Earthfall is the fourth book in the Homecoming series by Orson Scott Card.  The group travels from Harmony to Earth with lots of problems on the way.  My rating:

Plot summary

The children of Wetchik are ready to board the starship Basilica and embark on their journey from the planet Harmony back to the origin of humanity: Earth. However, the rivalry between Nafai and Elemak promises the journey will be anything but peaceful. Each faction already has hidden plans to prematurely awaken from the long hibernation, to have the upper hand when the landing occurs. The children become pawns in their parents’ power struggle - valuable potential adults that can strengthen each faction. But the Oversoul is ultimately in control, having uploaded a copy of itself into Basilica’s central computer, so that it can monitor the ship at all times.

After landing on Earth, the fragile peace wrought onboard is merely a mask for the turmoils of passions that boil beneath. Not only do the colonists have to deal with the split, there are also the mysteriously symbiotic alien races that have evolved on Earth since humanity’s departure. The quest to understand the Angels (giant bats) and the Diggers (giant rats) that were foreshadowed in the dreams is not an easy one.

The focus throughout the course of this novel begins to drift away from the original generation of characters in order to delineate the passage of time. The factions that developed among the original generation have now spread to their children, through no fault of the children themselves. Nafai finds himself and his “Nafari” living and working primarily amongst the angel people, whereas the “Elemaki” associate much more closely with the diggers. It is this dissociation that eventually breaks nearly all the bonds — literally, for Hushidh and Cheveya– between Nafai and his older brother, Elemak. As Elemak’s rage and hatred for Nafai grow, he ingrains such feelings into his family and the digger people, laying the foundation for war.

After the death of Volemak the Nafari migrate northwards away from the landing site to found a new nation.

The Ships of Earth is the third book in the Homecoming series by Orson Scott Card.  The group travels through the desert and finally reach their final destination on Harmony.   My rating:

Plot summary

The focus is on the struggles between the pioneers to establish a new social order now that they have left Basilica. The new society is opposite to that of the previous societies - male dominated instead of female dominated, monogamous and lifelong marriages instead of the yearly contracts of Basilica.

The struggles between the characters ultimately come down to the struggles between Nafai and Elemak, two sons of Volemak. Nafai leads the faction who have faith in the Oversoul, while Elemak leads the faction who want desperately to return to the civilization of doomed Basilica. Both are ostensibly under the leadership of Volemak (and not Rasa, as they had been in the city).

The settlers, after years of traveling, finally arrive in a land lost in ancient times which holds the secret of the Oversoul. Also many children are born, all in their preparation for the ultimate journey to Earth.

The book offers an interesting justification of the social structures of the Hebrew tribes in Genesis, all while the originally powerful female characters gradually succumb to the new hierarchy of “men” and “wives.” Only one character - Shedemei, the brilliant geneticist, thinks about this problem.

The focus in on the group dynamics of the new tribe as they journey where the Oversoul guides them.

Prophetic dreams abound, mostly involving giant rats and bats (”diggers” and “angels”). The Oversoul discovers itself.

The Call of Earth is the second book in the Homecoming series by Orson Scott Card.  In this one General Moozh takes over Basilica. My rating:

Plot summary

The book focuses on several key events that happen after Nafai, Elemak, Issib, Mebbekew, Zdorab and the father Volemak leave for the desert. Elemak has a dream from the Oversoul, foretelling Volemak’s sons going back to the city of Basilica to get wives. The sons proceed to Nafai’s and Issib’s mother, Rasa, who is attempting to keep order within the city. However Hushidh, a raveler under Rasa’s care, makes the disastrous mistake of severing the ties between Rashgallivak and his men, leading to widespread riots across the city.

At the same time, General Moozh, leader of the “Wetheads” nation (Gorayni), is attempting to conquer cities around Basilica. He sees a strategic chance, and taking only 1000 soldiers, marches across the desert to conquer the city. He arrives in time to help the local city guard quell the uprising, and slowly begins taking control of its affairs.

The remainder of the book deals with Nafai and his brothers’ (Elemak and Mebbekew, who had come) attempts at finding wives. In the end, they are all forced into a house arrest along with Rasa, where Elemak takes Eiadh as his wife, Mebbekew takes Dol, Nafai takes Luet, the waterseer, with Rasa and Hushidh deciding to come as wives for Volemak and Issib, respectively. Shedemei (a Basilican geneticist) is dragged along with enough plants and animals to populate the future earth with new species, also as a wife to Zdorab.

The ending comes when Moozh decides to marry Hushidh to politically tie himself with the city. Hushidh’s original mother arrives to stop the ceremony, since Hushidh is actually the daughter of Moozh. Nafai’s party is escorted out of the city with the women and supplies for the camp.

Moozh ends up conquering the “Wetheads” he had been working for, while his Basilican second-in-command defends the city against the rival nation, Potokgavan. In the end he is killed during an invasion and Basilica falls, scattering the citizens to various other nations and cities on Harmony. Earlier in the book, the Oversoul had revealed the purpose of this dispersal was to force people with a strong connection to it to breed with people who had a weak connection, and so delay the eventual time when the Oversoul loses control of the people of Harmony.

The Memory of Earth is the first book in the Homecoming series by Orson Scott Card.  A very good start of a series with a very intriguing concept.  After earth destroys itself in an apparent nuclear war the remants of humanity create a computer that slightly controls the people of a new planet to stop the descendants of humanity from destroying themselves. My rating:

Plot summary

Humanity has lived for 40 million years on a planet called Harmony, after leaving an Earth that has been destroyed by human conflict. In order not to repeat the mistakes that led to the destruction of civilization on Earth, a computer, known as the Oversoul, was left as guardian of this planet.

Its main mission was to prevent humans from developing technologies that could make wars a global affair. For that, humans were genetically modified so they could communicate with the Oversoul. The Oversoul uses this connection to make humans severely uncomfortable when thinking about forbidden technologies. However, after this long time the Oversoul is beginning to fail, and it chooses a group of humans to return to Earth in search of the Keeper of Earth, in the hopes it will be able to find a way to maintain power over the people on Harmony.

To this end the Oversoul recruits Volemak, father of the protagonist of the story, Nafai. Nafai and Issib, his brother, begin to try and defy the Oversoul’s capability to override thought. Through this they learn of the danger that it is in. Nafai begins hearing the Oversoul’s voice in his mind. The first book focuses on the family’s eventual betrayal, the taking of the Index, and the downfall of the man Gaballufix, who had been planning to ally the city of Basilica, the home of the main characters and the setting of the first half of the book, with a malignant nation.

Nafai, Elemak and Mebbekew, his older half brothers, Issib and his father Volemak are eventually forced to leave the city. They come back to retrieve the Index of the Oversoul, which allows them to communicate with it directly. Because of Nafai’s careless blunders and miraculous successes, Elemak, Nafai’s oldest brother, begins to hate him, a theme that will play out throughout the rest of the saga.

