Discworld

Witches Abroad, Mort, Wyrd Sisters, Small Gods, Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett

Mort (1987)
Death takes an apprentice.

The horse entered the square by the Hub road, steam curling off its huge damp white flanks and sparks striking up from the cobbles beneath it. It trotted proudly, like a war charger. It was definitely not wearing a straw hat.

The tall figure on its back was wrapped up against the cold. When he horse reached the center of the square the rider dismounted, slowly, and fumbled with something behind the saddle. Eventually he–or she–produced a nosebag, fastened it over the horse’s ears, and gave it a friendly pat on the neck.

The air took on a thick greasy feel, and the deep shadows around Mort became edged with blue and purple rainbows. The rider strode towards him, black cloak billowing and feet making little clicking sounds on the cobbles. These were the only noises–silence clamped down on the square like great drifts of cotton wool.

The impressive effect was rather spoiled by a patch of ice.

Then there is the idea of death working as a short order cook, completing orders in mere moments, just because he understands time.

Though I may just particularly love the books where Death is a main character. Your call on that.

Wyrd Sisters (1980)
The usual regicide and kingly succession in Lancre was going smoothly until the new king angered the local witches. When the new king decides that he doesn’t like witches, Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and Magrat Garlick take things into their own hands.

Unlike wizards, who like nothing better than a complicated hierarchy, witches don’t go in much for the structured approach to career progression. It’s up to each individual witch to take on a girl to hand the area over to when she dies. Witches are not by nature gregarious, at least with other witches, and they certainly don’t have leaders.

Granny Weatherwax was the most highly-regarded of the leaders they didn’t have.

Witches Abroad (1991)
It’s not easy to be a fairy godmother, but Magrat tries, with the assistance of Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg, as they travel to foreign parts.

When Desiderata Hollow was a girl, her grandmother had given her four important pieces of advice to guide her young footsteps on the unexpected twisting pathway of life.
They were:
Never trust a dog with orange eyebrows,
Always get the young man’s name and address,
Never get between two mirrors,
And always wear completely clean underwear every day because you never know when you were going to be knocked down and killed by a runaway horse and if people found you had unsatisfactory underwear on, you’d die of shame.

And then Desiderata grew up to become a witch. And one of the minor benefits of being a witch is that you know exactly when you are going to die and can wear whatever underwear you like.

I really liked this book, probably the best of all the books with the witches. I love the interactions between the three, and I love the fact that I can’t decide whether I like nanny Ogg or Granny Weatherwax better. (Sorry Magrat, you’re just not old enough to have that kind of character.)

I’m particularly fond of their stop at a village where all the villagers seem afraid of the night and have a peculiar fondness for garlic.

Small Gods (1992)
As a God you can have a successful religion without being much of a personal success.

This may be one of my least favorite Discworld books, but I am not sure if it is the story, or my reading that is at fault, though I think it’s my reading. There is so much religious nastiness in the world right now–prominently on the front pages of papers–that reading about how nasty religious zealots can be, and reading about strife between different faiths is something that I get too much of in the real world, and would prefer to escape in my reading.

Lords and Ladies (1992)

He could shoe anything, could Jason Ogg. They’d brought him an ant once, for a joke, and he’d sat up all night with a magnifying glass and an anvil made out of the head of a pin. The any was still around, somewhere–sometimes he could hear it clatter across the floor.
…
But that was the bargain–you shod anything they brought to you, anything, and the payment was that you could shoe anything. There had always been a smith in Lancre, and everyone knew the smith in Lancre was a very powerful smith indeed.

Magrat gets married and the fairies come to Lancre. This is one of the few Disworld books where it really helps to have read the pervious books, especially Wyrd Sisters and Witches Abroad if you really want to understand things like why Magrat is getting married, and why that dwarf won’t leave Nanny Ogg alone.

In this book we get the witches of Lancre AND some wizards from Unseen University, including my favorite, the librarian. (Oook!)

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