was not listed on Urban Dictionary. (I tried to add it, but the fuckers rejected my definition. They probably think I have tickets on myself or something for trying to add a relatively common piece of A
Read more