Under the Western Acacia is book #5 in the Ramses Series by Christian Jacq. My rating:

Product Description
The Golden Age Two glorious decades of peace and prosperity have come to pass in Egypt, and an older, wiser Ramses now prepares for the sunset of his reign. With his second wife, Iset, by his side, he must insure Egypt’s future by renewing an old treaty, and choose one of his two sons to someday rule in his place. But old conflicts die hard, and the Hittites’ price for lasting peace is high. Their demand: Ramses must forsake his queen and take their princess for his bride. And as a new generation of dark forces reignites unrest, Ramses readies himself for what may be his greatest-and perhaps final-battle.

Going Postal is book #33 in the Discworld series.  My least favorite in the Discworld series so far. My rating:

Plot

Moist von Lipwig is a skilful con artist. Nevertheless, he is confined to a cell in Ankh-Morpork and scheduled to be hanged, having stolen a total of AM$150,000. He is saved when his own death is faked and Lord Vetinari offers him a choice: he can walk out of the door (and fall to his death), or he can become Postmaster of the city’s run down Post Office. Lipwig chooses the latter, hoping that a chance to escape will present itself. Lipwig’s first and last escape attempt is thwarted by a golem named Mr Pump, previously called Pump 19, who delivers Lipwig back to the office of the Patrician.

With great reluctance, Lipwig takes up his duties, only to find things are even worse than he had presumed. The Post Office has not functioned for decades, and the building is literally full of undelivered mail. Two eccentric employees remain: the aged Junior Postman Groat, and Stanley, a pin-obsessed boy who was raised by peas. They are more concerned about following the Post Office Regulations than seeing the postal system restored. There’s also a Post Office cat, Mr. Tiddles, but it is even more set in its ways than its owners. Lipwig learns that within the last couple of months, while he was waiting to die in his prison cell, a whole string of newly-appointed Postmasters have met their own deaths in the Post Office building. Lipwig eventually discovers that most of the men were killed by failure to safely interact with a “ghost reality” which overlays the physical structure in the Post Office. A wizard at Unseen University explains to him that this phenomenon is caused by the fact that words have power, and masses of them are currently crammed into every available inch of space in the Post Office.

Passing a cruel and dangerous test conducted by the few surviving members of a secret order of postmen, Lipwig “officially” becomes Postmaster, and also learns that the Post Office was once a very efficient operation. Its downfall was when the trans-dimensional letter-sorting machine, created by the infamous inventor Bloody Stupid Johnson, became so highly tuned (owing to Johnson’s substitution of 3 for pi in its design) that it was sorting letters before they were written, along with letters which might have been written, but weren’t.

Lipwig introduces postage stamps to Ankh-Morpork, hires golems to deliver the mail, and finds himself competing against the Grand Trunk Clacks line. He meets and falls in love with the tough, chain-smoking golem-rights activist, Adora Belle Dearheart, and the two begin a relationship by the end of the book. Dearheart is the daughter of the Clacks founder John Dearheart, though the company was taken away from her by tricky financial manoeuvring. Because of this, she still has useful contacts amongst the clacks operators.

The unscrupulous Clacks chairman, Reacher Gilt, sets a banshee assassin (Mr Gryle) on the Postmaster, but only manages to burn down much of the Post Office building. The banshee dies when he gets flipped onto the space-warping sorting machine. Lipwig makes an outrageous wager that he can deliver a message to Genua faster than the Grand Trunk can. “The Smoking Gnu”, a group of clacks-crackers, sets up a plan to send a killer poke into the clacks system that will destroy the machinery, halting the message that Lipwig will race against. Lipwig talks the Gnu out of it, and opts for a more psychological attack on the Grand Trunk, leaving the semaphore towers standing. This plan succeeds. Gilt is soon arrested and find himself confronting the Patrician. Offered a job or exiting the room, he ends up walking through a very specific door - the very pit that Lipwig avoided.

The Lady of Abu Simbel is book #4 in the Ramses Series by Christian Jacq. My rating:
Product Description
Ramses must make the decision of treaty negotiation with the Hittites, a formidable foe. But military matters pale in comparison to matters of the heart, however, as Ramses decides to build temples honoring his wife, Nefertari.

The Battle of Kadesh is book #3 in the Ramses Series by Christian Jacq. My rating:

Product Description
To save Egypt from the Hittites, Ramses II must face the might of their powerful army, whose weapons are vastly superior to Egypt’s own. How can Ramses prepare himself for the battle at Kadesh when the health of his beloved wife, Nefertari, is failing rapidly?

The Temple of a Million Years is book #2 in the Ramses Series by Christian Jacq. My rating:

Product Description
The second title in the fictional biography of Ramses II, a sequel to “The Son of the Light”. Ramses is about to be crowned and faces a fight to hold onto his throne. Can the building of the Temple of a Million Years really help to vanquish his enemies, visible and unseen?

The Son of the Light by Christian Jacq is the first book in the Ramses Series. My rating:

Product Description
Ancient Egypt comes alive in this eagerly anticipated new series that’s breaking sales records in Europe! Ramses, Vol. I: The Son of Light recounts the thrilling story of Ramses, the legendary king who ruled Egypt for more than 60 years. Chosen by the pharaoh Seti, the 14-year-year-old Ramses sets into motion a tapestry of royal intrigue, treacherous plots, and romantic adventures that will keep readers spellbound and hungry for more.

The Narrows is  #10 in the Harry Bosch series.  Another good book in this series. One thing in the ending didn’t seem quite ‘right’, having Terry McCaleb go to a hospital under a fake name seemed like a stretch.   My rating:

Plot summary

While investigating the death of ex-FBI profiler Terry McCaleb at his wife’s request, Bosch begins to suspect that notorious serial killer and ex-FBI supervisor Robert Backus, aka The Poet, presumed dead, may have murdered McCaleb. Digging deeper, Bosch follows a lead to Las Vegas that brings him into contact with the FBI. Meanwhile, FBI agent Rachel Walling, who was at one time Backus’s protege in the FBI (as McCaleb had also been) and who has been exiled by the FBI to South Dakota for four years for her role in The Poet investigation, is the subject of messages sent by Backus to the FBI. As Bosch and Walling are both outsiders to the main FBI investigation, they eventually join forces. The novel shifts points of view, cutting from Bosch’s first-person commentary to the third-person perspectives of Walling and Backus. Bosch meets a neighbor whom he later discovers (in the book The Closers) to be Cassie Black, the main character of Void Moon, and he begins a relationship with Walling. He also accepts an offer from his old partner Kiz Rider to rejoin the LAPD under a new chief of police, as a homicide detective in the Open-Unsolved group within the department’s Robbery-Homicide Division.

In the end, Bosch and Walling bring The Poet to justice by chasing him into the concrete channels of the swollen Los Angeles River in L.A., where he drowns while Bosch barely survives. His death is confirmed this time, as opposed to The Poet where he was merely presumed dead. However, the relationship between Bosch and Walling falls apart in the end when Bosch learns that the FBI had discovered that Backus had nothing to do with McCaleb’s death but had withheld the information from him. In fact, McCaleb had killed himself in a manner to make his death look accidental, as his heart transplant was failing, and he did not want to burden his wife and children with the crippling expense of additional medical procedures.

