rotheche's reviews
37 reviews

The Night Guest by Hildur Knútsdóttir

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

Note: review includes spoilers.

 

This is a novella, which is normally a format I'm pretty comfortable with — I like a good creepy story that doesn't outstay it's welcome. So, when I say The Night Guest is too short, I'm not complaining about it being a novella; it's more that the novella finished before the story did. It has a really effective buildup of creepiness, with Iðunn's realisation that something is wrong but when the denouement comes around, it just doesn't stick the landing for me. I'm obviously meant to draw a relationship between Iðunn, whatever's going on and Iðunn's mysteriously dead sister...but things are left just too mysteriously. It felt unfinished to me; the story just stopped rather than coming to a natural conclusion, especially in contrast to the steady tightening of tension for the first 7/8ths of the story. 

I will also say, I managed to somehow miss any content warnings for animal harm. If that's a trigger for you, avoid this one. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death

Romancing Mister Bridgerton by Julia Quinn

funny lighthearted medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

3.5

NB: Spoilers abound for book and show.

If The Viscount Who Loved Me was the 'enemies to lovers' trope, Romancing Mister Bridgerton is the opposite, the 'friends to lovers' trope, with a little Ugly Duckling thrown in. Penelope and Colin have known each other forever, and Penelope has loved Colin for about that long, but he's only ever regarded her as a friend. Now, when all hope of Penelope ever finding love seems lost — she's 28 by this time, and has begun being treated as a spinster — Things Happen and suddenly Colin realises that, actually, Penelope is far more clever, witty, fun and loveable than he ever realised. 

It's a fun, fluffy romance — but inevitably it runs into issues with misogyny, because it's set in a period where a woman of Penelope's class was expected to be decorative and able to run a household, but not much more. Penelope is, thanks to her eleven years of writing London's hottest item, independently very wealthy, with thousands of pounds in the bank (this after a little financial sleight of hand giving her mother a pretty substantial 'inheritance'). She could support herself in comfort for the rest of her life. But she can't do that, because everyone would wonder where the money came from and, if she explained, goodbye to any sort of social status. Meanwhile, Colin is able to publish his travel journals (edited by Penelope because she is a skilled writer after all) with no threat to his social standing. 

And Penelope, one of the sharpest, smartest characters in the 'ton, doesn't kick against this even a little bit. She retires Lady Whistledown and goes to work editing Colin's journals for publication, enabling his sense of purpose and wanting to leave a mark on the world at the cost of her own career. For god's sake, even Cressida Twombley was willing to risk accusing herself of being Lady Whistledown. Granted, only for the money, but she had more spine than Penelope did. Penelope isn't even in charge of her own outing as Whistledown; it's prompted by Cressida's blackmail attempt and conducted entirely by Colin, with her locked firmly out of any plans. Foo on all that — the Netflix series has her continuing to write, but under her own name, and that's a much more satisfying conclusion. 

That said, the overall romance between Penelope and Colin worked pretty well. Colin is insufferable for part of it — but that actually does feel in character. He's been a privileged rich third son, able to do whatever the hell he wants, whenever he wants, including jaunting off to Cyprus for a couple of months when he's bored and so on. So when he finally realises that his life is lacking purpose, he reacts in a pretty man-child kind of way, because that's all he's been all his life. When he starts to realise that, he has no tools for dealing with adversity, and Penelope cops the brunt of it. She also calls him on it — at least he can follow his dreams, while she's trapped by societal expectations. 

I'd like to have seen a more positive way for Penelope out of the trap she's in — one in which she has some agency, rather than one in with Colin made all the decisions. But, other than that, it's fun fluff romance. 

Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett

adventurous funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

• Loveable characters? Yes

4.25

 I did enjoy this one — though it's another one I call a Death novel only by courtesy, as Death isn't a major character. That role is filled by Death's granddaughter, Susan. In Thief of Time, she's tasked with protecting Time — another anthropomorphic representation who, like Death, is on stage only in periphery. 
This is not the first History Monks book (that's Small Gods, that I'll get back to later on — which feels appropriate, given the order's ability to shift time around to there's enough of it where it's needed); however, it's fine to read out of order. 

I don't read any great moral discussions in Thief of Time, at least nothing on the scale of, say, Feet of Clay's consideration of who gets to be 'human' and free will. But there's some nice poking of fun at kung fu movie tropes and the like, and I really enjoyed both Lu Tze and Lobsang Ludd as characters. Lu Tze especially provides a lot of the book's humour. I think this is also the conclusion of Susan's arc, ending up with Lobsang Ludd in a rather unsensible romantic moment, which is a nice change for her. 

