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A review by dark_reader
Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett
5.0
Nooooooo....... this can't be the last Witches book, it's too soon! Okay, sure, the series partly continues with a new main cast in the Tiffany Aching "younger readers" series, but still, I am going to miss the focus this particular trio. Even though the third member changed. And the prior third member is still around. And technically the whole trio changed roles in this book. The point is, it's really damn good!
Guess who makes their first appearance here . . . Crivens! . . . that's right, it's everyone's favorite super-strong, super-fast, brawling, swearing, stealing, six-inch tall "pictsies", the Nac Mac Feegles! With their nigh-impenetrable exaggerated highland dialect, who doesn't love these guys?
Guess who makes their final appearance . . . he's short in stature, but not on loving . . . that's right, it's the amorous dwarf, Casanunda! . . . What do you mean no one remembers him? Oh well. He's a minor character that I had completely forgotten about prior to my current Discworld series re-read. He showed up in two other Witches books and had only one scene early in this one. Still, I kind of liked him. It took me until this third appearance to appreciate the "ova/unda" gag inherent in his name. 'Cuz he's a dwarf, see? Ah, never mind.
Agnes/Perdita - wow, what a character turn! Leave it to Pratchett to take a silly affected name from a couple of books ago, during Agnes's brief goth phase, and turn it into a unique and essential character trait over the course of the next couple of books.
Granny Weatherwax is at her most Weatherwaxiest in this outing, and Gytha "Nanny" Ogg is the stable core of the group throughout the series. This book focuses on an influx of vampires from nearby Uberwald, a country mentioned in passing in prior Discworld books and explored more fully in the book following this one, [b:The Fifth Elephant|63720|The Fifth Elephant (Discworld, #24; City Watch, #5)|Terry Pratchett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327961702l/63720._SY75_.jpg|819126]. It also features an Omnian priest in a suprisingly deep, long series arc that started with [b:Small Gods|34484|Small Gods (Discworld, #13)|Terry Pratchett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1390899426l/34484._SY75_.jpg|1636629] which was ten books earlier (or even before that, the basic Discworld conception of gods and belief first emerged even earlier). It's such a great experience reading the entire series in publication order and seeing the whole disc develop culturally and technologically across all of the sub-series. Between this and [b:The Fifth Elephant|63720|The Fifth Elephant (Discworld, #24; City Watch, #5)|Terry Pratchett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327961702l/63720._SY75_.jpg|819126], I am starting to believe that the Discworld truly came to life as Pratchett wrote and he was now merely tapping into it and channelling it, rather than creating it out of whole cloth.
Guess who makes their first appearance here . . . Crivens! . . . that's right, it's everyone's favorite super-strong, super-fast, brawling, swearing, stealing, six-inch tall "pictsies", the Nac Mac Feegles! With their nigh-impenetrable exaggerated highland dialect, who doesn't love these guys?
Guess who makes their final appearance . . . he's short in stature, but not on loving . . . that's right, it's the amorous dwarf, Casanunda! . . . What do you mean no one remembers him? Oh well. He's a minor character that I had completely forgotten about prior to my current Discworld series re-read. He showed up in two other Witches books and had only one scene early in this one. Still, I kind of liked him. It took me until this third appearance to appreciate the "ova/unda" gag inherent in his name. 'Cuz he's a dwarf, see? Ah, never mind.
Agnes/Perdita - wow, what a character turn! Leave it to Pratchett to take a silly affected name from a couple of books ago, during Agnes's brief goth phase, and turn it into a unique and essential character trait over the course of the next couple of books.
Granny Weatherwax is at her most Weatherwaxiest in this outing, and Gytha "Nanny" Ogg is the stable core of the group throughout the series. This book focuses on an influx of vampires from nearby Uberwald, a country mentioned in passing in prior Discworld books and explored more fully in the book following this one, [b:The Fifth Elephant|63720|The Fifth Elephant (Discworld, #24; City Watch, #5)|Terry Pratchett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327961702l/63720._SY75_.jpg|819126]. It also features an Omnian priest in a suprisingly deep, long series arc that started with [b:Small Gods|34484|Small Gods (Discworld, #13)|Terry Pratchett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1390899426l/34484._SY75_.jpg|1636629] which was ten books earlier (or even before that, the basic Discworld conception of gods and belief first emerged even earlier). It's such a great experience reading the entire series in publication order and seeing the whole disc develop culturally and technologically across all of the sub-series. Between this and [b:The Fifth Elephant|63720|The Fifth Elephant (Discworld, #24; City Watch, #5)|Terry Pratchett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327961702l/63720._SY75_.jpg|819126], I am starting to believe that the Discworld truly came to life as Pratchett wrote and he was now merely tapping into it and channelling it, rather than creating it out of whole cloth.