City of Bones is #8 in the Harry Bosch series.  Another good book in this series. My rating:

Plot Summary

On New Year’s Day, a dog digs up a bone in Laurel Canyon outside of Los Angeles. The dog’s owner, a doctor, recognizes the bone as human and calls it in to the police. Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch takes on the case together with his colleague Jerry Edgar and after investigating the matter further, a shallow grave containing the bones of a child, is discovered. Bosch can’t let go of the case, a case that brings back memories from his own childhood, and starts an investigation. The only clue that he has to go on is the skateboard buried on the same hill as the remains of the child. The body turns out to have been a 12-year old boy that has been buried 20 years earlier. To solve the murder, Bosch has to dig through records of cases involving disappearances and runaways dating far back in time. In order to try to solve the crime, Bosch has to chase down possible witnesses and suspects from near and far. After 20 years time, a lot of the details once remembered about the disappearance of the boy are blurred and leads Bosch fumbling in the dark. At the same time, a female rookie named Julia Brasher joins the department. Even though Bosch has been warned not to fall for a rookie, he does and this leads to further complications, both inside and outside of the investigation.

A Darkness More Than Night is #7 in the Harry Bosch series.  This is a very different version of the Bosch series it is mostly from the point of view of a former FBI agent Terry McCaleb.  Bosch becomes a suspect for a while. My rating:

Plot summary

Terry McCaleb and Graciela Rivers have married and have an infant daughter named Cielo, and McCaleb’s fishing charter business is running full-time on Catalina Island. Nevertheless, sheriff’s deputy Jaye Winston brings McCaleb a file involving a murder scene filled with exotic elements and asks McCaleb to take a look at it, as the police have gotten nowhere. As McCaleb analyzes the clues, they seem to point straight toward Harry Bosch himself, whom McCaleb knows from a previous investigation before his retirement. Bosch is currently a key witness in a separate high-profile murder case involving a movie director, and author/reporter Jack McEvoy, who wrote The Poet, is covering the case.

After McCaleb alerts the police to Bosch’s probable involvement, Bosch goes to Catalina himself to challenge McCaleb’s work and to ask him to re-examine the evidence. Based on a parking ticket that McCaleb finds, he concludes that Bosch may have been set up by the director in order to discredit his evidence in the court case, but the key evidence in proving that is a post office surveillance tape that was in the process of being erased, and from which nothing usable can be recovered.

Nevertheless, Bosch and McCaleb pretend that they have recovered something from the tape, and the real killer in the second case (an ex-cop that handled security for the director) then targets and almost kills McCaleb. Bosch saves McCaleb and captures the ex-cop, while killing his younger brother. In return for not being charged with felony-murder in his brother’s death, the ex-cop turns over evidence implicating the director in the frame of Bosch, and the director agrees to plead guilty to murder in a plea bargain seen by only McEvoy (who got a tip from Bosch) among the reporters. However, McCaleb realizes that Bosch was around to save him only because Bosch knew all the details of the potential frame, which Bosch had lied about to McCaleb, and McCaleb breaks off any renewed relationship with Bosch as a result. Bosch then “baptizes” himself in a plan for a fresh start.

Angels Flight is #7 in the Harry Bosch series.  Eleanor Wish leaves Bosch during this case. My rating:

Plot summary

Detective Bosch finds himself yet again in charge of a case that no one else will touch. This time his job is to nail the killer of hot shot black lawyer Howard Elias. Elias has been found murdered on the eve of going to court on behalf of Michael Harris: a man the LAPD believes guilty of the rape and murder of a 12-year-old girl. Elias had let it be known that the aim of his civil case was not only to reveal the real killer but to target and bring down the racist cops who beat up his client during a violent interrogation. Bosch is going to have to take a long hard look at some of his colleagues in a post-Rodney King Los Angeles Police Department that is rife with suspicion and racial hatred.

Book #5 in the Harry Bosch series.   In this one Harry meets Eleanor Wish again in Las Vegas and at the end of the book they actually get married.  My rating:

From Publishers Weekly
From the opening bars, when the body of Tony Aliso is pulled from the trunk of his Rolls Royce Silver Cloud on Mulholland Drive, to the final grace note on a Hawaiian beach, Connelly has crafted a jazzy, funky, roller coaster of a book. The return of maverick L.A. homicide detective Hieronymous (Harry) Bosch (from 1995’s The Last Coyote) is cause for rejoicing. The Aliso murder quickly embroils Bosch and his new team (Kizmin Rider, a young black female officer on the rise in the department; veteran Jerry Edgar; and their boss, Lieutenant Grace Billets) in a Byzantine tangle of Las Vegas mob money, Hollywood filmmaking and police politics. The plot rushes headlong into deadends and deadfalls, repeatedly reorients and tears off in a new direction. Never known for tact, the single-minded Bosch is soon hotfooting through an acronymic snakepit: the LAPD’s OCID (Organized Crime Investigation Division); the IAD (Internal Affairs Division); the LVPD’s OCU (Las Vegas Police Department’s Organized Crime Unit); the FBI. Not only does each organization claim a piece of the action, but each also wants a piece of Bosch.

Thud! is book #34 in the Discworld series.  Another good Vimes book. My rating:

Plot

As the book opens, a dwarven demagogue, Grag Hamcrusher, is apparently murdered. As ethnic tensions between Ankh-Morpork’s troll and dwarf communities mount in the buildup to the anniversary of the Battle Of Koom Valley, Lord Vetinari convinces Commander Vimes to interview a vampire applicant to the Ankh-Morpork City Watch. The new recruit, Lance-Constable Salacia “Sally” von Humpeding, along with Sergeant Angua and Captain Carrot, is attached to the investigation surrounding Hamcrusher’s death.

Meanwhile, Corporal Nobbs and Sergeant Colon begin an investigation into the theft of the fifty-foot painting, The Battle of Koom Valley by the insane artist Methodia Rascal, from a city museum. Most of the populace believe the painting holds clues to a treasure hidden in Koom Valley. Nobbs has a new girlfriend, the exotic dancer Tawneee; Nobby first caught her eye when slipping an IOU into her garter. Other subplots involve the tension between vampires and werewolves (Sergeant Angua and Lance-Constable Van Humpeding), and the presence of Vetinari’s auditor, A.E. Pessimal, in the Watch House.

A recurring element in the book is Vimes’ race to get home every night by six o’clock to read the book Where’s My Cow? to his infant son (’Young Sam‘, named after his father), no matter what. Another is the game Thud, which first appeared in Going Postal; the game, which is a symbolic replication of the Battle of Koom Valley, requires the player to learn to think as both sides.

Vimes finds himself pressured by Lord Vetinari to solve the murder quickly, before inter-species war erupts in Ankh-Morpork. Vimes and Sergeant Angua visit the dwarves’ under-city mine, where a nervous dwarf named Helmclever draws a mysterious sign in the spilled coffee on his desk. Vimes’ particular brand of omnidirectional anger sends him veering off into the mine, where he cuts himself, he supposes, on a locked door. Later, he convinces the deep down dwarves to allow Captain Carrot to be the “smelter” who looks for the truth of the murder.