The overall plot: the Auditors are back again, with another scheme to rid the universe of all that pesky unpredictable life. This time, they hire Jeremy Clockson to build the perfect clock, one in time with the universal tick. The only problem is, though Jeremy doesn't know it, such a perfect clock will trap time rather than just keeping it, meaning the end of anything happening ever again. Death, the Auditors' usual opponent, can't get involved because of Jeremy's nature, which is something akin to Susan's. So Susan is deputised once again. 

The plot is at once pretty straightforward — stop the clock, save the world — and complicated, with quite a few moving parts. Just like a clock, really. But it moves quickly and it's pretty easy to keep up with it; you very quickly get the idea that Lobsand and Jeremy are not your usual run-of-the-mill humans, for example, and Lu Tze does keep things moving. 

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

challenging dark fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

 In the last 15 years or so, there's been an increasingly visible push for diversity in publishing — getting book deals for marginalised authors rather than just the same demographics owning the bestsellers lists. It's a great, necessary movement, and it's given us some terrific books that probably wouldn't have made it out of the slush pile 20 years ago. The names on the Hugo and Nebula nomination lists have changed — since 2010, only three white men have wom the best novel Hugo, for instance (Paolo Bacigalupi and China Mieville tied in 2010 and John Scalzi won in 2013) — everyone else has been female and/or POC). There's also been the inevitable backlash; think Sad/Rabid Puppies and their voting slates. There's also the other, more subtle...I don't know if 'backlash' is the right word, but business decisions like "we already have an x author on the books, don't need another one" that limit publication options. 

That's the world June Hayward is in (and also the world Athena Liu is in, too). She's had a moderately unsuccesful publishing debut, with a book that's won't be going to paperback; all she can see is Athena's success — up and now including a Netflix deal. Jealousy rears its ugly head. 

And then Athena dies right in front of June in one of the most blackly ridiculously over-the-top grotequeries I think I've ever read (that's a compliment, by the way) and June has the chance to steal Athena's unpublished manuscript. The manuscript she hasn't discussed with anyone; the manuscript nobody knows anyting about. What's a poor white girl kept off the best-sellers lists by reverse racism to do? 

Yup, steals it, edits it, sends it to her agent under her own name. Her publishers later decide to change her name from "June Hawyard" to "Juniper Song" (her real first name plus her middle name — her mother was a total hippy). The cover story is that she's moved into a new phase of her writing life so is changing the name under which she publishes — but her new author photos are also taken so that she looks a little more ethnically ambiguous. 

The descriptions of June and her (white) publisher cheerfully butchering Athena's careful research and depictions of WWI British and French treatment of the Chinese labourers in their employ are incredible — names are changed because June can't keep the characters and their name straight; a missionary's daughter who, according to primary historical sources, dumped aid supplies at a camp border because she couldn't bear to go into the camp close to all those dreadful Chinese people is rewritten into a saintly young woman who dispenses aid and comfort with a gentle smile and is rewarded with a chaste kiss on the cheek from Chinese labourers overcome by her etheral beauty; racism from the English and French troops is toned down because it gets boring to read. In interviews, June grants Athena the status of 'inspiration' for the novel, and someone who helped translate primary sources into English for her, but that's all. 

At the start, June's reaction to Athena's success is actually kinda relatable. I can see someone having moments of 'why her, why not me?' because publishing is a fickle industry and sometimes great novels languish in slush piles, or just don't take off the way you hope they will — but June descends from there into truly awful levels of entitlement and denial. Kuang documents the whole spiral and the increasing coverups June resorts to really well — we stay with June's point of view the whole time but, maybe beyond that initial understand of jealousy, there's no sympathy given to her, nor should there be. 

By the end of the novel, June's been brought undone but in true Scarlett O'Hara fashion, she decides that tomorrow is another day — you can practically see her standing in a field declaring that, as God is her witness, she'll never be unpublishable again, and the levels of self-delusion just keep on rising. 

All in all, it's a blackly satirical, bleakly comic read, and I really enjoyed it, read the whole thing very quickly. 

An Offer From a Gentleman by Julia Quinn

adventurous emotional medium-paced

2.75

Cinderella meets Bridgerton! Well, in the first part at least. 

I enjoyed this one more than The Viscount Who Loved Me — the humour in that felt just a bit too slapstick, but it gets hauled back a bit in this one. 

