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A review by madmooney
The Shepherd's Crown by Terry Pratchett, Rob Wilkins
5.0
Oh waily-waily...
I shall refrain from a full review right now (as it is a few days before the North American release of the book and I don't want any of the books surprises diluted for anyone else).
I will say this: prepare for the tears to come early!
Waily-waily-waily!
When I had finished [b: I Shall Wear Midnight|7576115|I Shall Wear Midnight (Discworld, #38; Tiffany Aching, #4)|Terry Pratchett|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328232764s/7576115.jpg|9934116], I cried. I was so certain that it would not only be the final Tiffany Achling story, but also the final Discworld book (as it included practically all of the series' elements). It felt that Pterry was saying goodbye 'and they lived happily ever after' with Midnight.
But could a 'happily ever after' ending suit the Discworld series?
One of the driving forces of the overall Discworld series is 'change'. It starts off as a comic fantasy series with many elements of high fantasy in its DNA (with some ideas and plot lines borrowed from our own real history). You begin in a magical world, dominated mostly by humans and the first hint you received that the series is going to be completely different is the 'Wizzard' with a cowardly streak.
The world then changes over its 41 installments.
Ankh-Morpork starts off as a 'wild city' of magic and corruption, which is then slowly tamed by its tyrant government.
The Vimes/Watch novels become engines for political commentary, racial tension and equality (for all of the Disc's 'lesser denizens').
The Moist von Lipwig stories kick-off the industrial revolution (post, banks, trains...and taxes :( ) making the entire world a smaller and safer place, but also effectively changing the series into a steampunk fantasy series (any arguments there)?
No longer would 'and they lived happily ever after' be a sufficient ending for the series; you would need something more like 'and although everything changed, everything was all right in the end...except for times when it wasn't, but the got through those tough bits, bettering themselves in the end'-sort of ending.
This is the type ending that I feel "The Shepherd's Crown" provides.
And that is all I will say about it for now
I shall refrain from a full review right now (as it is a few days before the North American release of the book and I don't want any of the books surprises diluted for anyone else).
I will say this: prepare for the tears to come early!
Waily-waily-waily!
When I had finished [b: I Shall Wear Midnight|7576115|I Shall Wear Midnight (Discworld, #38; Tiffany Aching, #4)|Terry Pratchett|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328232764s/7576115.jpg|9934116], I cried. I was so certain that it would not only be the final Tiffany Achling story, but also the final Discworld book (as it included practically all of the series' elements). It felt that Pterry was saying goodbye 'and they lived happily ever after' with Midnight.
But could a 'happily ever after' ending suit the Discworld series?
One of the driving forces of the overall Discworld series is 'change'. It starts off as a comic fantasy series with many elements of high fantasy in its DNA (with some ideas and plot lines borrowed from our own real history). You begin in a magical world, dominated mostly by humans and the first hint you received that the series is going to be completely different is the 'Wizzard' with a cowardly streak.
The world then changes over its 41 installments.
Ankh-Morpork starts off as a 'wild city' of magic and corruption, which is then slowly tamed by its tyrant government.
The Vimes/Watch novels become engines for political commentary, racial tension and equality (for all of the Disc's 'lesser denizens').
The Moist von Lipwig stories kick-off the industrial revolution (post, banks, trains...and taxes :( ) making the entire world a smaller and safer place, but also effectively changing the series into a steampunk fantasy series (any arguments there)?
No longer would 'and they lived happily ever after' be a sufficient ending for the series; you would need something more like 'and although everything changed, everything was all right in the end...except for times when it wasn't, but the got through those tough bits, bettering themselves in the end'-sort of ending.
This is the type ending that I feel "The Shepherd's Crown" provides.
And that is all I will say about it for now