When Carrot tries to find that truth, however, he is shown a body that was mutilated after death, and a confusing patch of clues. Angua discovers that a troll really was in the mine at the time of the murder, much to the consternation and fear of the dwarves who claimed a troll did the killing. This troll turns out to be Brick, who is a gutter troll of the lowest sort, addicted to anything beginning with “S” (such as most troll drugs, which all have names like Slab, Scrape, Slice, Slide etc.) and who becomes the protege of Sergeant Detritus.

Angua and Sally soon discover four more bodies in the mine, dwarves clearly murdered by other dwarves. One of these dwarves used his own blood to scrawl yet another mysterious rune on the back of a door in the mine — a door that Commander Vimes cut himself on the other side of. The Deep Downers flee for the mountains, taking the talking cube they found at the bottom of Methodia Rascal’s well, and the painting of Koom Valley. As a parting shot, they invade the Vimes mansion and attempt to murder Lady Sybil Ramkin and Young Sam. The two survive unharmed, thanks to the fighting talents of Vimes and the family butler, Willikins.

Vimes, along with family and several members of the Watch, travels to Koom Valley. He believes he is pursuing justice, but an astute troll king named Mr. Shine and a bright young grag named Bashfulsson know that Vimes is carrying the Summoning Dark, the quasidemonic entity that wreaks vengeance on dwarves who have done evil in the sight of other dwarves. Vimes acquired the Summoning Dark when he touched the cursed door in the city mine, but his own internal watchman proves stronger than it is. As the Commander discovers, the real secret of Koom Valley is that trolls and dwarves did not intend war, but died together, friends, not enemies, in the deluge that ended the first battle. The ancient troll king and dwarf king were found in a deep cavern, preserved by centuries of dripping stone, playing a game of Thud. As the book ends, the tomb of the dead trolls and dwarves is opened to the public, in the hope that the two races will learn to end their centuries of animosity.

Pictures of Perfection by Reginald Hill was a book that I could just not get into. Not sure why, but I just did not find it that interesting. My rating:

Kirkus Reviews:

Called down to placid Enscombe the day before the quarterly Day of Reckoning to investigate the disappearance of Constable Harold Bendish, Yorkshire coppers Andrew Dalziel and Peter Pascoe (Recalled to Life, 1992, etc.), joined by Pascoe’s old friend Sgt. Edgar Wield, find an enchanted village teeming with Brueghelian life - and some secrets worthy of Hieronymous Bosch. Just before vanishing, Bendish had been seen in flagrante on the grounds of Enscombe Old Hall, whose squire, old Selwyn Guillemard, seems oblivious to the clandestine affairs of his pipe-smoking granddaughter Gertrude (Girlie) and his churlish great-nephew and heir-apparent Guy. The new vicar burns for dazzling painter Caddy Scudamore despite his vow of chastity and her indifference; so does art reviewer Justin Halavant, whose home has been broken into, along with waspish Edwin Digweed’s bookstore and stuffy Dudley Wynant’s post office (twice). After watching the postman run his van off the road to avoid a flock of sheep, Pascoe adjourns to the Morris Men’s Rest, whose gossipy landlord fills him in on generations of Enscombe history, before heading over to Intake Cottage to question survivalist Jason Toke about illegally killing a kingfisher. It all seems innocuous enough - or it would, if the book hadn’t opened with a bombshell in the form of a flash-forward to the Day of Reckoning that jerks all these petty intrigues into terrifying focus. Hill’s dazzling frame-tale, in fact, gives his impossibly complex network of subplots a backbone that makes his story both powerfully affecting and massively entertaining. Altogether the finest English village mystery since The Nine Tailors.

Blue Shoes and Happiness is book #7 in the The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series. Another simple and interesting tale of life in Botswana. My rating:

Plot summary

Mma Ramotswe is asked to investigate a cook who is being blackmailed, and a doctor whose nurse believes he is doing something illegal. She discovers the identity of the blackmailer, who is a newspaper agony aunt abusing the confidences of her correspondents, and forces her to stop. The doctor is selling generic drugs at the full cost to his patients, and she causes him to be reported. During the investigation she becomes more aware of her excess weight and its health risks and even tries to diet, but decides the most important thing is to be herself and happy.

Mr Polopetsi, the new employee, is happy in his work but still struggles with poverty and hostility from relatives due to his spell in prison. He wants to help Mma Ramotswe, his mentor, with detective work, and when superstitious fears disturb staff at a local game park, it is he who discovers the cause: an injured hornbill, believed to bring ill luck. He removes it, but it dies, and he fears he has lost Mma Ramotswe’s trust, but is relieved and grateful when she shows faith in him after all.

Mma Makutsi fears her engagement to Phuti Radiphuti is over after a misunderstanding about feminism, but all is explained and, in the process, Mr J.L.B.Matekoni gains a comfortable new chair which will make him happy too. She begins to appreciate how her fortunes will change with her marriage, and indulges her passion for impractical shoes with a new blue pair, even though they do not fit very well.

A Hat Full of Sky is #32 in the Discworld series. In this one Tiffany Aching really becomes a witch in her own right. I really enjoy the Nac Mac Feegles. My rating:

Synopsis

A Hat Full of Sky revisits the young witch Tiffany Aching, who is preparing to leave home and learn witchcraft. Working with Miss Level to learn the use of plants, Tiffany becomes worried by a mysterious presence in the cottage. It turns out to be Oswald, an ondageist^[1] which is a sort of reverse poltergeist, a spirit that is an obsessive cleaner. She takes dislike to her studies, finding the work of the witches to be thankless, dull and pointless. They work long hours helping the sick, young or elderly who are not self-sufficient.

A hiver, a mysterious and dangerous creature, enters Tiffany’s mind causing her to abuse her powers of magic. It is explained that the Hiver does not change the way she acts, merely allows her to do what she would do without a conscience. Her fellow witches are worried by Tiffany’s strange behavior and try to bring her back to herself.

The Nac Mac Feegle arrive to help Tiffany and, along with Miss Level, enter Tiffany’s mind in order to drive off the Hiver. With the help of Mistress Weatherwax, Tiffany traps the Hiver and learns its true purpose, which is to seek shelter from the world, where it is aware of everything, or, as Tiffany calls it ‘opening your eyes and opening them again’. Tiffany eventually leads it to Death where it finally crosses the desert to the afterlife.

At the end of the novel, Tiffany returns to her home to take the place of her grandmother as witch for the people. A witch’s hat is very important, because it lets other people know that you are a witch. However through the story it is revealed Tiffany does not need the traditional hat that she had been wearing as the sky forms her hat.

