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spiffybumble 's review for:
Reaper Man
by Terry Pratchett
Reaper Man: 5/10
By: Terry Pratchett
Reaper Man is a book in the middle of the Discworld’s adolescence, it has not yet abandoned the multi-plotted style of Pratchett’s earlier works, but it is growing towards the beautiful character arcs and philosophy that make Pratchett’s writing so widely-loved.
I picked up Reaper Man in admittedly subpar circumstances for reading. I was excited to use my kindle and have some easily accessible reading for a lengthy day of airport travel, but unfortunately the way the kindle was set up, all of the asterisks and witty subtext was put at the very end of the book rather than below the pages themselves, which meant that I sometimes missed out on that lovely worldbuilding, and also due to the nature of the trip I was taking, I did not finish the book in my one day of travel and so the book was stuck in “unread limbo” for some time until I was able to find the time to actually finish it.
Reaper Man is a Discworld book that tells one really good story, one less interesting side-story, and a third rather aimless subplot about wizards trying to be masculine. There was an entire big mall that was trying to eat Ankh-Morpork, a bunch of undead anonymous members trying to stop it, and a large group of wizards saying “yo” and blowing up shopping carts. Saying it like that it sounds like a very fun time, but I think the problem might have been one of expectations. Looking at the reading guides for the Discworld, and I saw that this novel was to be read directly after Mort, Mort being a book I really enjoyed, but it turns out that Reaper Man really has no connection whatsoever to the events of Mort. I picked this book up wanting to read a story about Death, with him as the protagonist. And for about a third of the book, that is exactly what I got, and I loved it, and so whenever the book shifted to the masculine wizards or the undead shopping mall fight, I found myself immediately losing interest in reading further.
The parts that do feature Death though, are wonderful. The philosophy on death, the understanding of the human experience, falling in “love”, and the battle between an old compassionate death and a new more removed death were all legitimately awesome. I just wish the whole book was that.
Death remains one of my favorite characters in the Discworld, but Reaper Man as an individual novel seems to be something I would only recommend to readers trying to work their ways through the entire Discworld catalogue and adore every snippet of witty writing and watching Pratchett’s growth as a writer over time, or to readers who are equally enamored with the character of Death like I am. It is not a bad book by any means, simply an average one.
By: Terry Pratchett
Reaper Man is a book in the middle of the Discworld’s adolescence, it has not yet abandoned the multi-plotted style of Pratchett’s earlier works, but it is growing towards the beautiful character arcs and philosophy that make Pratchett’s writing so widely-loved.
I picked up Reaper Man in admittedly subpar circumstances for reading. I was excited to use my kindle and have some easily accessible reading for a lengthy day of airport travel, but unfortunately the way the kindle was set up, all of the asterisks and witty subtext was put at the very end of the book rather than below the pages themselves, which meant that I sometimes missed out on that lovely worldbuilding, and also due to the nature of the trip I was taking, I did not finish the book in my one day of travel and so the book was stuck in “unread limbo” for some time until I was able to find the time to actually finish it.
Reaper Man is a Discworld book that tells one really good story, one less interesting side-story, and a third rather aimless subplot about wizards trying to be masculine. There was an entire big mall that was trying to eat Ankh-Morpork, a bunch of undead anonymous members trying to stop it, and a large group of wizards saying “yo” and blowing up shopping carts. Saying it like that it sounds like a very fun time, but I think the problem might have been one of expectations. Looking at the reading guides for the Discworld, and I saw that this novel was to be read directly after Mort, Mort being a book I really enjoyed, but it turns out that Reaper Man really has no connection whatsoever to the events of Mort. I picked this book up wanting to read a story about Death, with him as the protagonist. And for about a third of the book, that is exactly what I got, and I loved it, and so whenever the book shifted to the masculine wizards or the undead shopping mall fight, I found myself immediately losing interest in reading further.
The parts that do feature Death though, are wonderful. The philosophy on death, the understanding of the human experience, falling in “love”, and the battle between an old compassionate death and a new more removed death were all legitimately awesome. I just wish the whole book was that.
Death remains one of my favorite characters in the Discworld, but Reaper Man as an individual novel seems to be something I would only recommend to readers trying to work their ways through the entire Discworld catalogue and adore every snippet of witty writing and watching Pratchett’s growth as a writer over time, or to readers who are equally enamored with the character of Death like I am. It is not a bad book by any means, simply an average one.