Benedict and Sophie meet in true Cinderella fashion and, for years, he holds up the vision of the woman he danced with that night as his ideal. When he meets Sophie again several years later, she's different enough to excuse him not recognising her, and there are reasons given for her not telling him who she is, mostly that she had no idea how big an impact she had on him, and had no idea he'd been searching for her. 

On the plus side, more Bridgerton family interaction, which is always fun — it feels like a real, lively, large family, loving bickering and all. And, because Sophie moves in with the Bridgertons for a while, we get to see more of it up close. 

Less positively: there's a common thing in those romance novels that annoy me, that so many of the complications that arise and must be overcome could be overcome in about one-quarter the time if only people would bloody talk with one another. This book dips a little into that, which did twang my annoyance nerve a little (the previous two have avoided that) — but the nature of the lack of communication twanged my sexual harassment nerve a lot harder. Benedict's 'solution' to the difference between his and Sophie's social standing is to repeatedly pressure her into becoming his mistress. Even when he knows that she's illegitimate, that it made her life much harder (even if he didn't know details), and that she does not want to be put in the same position as her mother, he keeps pressing and pressing her, to the point that she feels it necessary to flee the nicest place she's ever been in her adult life. 

There's no excuse for it. It feels out of character for any Bridgerton too; they've been raised with better manners than that. Benedict may be the family Bohemian, but he's not a blockhead, he should be able to see how deeply uncomfortable his pressure is making Sophie and back off. 

The pall of that kind of hangs over the novel, honestly. If he'd made the offer once and then let it lie, told her that he'd find her a place in his mother's household and any encounters after that had been consensual (which they were), that would have been a vast improvement. 

Overall, I liked the Cinderella motif, and the peril Sophie faces feel real, down to transportation for minor crimes. I liked the interaction between Sophie and the Bridgertons, and the way Violet rides to the rescue — with her on your side, you can do anything. 

Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett

funny hopeful reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

 Spoilers ahoy — I'm not hiding anything here. 

The book opens with a little fun: a novice assassin tries to take out Vimes (the contract on him is quite a high-priced one). He's unsuccessful, naturally. 

There are two stories running concurrently in Feet of Clay. The first kicks off when Samual Vimes finally gives in and goes to see the heralds; we find out that the Vimes family had a coat of arms but it's been banned because his distant ancestor beheaded Ankh-Morpork's last king — echoes of the Roundheads in English history. But Vimes also discovers that Nobby Nobbs (or Nobbes) also allegedly has a coat of arms. Nobby is the most disreputable member of the Watch and the idea that he has a coat of arms that he can display while Vimes's are banned does sting a bit, even though Vimes never wanted the coat of arms in the first place. 

Once again, the rumours that a 'real' king is in hiding in the Watch start to do the rounds. Only this time, it's not Carrot; it's Nobby (they've worked out that Carrot is a bit too likely to do the right thing, which could be distinctly uncomfortable for them and they'd like something more in the 'easily controlled idiot' line). He's allegedly the descendant of the last Earl of Ankh-Morpork and that's close enough for the people who'd like to see royalty back in charge. At the same time, Vetinari starts feeling a bit poorly, and it's obvious a poisoner has been at work. In one of the book's most telling scenes, Vetinari's poisoning leads to two accidental poisonings, an old lady and a toddler who coincidentally live in the street where Vimes grew up. His reaction to the deaths of those two characters is telling; he's vehemently anti-authoritarian but he's married to the richest woman in the city and is Commander of the City Watch. He is The Man as much as Vetinari, and I think that's going to be a continuing theme, Vimes trying to reconcile those two parts of his life. 

Back to the story: initially, Nobby seems to take to being a nob pretty easily — the free food and booze helps with that. So we know the Last Temptation of Nobby is coming; they're going to offer the kingship to him. Will he take it? Will he, hell. Nobby has more sense than to volunteer for something, even something that looks as attractive on the surface as being the king of the city. 

Up until now, Nobby's been described as being 'kicked out of the human race for shoving' and various similar descriptors. This makes for an interesting counterpoint to the rest of the story; Cheri (nee Cheery) Littlebottom takes control of her femininity, something not traditionally shown by dwarf women, and has to deal with that, Angua's dealing with Cheri's dislike of werewolves (C doesn't know A is a werewolf), and there are ongoing ructions around the Watch's equal opportunity policy that sees them signing up anyone of any species who wants to join (except vampires). The rest of the story concerns the mystery behind the murder of two old men when there's no sign of anything living at the murder scenes. When it turns out the culprit is a golen, the questions about "who is a person" get more pointed — golems usually have no will of their own, no voice, and no choice but to follow the orders of their owners. Making new ones has been forbidden, but they're basically immortal, so there are still quite a few in the city. 