Monstrous Regiment is book #31 in the Discworld series. It would seem that everyone in the Borogravia army is a woman. My rating:

Plot summary

The story is based in Borogravia, a highly conservative country whose people live according to the increasingly psychotic decrees of its favored deity, Nuggan. The list of “Abominations Unto Nuggan” include Borogravia’s neighboring states, resulting in little Borogravia having a particularly bellicose nature. The uncertain whereabouts of Nuggan leads the inhabitants of Borogravia to deify their Duchess, to whom they pray instead.

The protagonist of the tale is Polly Perks. Polly’s brother Paul is missing in action after fighting in the Borogravian army, so she sets off to join the army in order to find him. It is established that Paul is not all together in the head; he follows orders well enough but needs a bit of mothering, which Polly has filled in with for most of her life.

Women joining the army are regarded as another “Abomination Unto Nuggan”, as is much of life itself. To ensure her entrance into this male-only institution, Polly decides to dress up as a man (women doing so is also an Abomination Unto Nuggan) and starts calling herself Oliver, taking her name from the folk song Sweet Polly Oliver. While signing-up she meets Corporal Strappi and the corpulent Sergeant Jackrum. Despite her apprehensions regarding Strappi, she confirms her intent to enter the army by “kissing the Duchess”; that is, she kisses a painting of the noble. There is a shortage of troops, so a Vampire named Maladict, a Troll, and an Igor are also allowed to join up. Gradually, Oliver discovers all is not well or good in the army. The remainder of the book is about her struggle to come to terms with this new world, and to find her brother.

The Wee Free Men is book #30 in the Discworld series. We meet Tiffany Aching for the first time and the very funny Nac Mac Feegle and its the the only book where Death does not make an appearance! My rating:

Plot summary

A young witch named Miss Tick and her toad arrive on the chalk. She feels that something is not right, not that there is another witch there, which is impossible (chalk supposedly is among the softest of stones, and witches need hard rock to grow on). So she decides to find out what’s going on.

She is right. The Queen of the Elves (see Lords and Ladies) has another attempt at invading the Discworld, by stealing children and infesting dreams.

With the help of the Wee Free Men, the Nac Mac Feegle, 9-year-old Tiffany Aching finds out that her grandmother used to be the witch of the Chalklands, and that she has inherited the trade. When her baby brother is stolen, Tiffany and the Nac Mac Feegle enter the elves’ world to steal him back.

Night Watch is #29 in the Discworld series. In this fantastic novel Sam Vimes goes back in time and trains himself as a watchman. I really enjoyed this book in this great series. My rating:

Plot summary

On the morning of the 30th anniversary of the Glorious Twenty-Fifth of May (and as such the anniversary of the death of John Keel, Vimes’ hero and former mentor), Sam Vimes is caught in a magical storm (briefly implied to be connected to the events of Thief of Time) while pursuing Carcer Dun, a notorious criminal. He awakens to find that he has been rescued by Miss Palm (whom Vimes knows as Mrs Palm, Head of the Guild of Seamstresses). He determines that he has somehow been sent back in time.

Vimes’s first idea is to ask the wizards at Unseen University to send him home, but before he can act on this, he is arrested for breaking curfew by a younger version of himself. Incarcerated in a cell beside his, he finds Carcer, who after being released joins the Unmentionables, the secret police carrying out the paranoid whims of the Patrician of the time, Lord Winder.

When he is taken to be interrogated by the captain, time is frozen by Lu-Tze, who tells Vimes what has happened and that he must assume the identity of his mentor Sergeant-At-Arms John Keel (who was to have arrived that day but was murdered by Carcer). It is stated that the event which caused Vimes and Carcer to be sent into the past was a major temporal shattering. Vimes then returns to the office, time restarts and he convinces the captain that he is Keel.

Young Vimes believes Vimes to be Keel, allowing Vimes to teach Young Vimes the lessons for which Vimes idolised Keel. Essentially this means that Vimes taught and idolised himself, not Keel, although alternate histories and the “Trousers of Time” mean this may not be the case (”You were indeed taken under the wing of one John Keel, a watchman from Pseudopolis,” says Lu Tze. “He was a real person. He was not you”).

The novel climaxes in the Revolution, hinted at since the start of the book. Vimes, taking command of the watchmen, successfully avoids the major bloodshed erupting all over the city and manages to keep his part of it relatively peaceful. After dealing with the Unmentionables’ headquarters he has his haphazard forces barricade a few streets to keep people safe from the fighting between rebels and soldiers. However, the barricades are gradually pushed forward during the night to encompass the surrounding streets until Vimes finds himself in control of a significant part of the city.

The ruler, Lord Winder, is effectively assassinated by the young Assassin’s Guild student Havelock Vetinari when he influences what seems to be a heart attack, and the new Patrician Lord Snapcase calls for a complete amnesty. However, he sees Keel as a threat and sends Carcer and the palace guard to murder the Night Watch. Several policemen (the ones who died when the barricade fell in the original timeline) are killed in the battle; Vimes manages to fight off the attack until he can grab Carcer, at which point they are returned to the future and Keel’s body is placed in the timeline Vimes has just left, to tie things up, as in the “real” history, Keel died in that fight.

Vimes’ son is born, with the help of Doctor ‘Mossy’ Lawn (whom Vimes met while in the past), and Vimes finally arrests Carcer, promising him a fair trial before he’s hanged. A subsequent conversation with Lord Vetinari reveals that the Patrician knows Vimes took Keel’s place. He proposes that the old Watch House at Treacle Mine Road (where Keel was sergeant, and which was destroyed by the dragon in Guards! Guards!) be rebuilt.

The Last Hero is book #27 in the Discworld series. Cohen the barbarian decides to blow up Cori Celesti, the mountain home of the gods. My rating:

Plot summary

The Silver Horde, a group of aged barbarians introduced in Interesting Times, led by Cohen the Barbarian, set out on a quest. The first hero of the Discworld stole fire from the gods. As the last heroes remaining on the Disc the Silver Horde seek to return fire to the gods with interest, in the form of a large sled packed with explosives. With them is a bard, kidnapped so he can write the saga of their quest, and Evil Harry Dread, the last Dark Lord.

The heroes are disillusioned with the way their lives have turned out, and angry for having been allowed to grow old. Evil Harry is just as angry; despite his efforts to give his opponents the sporting chance as an Evil Overlord should, they won’t follow the Code.

Since blowing up the gods will destroy the Discworld, Lord Vetinari organises the Wizards in a quest to stop them. Since the Horde is already near the centre of the Discworld and the home of the gods, speed is of the essence. Leonard of Quirm designs the Discworld’s second known spacecraft to slingshot under the Discworld and back around top to land on Cori Celesti, the mountain home of the gods. The vessel can carry only three people: Leonard of Quirm, Captain Carrot Ironfoundersson, and Rincewind (although the Librarian somehow stumbles aboard). After a few mishaps including landing on the moon and nearly having their swamp dragon powered spaceship (named “The Kite”) explode on them, they crash in a spectacular fashion at Cori Celesti.

