Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett

 

Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

To some the personification of Death on the Discworld is a welcome sight when their lives come to an end, to others he is a terror who should be avoided at all costs and to those who maintain the universe he has become to big for his boots and needs to be replaced. So it comes to pass a Timer for Death is created and his time is running out, grabbing his horse he rides forth, he has time to spend. Death ends up at a run down farm owned by a Miss Flitworth (Renata) who takes him on as a farmhand and she gets her moneys worth. Death now known as Bill Door makes friends with the locals (being bad at things in a funny way works wonders) but with no Death to usher the dead onwards dangerous levels of life force builds up along with the mysterious appearance around Ankh-Morpork of pretty snow globes and then the very useful wire framed four wheeled trolleys appear. The wizards and dead but not dead former wizard Windle Poons investigate and we are introduced to some great characters on the way whose adventures ultimately leads to an epic battle which reflects social economic issues in the real world. Reaper Man is a entertaining and very welcome story for Death, the Wizards work well as like many elements of the Discworld smaller doses tends to be better and the new characters merge well into what we now know as the Discworld, it seems to me Terry is very close to to a world where he can add and subtract whatever and wherever he needs to make his story telling develop.
Highly recommended and a novel that isn't dependent upon reading other Discworld novels to get the most out of it.


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