The golems decide to make a king of their own, out of their own clay, and it doesn't work well. They give it many commands — to rule the other golems fairly, to teach them, to make their lives better. So many commands, in fact, that the king golem can't possibly reconcile them all (shaes of HAL from 2001?) and he goes crazy, killing people. 

There's a lot in here. The golems are controlled by the words in their head — their chem, equivalent to shem on Earth, the name of god — and literally can't do anything they're not commanded to. So they are, in a way, animate tools; they have as much agency as a shovel, even if they can move themselves around. That's one view, and some characters like Vimes refer to golems as 'it'. Others, like Carrot, refer to golems as 'he', and view them as alive, although enslaved and heavily constrained, not responsible for their actions because they literally cannot disobey. 

Then comes the moment Carrot buys one of the golems, Dorfl, and then puts the receipt, which refers to 'the bearer' of the receipt as the golem's owner, in the golem's head along with all its other words. Dorfl is suddenly free — no master, he now indisputably owns himself. 

His first actions admit that he could do anything, but he chooses not to; he has a moral code. Although he's been viewed as an animate tool for years — possibly centuries — he has developed a moral code along the way and chooses to act in accordance with it. There's a similar conversation between Angua and Cheri, in which Angua talks about wanting to kill people when she's involuntarily in werewolf form, but chooses not to. 

A fantasy world provides huge range to explore issues like who gets to be 'in' and who gets left out, and Pratchett dives into it head first. Golems are unusual, though — they're even further out than most usual out-groups because of the added wrinkle of free will. I hope to see more of the golems in future books at least, and I'm pretty sure this isn't going to be the last book dealing with free will and what we choose to do with it. 

The Viscount Who Loved Me by Julia Quinn

emotional funny lighthearted medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

 I took a brief break from the Pratchett Project when this one showed up at the library. I read The Duke and I in 2024, prior to watching any of the shows on Netflix, then watched the three seasons plus Queen Charlotte's story, and now I'm back to the books. 

The overall setup is as the blurb describes: Anthony Bridgerton has decided the time has finally come to get married and carry on the Bridgerton line. The novel does go into more detail about why; ever since his father died abruptly, Anthony's always had a conviction that he will die at or before the same age as his father. Therefore he decides that he must marry — but he won't subject his bride to the same suffering his mother experienced when his father died; so therefore, he'd rather marry someone who will be a good mother to their children, but not someone he's going to fall in love with. 

Enter the Sheffield sisters, Kate and Edwina. The Sheffield family is rather poorer than the Bridgertons (and many other families as well) and has only the two daughters. Kate is older and unmarried; Edwina is the younger, and is stunningly pretty, everything a young Regency miss should be. Because of the family's stretched resources, they've decided on only one London season, in hopes that Edwina at least will find a husband (nobody has high hopes for Kate). Cue 'enemies to lovers' trope as Anthony sets his sights on Edwina, Kate does everything she can to prevent that happening because of Anthony's rake reputation, and you can probably guess where this all ends up. 

It's no accident, I'm guessing, that Kate is named Kate; you can squint and see a somewhat-reworked Taming of the Shrew here. However, Kate is considerably less tamed than Shakespeare's Kate, and Anthony is no Petruchio. Just as well, that play's infuriating. 

What brings them to gether is coming to a shared understanding of the related traumas they both experienced in their childhoods. They stop seeing each other as their reputations and start seeing each other as people. In the best tradition of romance novels, though, that doesn't happen until some way into the novel, so it's quite a slow burn as the two of them slowly realise what's going on, and realise that they can get past their traumas and expectations. 

There was humour in the first novel, in a Pride and Prejudice sort of style; The Viscount Who Loved Me retains that, but throws in some broader, less arch comedy, and I don't think it works as well. The family banter like the "I'm going to KILL you!" rants are in keeping, they're family arguments and, when Kate is included in them, they just work at showing how well Kate is suited to the Bridgertons in general and, by extension, Anthony in particular. But the moment where Anthony accidentally kicks Kate in the stomach...that just felt like somone suddenly switched the channel to Benny Hill or something. It felt quite out of place. 