Carrot jumps out and on account of being a single brave man (and a king in disguise) the horde assumes he is a Hero and therefore unbeatable. After some explanation by Rincewind the horde takes the already live explosives and more or less jumps off the mountain. It is not explicitly stated that they die (Death does not appear to them as he sometimes does when Discworld characters die, although he subsequently appears to Vena, and is evasive about whether he is “collecting”), but Valkyries do come to take them to the Halls of the Slain. The Silver Horde steal a few of their horses, and set off to find other worlds to “…Do heroic stuff in.”

Meanwhile Leonard is commanded by the gods to paint the entire roof of the Temple of Small Gods within 10 years (he finishes it in a few weeks), Carrot asks for a boon (to allow for the repairs of the Kite), Rincewind asks for a blue balloon and the Librarian asks for some library supplies (and avoids bouncing Blind Io’s head on the ground after he calls him a monkey).

As the Horde leave with the Valkyries’ horses, they stop to see the First Hero, cut off his chains, and hand him a sword that he may deal with his punisher. The bard, hardened by his experience, composes a new style of saga about it and invents the metal ballad.

Thief of Time is book #26 in the Discwrold series. The auditors try and stop time by making the perfect clock. My rating:

Plot summary

The Auditors convince a young clock maker, Jeremy Clockson, in Ankh-Morpork to build a perfect glass clock. They do not reveal that this will imprison Time (the anthropomorphic personification) and thereby freeze time (the physical quantity) on the Discworld. By freezing time, the Auditors intend to eliminate the unpredictability that humans cause through their everyday actions. Death discovers their plans, but is unable to act directly because of previous agreements with the Auditors. Death sends his granddaughter Susan to stop them.

Meanwhile, in a distant valley, a young apprentice of the History Monks, Lobsang Ludd, and his old teacher, Lu-Tze, called ‘The Sweeper’, hear that a glass clock is being built. Lu-Tze knows of such a clock’s side-effects, since he was sent, but failed, to prevent a previous clock from being built. He and Lobsang head for Ankh-Morpork to stop Jeremy from building it.

The Auditors were using one of their own as an agent when contacting Jeremy. Myria LeJean took a human form and became quite disturbed by “her” experiences as “she” became more human and individual, as opposed to the collective Auditors. As she begins to understand more about humans, she opposes the activation of the clock and she eventually joins with Lobsang and Susan to defeat the other Auditors who have also made themselves human.

Number 14 in the Stephanie Plum series.  Certainly not the best in the series.  The Brenda character was not that good in my opinion.  But had some good laughs. My rating:

Plot summary

The novel starts out with Stephanie Plum in the middle of Loretta Rizzi’s apartment where Loretta has a gun to her head, ready to commit suicide. Loretta explains that she just went to get an alcoholic beverage and she couldn’t afford it, and that’s why she held up the place. Stephanie convinces her that killing herself wouldn’t be the way to go, so Loretta leaves in cuffs. Just before they leave, Loretta asks if Stephanie will take care of her son, Mario, who is Morelli’s cousin. Stephanie goes to the office to try to get her bailed out, but no one can afford it so she stays.

Meanwhile, Ranger calls Stephanie with a job, Brenda (a famous singer like Cher), is coming to town and she needs security, so Stephanie reluctantly obliges. After awhile Stephanie goes and tends with Ranger and helps with several disastrous Brenda-fiascos that happen throughout the book.

Loretta is eventually bailed out. Everything seems to be going smoothly until Loretta is kidnapped. With the stress of that, and the added stress of taking care of Mario/Zook, Stephanie is given another bombshell: While asking around about Loretta, she runs into Dom Rizzi, the man who robbed a bank of nine million and then got busted, aka, Loretta’s brother. Dom is so pissed and he’s ranting and raving and let slips that Morelli got Loretta pregnant. Mario is Morelli’s son.

The book carries on, the hunt for Loretta, tending to Zook and Brenda, and trying to survive Lula who has just engaged Tank, Ranger’s employee. After a while, Stephanie goes to tend to other skips and Brenda gets attacked by an evil monkey. Familiar faces arrive, such as, Mooner, the stoned hippie, and a new face appears, Brenda’s cousin/stalker who claims to have psychic visions that involve Brenda getting attacked by a pizza.

After a few dead body discoveries, and crazy events, such as everybody believing that the nine million is stashed away in Morelli’s house, life seems to carry on. But then Stephanie receives a pinky- Loretta’s.

Everything’s gone crazy, Zook, Mooner, and Gary (the stalker), build a spud shooter that guards against the treasure salvagers hunting in Morelli’s yard and the hunt for Dom and Loretta, along with the man that kidnapped her is going crazy.

Later in the book, closure comes suddenly and clearly. A camera is discovered in Morelli’s neighborhood and calls a tech guy to disable the camera, and see who might have hung it. The tech man arrives and it’s revealed that he was the one who had been threatening Stephanie and killing everyone.

A chase ensues and eventually it leads to a garage, and the tech guy/kidnapper, is driving around in the van that holds the nine million and a set of explosives. After the chase is over, with the help of Mooner and the spud gun, the van is tipped over and explodes, killing the tech man. Dom finds Loretta in the garage, safe, with no toes missing. Gary’s prophecy comes true, the explosion, which happened right near a deli, shoots out a pepperonni pizza and hits Brenda, who had been following Stephanie, right in the face.

After everyone has settled down the story ends at Morelli’s house, everyone has newly bought items thanks to Mooner collecting hundreds from the van explosion and Brenda announces that she won’t be returning to Jersey, she’s going to do a reality show with her (now) great stalker/cousin Gary. Zook isn’t Morelli’s kid, Morelli had been caught with another girl.

The Truth is #25 in the Discworld series. Ankh-Morpork gets a newspaper.   My rating:

Plot summary

The book features the coming of movable type to Ankh-Morpork, and the founding of the Discworld’s first newspaper by William de Worde, as he invents investigative journalism with the help of his reporter Sacharissa Cripslock. The two investigate the charges of embezzlement and attempted murder against Havelock Vetinari, and help vindicate him.

The Ankh-Morpork City Watch characters also appear in this novel, but have limited roles and are seen mainly from de Worde’s perspective. C.M.O.T. Dibbler also puts in an appearance.

In the novel the criminal group The New Firm (Mr. Pin and Mr. Tulip) are employed by a group of so called “concerned citizens” to frame Lord Vetinari, in a conspiracy to get a new Patrician of Ankh-Morpork.

To accomplish this the New Firm find a shopkeeper who happens to be the spitting image of Vetinari and plan to use him as a double to make it seem as if Vetinari was trying to abscond from the city with a large amount of gold.

While the ploy works, it is touch-and-go for a minute or two–the New Firm’s employers neglects to tell Mr. Pin and Mr. Tulip that Vetinari “moves like a snake” and has been trained at the Assassins’ Guild. They improvise, stabbing Vetinari’s clerk, Drumknott, and pushing their Vetinari look-a-like into the hallway to “confess”.

The only wrinkle is the escape of Wuffles, Vetinari’s terrier, who tries but fails to get rid of the intruders by biting them at the ankle. The New Firm doesn’t think much of this, but as Mr. Slant of the Lawyer’s Guild is quick to point out, Ankh-Morpork has myriad ways to talk to anything, so the New Firm is forced to search for Wuffles.

When the Ankh-Morpork Times offers a AM$25 reward for Wuffles, hundreds of people show up to attempt to get the reward, and Mr. Pin and Mr. Tulip quickly take advantage of the situation, and arriving disguised as Omnian clergy members.

They are about to kill William de Worde when the Times iconographer takes a picture using “Dark Light” exposure, which causes Mr. Pin to become aware of the large number of ghosts following him, waiting for him to die.

He runs from the scene, and threatens Mr. Slant in order to increase their fee, after which he goes to his employer’s house, where he finds the Times reporter Sacharissa Cripslock.

Taking her with them, the New Firm go down to the Times office to wait for William to show up. A scuffle breaks out, which leads to a fire, from which Mr. Pin and Mr. Tulip take refuge in the basement. When the basement begins to fill with hot lead as the printing press in the floor above melted, Mr. Pin takes advantage of his partner’s trust and, under the guise of a plan, he shoots him and stands on his body in order to survive, claiming he “wasn’t born to fry…”.

When Mr. Pin finally gets out of the basement, out of habit more than anything else, he tries to strangle William, who accidentally runs him through with a paper spike.

Following this Mr. Pin ends up in the Desert of the Dead, where he meets Death and has his soul collected by the Death of Rats. Later, Death obliges Mr. Pin’s wish to be reincarnated by sending him back to life as a potato, which is, ironically, deep fried and turned into chips.

William uses the gems on Mr. Pin’s person to help the Dwarves buy a new press, and then confronts his father, Lord de Worde, at his mansion, almost getting captured. Otto Chriek, the newspaper’s iconographer, saves him, and then angrily threatens his father with vampiric revenge, but ultimately lets Lord de Worde go.

After the two return to the office, William learns of Lord Vetinari’s reinstatement, and asks Sacharissa out. Afterwards, Mr. Tulip, reincarnated as a woodworm, comments on the “-ing good wood.”

The Fifth Elephant is #24 in the Discworld series. Dwarves, vampires and Werewolves! My rating:

Plot summary

Samuel Vimes, Commander of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch and Duke of Ankh, is sent to the remote region of Überwald as an ambassador to negotiate on increased imports of fat. Underground fat deposits are abundant in Überwald as a fifth world-supporting elephant impacted there in prehistoric times, according to legend. Recently on the discworld, a series of clacks towers have gone up to relay information across the disc. There is discussion about encyphering messages between Vetinari and Leonard of Quirm where The Patrician mentions that sometimes it is beneficial to have codes that can be broken. Then one is able to ascertain what the enemy thinks one thinks.

Überwald is also the traditional home of the Disc’s dwarfs who are about to enthrone a new Low King. A cabal of local werewolves seek to exploit this opportunity to destabilize the already deeply divided dwarf society. They instigate the apparent theft of the Low King’s regalia (the ‘Scone of Stone’), hoping to cause a civil war between traditionalists and progressive dwarfs and isolate the country under the werewolves’ feudal leadership.

In his official capacity as ambassador Vimes meets the leaders of the local vampires, werewolves and dwarfs, starting to investigate the planned putsch along the way. Meanwhile, back in Ankh-Morpork, Angua learns that Wolfgang, her werewolf brother, is the head of the conspiracy and sets out to Überwald to stop him. Consequently Carrot also abandons the Watch and pursues her across the country, leaving an overburdened Colon as acting captain.

Following an attempt on the designated Low King’s life Vimes is imprisoned by the dwarfs but escapes. On the run across the wintry countryside he is chased by the conspiring werewolves. Carrot and Angua arrive just in time to save Vimes from the murderous pack.

Vimes’ wife has been taken to the castle of Angua’s werewolf familiy so the commander and his entourage set out to save her. Managing to defeat the power-hungry Wolfgang they are also able to reclaim the dwarfs’ stolen Scone of Stone. Here the Ship of Theseus Paradox plays a very important part in the plot concerning the authenticity of the Stone of Scone.

Back in their embassy the Morporkians are once more attacked by Wolfgang. In a final standoff, he resists arrest and is killed by Commander Vimes with a Clacks flare. With the Low King’s regalia returned the enthronement ceremony finally takes place and Vimes is granted prime rates for fat imports to Ankh-Morpork, thus fulfilling his original mission.

Carpe Jugulum is #23 in the Discworld series. Vampires!!   My rating:

Plot summary

Count Magpyr and family are invited to the naming of Magrat and King Verence’s daughter, to be conducted by the Omnian priest, Mightily Oats. For some reason, the Magpyrs are not keen to go home to Überwald, and, once again, the witches, Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Agnes Nitt (aka Perdita) have to save the mountain realm of Lancre.

The Magpyr family have made themselves much more formidable enemies by building up tolerance to the normal methods used to defeat vampires, such as garlic, bright light, and religious symbols. They exert a hypnotic charm over normal people which prevents them from realising that the vampires are taking over Lancre. Only the youngest witch, Agnes, and the Omnian priest, Mightily Oats, seem able to resist this charm, due to their dual personalities. The Magpyr son, Vlad, is attracted to Agnes because she is able to resist him.

There is an Igor who is the servant of the Magpyrs. He is a traditionalist who spends his spare time breeding and distributing spiders for the dark corners of the castle. The Magpyrs are very rude to him, and make fun of his attempts to keep their residence looking like a ‘proper’ vampire’s castle. Eventually he rebels, using his considerable stock of Holy Water and other religious symbols to repel the Magpyres.

The vampires identify Granny Weatherwax as one of their more significant foes, and decide to deal with the problem by converting her to one of them. Unfortunately, they instead find themselves ‘Weatherwaxed’ and are defeated by their craving for hot, sweet tea and biscuits.

As is common in Discworld novels, Pratchett references and parodies popular culture frequently, especially Hammer horror and the gothic subculture in this novel.

The Last Continent is #22 in the Discworld series.  This is a hilarious take off on Australia. My rating:

Plot summary

The story opens years after the events of Interesting Times, in which Rincewind is magically transported to the forsaken continent of XXXX due to a miscalculation made by the Unseen University wizards. Rincewind has been surviving by falling in water holes, looking for grubs under rocks, and befriending indigenous peoples (up to a point, since Rincewind would invariably talk about the weather, a subject about which the native tribes were apparently sensitive). Rincewind soon meets the magical kangaroo Scrappy, who was sent by the creator of FourX. Scrappy explains to Rincewind that he is fated to bring back “The Wet,” meaning the rain, and that he is the reason for the eons-long drought. Scrappy says that the continent is unfinished, and time and space will be an eternal anomaly there until it is finished, i.e. the rain is brought back, and shows Rincewind cave paintings of Wizards.