But that's the only real bone I have to pick with the novel. In the main, I enjoyed the family dynamic, and how easily Kate slid into interacting with the family; I really enjoyed Edwina's journey from being expected to marry well and support the family to realising that she too can marry for love, and I wish there'd been a little more of that shown on screen instead of it being between the lines a bit. The slow burn between Kate and Anthony was well done, and believable. I'll be following on to the third novel when it arrives at the library. 

Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett

dark funny reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix

4.0

 The thing about writing a book about universal, timeless sorts of concepts is that you then come along and read it and write a review starting off with how prescient the writer is. 

But, yeah, Pratchett nailed it. Ankh-Morpork is run by the Patrician, Vetinari. He's a dictator in that he wasn't voted into power and runs the city as he wants to (One Man, One Vote: he's the Man and he has the Vote), but he's not a despot. He's a practical dictator and the city does actually run pretty well under his rule — most people's lives run along in pretty orderly fashion. And still, when a mysterious, robed Brotherhood starts conjuring up dragons in order to have an Air to the Throne of the city come along and 'kill' it, people immediately start going nuts for a monarchy. The mysterious leader of the mysterious Brethren does have a little meditation on how easy it is to lead people into thinking how you want them to. 

Then, when the dragon proved less tractable than anticipated, barbecues the new king and decided that it will rule Ankh-Morpork, the choice is suddenly between offering up the occasional genteel virgin as tribute to the new king (plus a lot of riches for the hoard), or facing certain death by dragonfire. The dragon, frankly, is horrified at how people react to this. As long as it's not their daughter... 

You have the effrontery to be squeamish, it thought at him. But we were dragons. We were supposed to be cruel, cunning, heartless and terrible. But this much I can tell you, you ape – the great face pressed even closer, so that Wonse was staring into the pitiless depths of his eyes – we never burned and tortured and ripped one another apart and called it morality."

 ...and...

"Down there," he said, "are people who will follow any dragon, worship any god, ignore any iniquity. All out of a kind of humdrum, everyday badness. Not the really high, creative loathsomeness of the great sinners, but a sort of mass-produced darkness of the soul. Sin, you might say, without a trace of originality. They accept evil not because they say yes, but because they don't say no."

 
I mean, the whole arc of how the dragon arrives in Ankh-Morpork and how it eats people's faces...it's absolutely applicable today.
 
But aside from that, Pratchett understands that it's hard to resist when doing so will cost you your life; even Vimes has a moment where his legs just won't work, even when someone else's life is at risk. It doesn't last long, but it happens. The difference is, Vimes bucks up anyway and does the right thing (a contrast to the start of the novel, when he's mourning the death of a Watch member who got a bit brave). When the chants of 'the people united can never be ignited' trail off in terror when they're actually confronted by the dragon, Pratchett understands.
 
This is also where Carrot Ironfoundersson arrives in the city. He's got a sword that was found with him as a baby, he's got a suspiciously crown-shaped birthmark, he's got a way of telling someone what to do that almost invariably results in that someone doing what Carrot thinks they should. He's got an amazing sense of right and wrong and a spectacularly inabiliity to recognise metaphor or nuance that I hope does get tempered a little bit in future books. Carrot does not become the king of Ankh-Morpork and doesn't seem (in this book at least) to even realise that some fairly anvil-link hints have been dropped that he might in fact be descended from kings. It'll be interesting to see where that goes in future books — I can't see Pratchett ever writing Carrot as a king, it just seems out of character.
 
Lots of funny asides and jokes over the top of some very serious contemplation of power and what people want it for, or do with it.
 

Hogfather by Terry Pratchett

challenging emotional funny hopeful reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

 It's hard to say which Pratchett line gets quoted most often but the one about humans being the place 'where the falling angel meets the rising ape' is surely in the top three. The bit about the sharp sword being educational is probably top ten. 

Christmas stories — even substitute Christmas stories — run the risk of descending pretty rapidly into schmaltz. A psychopathic assassin (one even a little too psycho for the Assassin's Guild, really) is a pretty solid antidote to any saccharine, not that Pratchett falls back on anything so cheap anyway. 

The Auditors of Reality are back and explained in a little more depth this time — it's not merely Death they can't stand, it's disorder in any form. They'd be much happier, Death notes, if the universe was just a bunch of rocks orbiting suns without any of that pesky, messy Life happening around them. Their latest target for pruning is the Hogfather, Discworld's analogue of Father Christmas. They contract the Assassin's Guild to kill the Hogfather; the Guild assigns the job to Mr Teatime (it's pronounced 'Tee-ah Tim-eh', he will remind you. If he has to remind you a second time, he'll probably kill you instead), because he'd already thought of a way of doing it, just to fill up his spare time. He's that kind of guy. 

The race in Hogfather isn't to prevent the crime — Teatime's method works — it's for the good guys to work out what he's done and to undo it. While Death takes the Hogfather's place, complete with pillow-stuffed robe and fake beard, he absolutely forbids Susan, his granddaughter, from getting involved. Susan is now grown up (some years have passed since Soul Music, when she was still at school), and is very sensible, so she very sensibly tackles the task of finding out what the hell is going on. 

Death's adventures as the Hogfather are at once amusing (imagine someone who has a theoretical understanding of human emotions and customs but hasn't really ever experienced them himself dealing with Christmas) and heartbreaking (imagine someone who has a theoretical understanding of human emotions and customs...). Being the 'real' Hogfather at a department store causes chaos because suddenly there are real boars instead of the cute pink cartoon piggies (the children are uniformly amused by the boars weeing on the floor), and he's giving the children what they really want for Hogswatch. There's a very pointed bit about how to do charity well — give people what they want/need, not what you want to give them to make yourself feel good about your giving. And there are the heartbreaking moments where Albert tries to explain to Death that, yes, Hogswatchnight is all about peace and goodwill but yes, people still die in poverty. It's a testament to Pratchett that these all feel consistent with the same characters, and none feel preachy. 

The Unseen University wizards pop into the story, dealing with the excess of belief that's floating around now that the Hogfather is no longer a factor; his absence means the excess belief keeps bringing new minor entities into existence e.g. the oh god of hangovers, the natural counterpoint to any god of excess. Susan acquires Bilious (said oh god) as a temporary sort of sidekick, and goes in search of the Hogfather's fate. 

Any author writing about the powers of belief and myths seems to swing a little extra weight, and Pratchett certainly does here. The idea that belief — faith — is necessary for humanity to reach its best isn't a new one, but here, it's eloquent in its expression — that we need to believe in the little lies in order to belive in the big ones, like justice and right. The fact that justice isn't something that naturally occurs in the universe is not a new concept for Discworld either (see "there's no justice, just us" in previous books), but it's true; there's only what we make. We can make it a fairer, better world...or we can not do that. It's up to us. Given everything that's going on in the world at the moment, that feels particularly essential to remember right now. 

Soul Music by Terry Pratchett

emotional funny fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

Reaper Man was a great book especially in terms of Death's arc and characterisation, but Soul Music is a big step away from focusing on Death per se; instead Susan is Death for much of this story. We see a little of what Death does to try and forget his grief — joining the Klatchian Foreign Legion, drinking in the Mended Drum and so on. But that's the least of the story. For most of it, Susan (Mort and Ysabell's daughter) is drawn into the role of Death and, as she comes to understand what Death actually is, we get a little more of an idea too. He tries very, very hard to understand the world but never quite gets it; as Susan observes, he's been in plenty of bedrooms for the Duty, but the beds and such in the guest rooms at Death's home are all solid and hard as rock — he's seen beds, but never slept, or even tried to be comfortable. 

But he built her a swing, even if she didn't understand the thought processes at the time. 

So,a Death novel only by courtesy, but still pretty good because Music With Rocks In has made it to Discworld. A nice young druid from Llamedos arrives in Ankh-Morpork and, through various machinations, ends up at a mysterious little store where he buys a guitar. It doesn't matter that he can't really play guitar, the guitar will handle it. The guitar also has a mysterious number 1 chalked on it— every instrument in the store has a number. This guitar was the first. From there, the Band With Rocks In becomes a meteoric success...even as it's costing Imp/Buddy his life. 

I'm obviously very early in this project of reading all the Discworld books but I firmly believe Soul Music has the highest pun per square inch count of any I've read so far. I'll leave it to sites like The Annotated Pratchet File to go through them in depth but...is there a page without at least three jokes, puns or Blues Brothers references on it in this book? I got a lot of them (Surreptitious Fabric eluded me — I kept trying to think of bands with something like 'secret' or 'covert' in the name, didn't think of 'underground'), they were genuinely funny, and if future Pratchett books are even more crammed, I'm amazed he has room for story. 

And that's the skill here — Pratchett keeps the story moving, keeps characters developing, keeps the world moving, and crams puns into every page without derailing any of that. The story and the characters are the most important thing and could stand perfectly on their own — you don't need the joke about the real meaning of Imp y Celyn or the Dean being a rebel without a pause to keep the story moving — but the giggles keep coming and don't stop.