Meanwhile, the senior wizards (made up of Archancellor Mustrum Ridcully, the Dean, the Bursar, The Chair of Indefinite Studies, the Lecturer in Recent Runes, the Senior Wrangler and Ponder Stibbons) of Ankh Morpork’s Unseen University are trying to find a cure for the Librarian’s magical malady (which causes him to transform into a native object, such as a book when near a library, whenever he sneezes) contracted from his work in the UU’s magical library. The wizards soon find out that the books in the Library become hostile and attack (being magical books in a magical library, this is in fact a threat) when not in the librarian’s care. The wizards cannot cure the Librarian without knowing his name. The Librarian, being also the archivist, destroyed any evidence of his true name since he believed the wizards would attempt to turn him human again, as he rather enjoyed his orangutan body (brought on by a magical accident years before). The Lecturer in Recent Runes suggest they interrogate Rincewind, as he once worked closely with the Librarian and seemed to know more about him than anyone else. The wizards then decide to find the continent of XXXX (so named because no one has any clue what its real name is) where they had previously sent Rincewind by accident. The wizards find the Egregious Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography’s study, but no sign of the professor himself. They then find a magical window in space leading from the professor’s bathroom to a tropical island thousands of years in the past.

Thousands of years later, Rincewind attempts to run away from his destiny, but in fact runs towards it. With the secret assistance of Scrappy, Rincewind eventually ends up wrongfully arrested for sheep theft and taken to Bugarup, where he is hoping to find a ship to escape on. A gigantic circular storm surrounding FourX prevents any ships from leaving, however. The people of Bugarup are enthusiastic for Rincewind, since they regard sheep thieves as folk heroes and encourage him to escape, while not actually allowing him to. Rincewind finds a hidden message on the ceiling of his holding cell telling him to check the hinges on the door. Rincewind discovers that he is able to lift the door off its hinges and escape.

The wizards on the tropical island become trapped when Mrs. Whitlow, the head maid, brings them their breakfast and inadvertently closes the window that leads back into the Professor’s study. The wizards soon encounter plants that rapidly evolve to suit their needs but do not question the turn of events (apart from Ponder) until a large dinosaur evolves into a chicken in front of their eyes. After finding a plant-based boat, the wizards start to question their surroundings even more and the god of Evolution, who has been causing the events, then turns up and helps explain things a bit. He created the boat plant so that the wizards would leave him in peace, as the plants are going haywire attempting to evolve to suit the wizards’ every needs in order to have their seeds distributed. The god doesn’t understand the purpose of the seeds and is, it turns out, unaware of the concept of sexual reproduction. After Mrs. Whitlow explains it to him, the much excited god decides to almost completely redesign the creatures on the island in order to incorporate the idea. Ponder decides to stay to help the god while the wizards load up on provisions and leave. Ponder soon catches up with them, as he discovered that the God was fixated with beetles and built the cockroach as his primary project rather than humans. The wizards then reach FourX and meet the Creator of FourX (not of the Disc) in the process of creating it by way of impressionistic cave paintings. The wizards bicker over the Creator’s technique and inadvertently create the duck-billed platypus. The Librarian meanwhile steals the Creator’s bullroarer and spins it, causing the drought Rincewind is in the process of stopping. The wizards are then frozen in time for thousands of years by the stray magic left over from creating the continent.

Rincewind having escaped from gaol, invents the Peach Nellie, and then meets up with a group of female impersonators, Darleen and Letitia, and a female, Neilette. Rincewind then meets up with his magical trunk, the infamous Luggage, who rescues him from the Watch. Escaping from the Watch, Rincewind and Neilette break into the old brewery (which was never used because all the beer kept going flat). An earthquake (induced by the voice of the creator) causes the brewery to collapse, trapping them inside the Luggage. When they emerge, Rincewind can see the ethereal outlines of the wizards (who were trapped, frozen in time, for thirty thousand years in the brewery). Eventually he arrives at the University of FourX (which is made out of corrugated iron nailed onto a wooden frame, and has a tower that is taller on the inside than it is on the outside). He takes the FourXian Wizards to the brewery and figures out how to free the wizards, by drawing a picture of them, like the Creator does to create animals and plants in the past. However, it becomes apparent that no-one knows how to make it rain. In despair, they give up. As they are sitting around, Rincewind idly twirls the Bullroarer (which had remained in the Librarian’s possession), and realises that it is the key to making it rain. He swings it around his head, and it soon begins to fly faster and farther than it should with the force with which it is being swung. Rincewind lets go and the bullroarer flies off; immediately, it begins to rain.

Having saved FourX, the Wizards return to Ankh-Morpork by ship, and the story ends with the old man with the sack (the Creator of the last continent) catching the bullroarer in front of a young boy.

Jingo is #21 in the Discworld series. The men of the watch go on a field trip to Klatch.   My rating:

Plot

The book deals with a war between Ankh-Morpork and Klatch over the island of Leshp, which unexpectedly rises from the sea after centuries of submersion. When Samuel Vimes uncovers signs of a conspiracy, he and the members of the City Watch, with the assistance of the mysterious 71-Hour Ahmed, try to bring a stop to the oncoming conflict. Meanwhile, Fred Colon and Nobby Nobbs find themselves drafted by The Patrician into using an experimental Going-Under-the-Water-Safely Device to travel to Klatch and do some reconnaissance.

A similar real life incident happened in 1831 off the coast of Sicily when an underwater volcano produced the island of Ferdinandea. As in the book several nations contested for the new land and while they were arguing it eroded back into the sea by 1832.

The trio of Gulli, Gulli, and Betti is an allusion to Wilson, Keppel and Betty.[1]

The attack on the Prince is similar to the Kennedy assasination and includes a grassy Gnoll. There are several allusions to Lawrence of Arabia.

Double Cross is the thirteenth book in the Alex Cross series. This one has the return of Kyle Craig and was a very good quick real read. My rating:

Plot Summary

Alex Cross rejoins the Washington DC police force in pursuit of a serial killer who wants to be a mega-celebrity. Alex Cross has a new girlfriend, Brianna Stone, who is also a detective in the police force. Each murder becomes increasingly complex and expands the audience to the murders. The killers ‘modus operandi’ is that he adores an audience to his murders. Throughout the story the murderer is referred to as DCAK, short for “The Washington DC Audience Killer”.

Hogfather is #20 in the Discworld series. In this one we learn all about Discworld’s ‘Father Christmas’ with his sleigh pulled by four Hog’s.My rating:

Plot summary

In the novel, the Auditors strike again by deciding to eliminate the Hogfather because he does not fit into their view of the universe. They meet with Lord Downey, head of the Assassin’s Guild, and commission the services of Mr. Teatime (pronounced teh-ah-tim-eh), whose particular brand of insane genius makes him an ideal candidate for the assassination of the Hogfather and other anthropomorphic personifications. Death decides to take over for the Hogfather in order to make people continue to believe in him, wearing a long red cloak and a beard, but things start to become complicated because he is taking the children’s wishes too literally. Pratchett also references The Little Match Girl, with Death questioning accepted folklore and his own principles and rescuing the girl instead of letting her die. Albert throws snowballs at some affronted angels who had come to take her to heaven; Death points out that they could have come before instead of after she died and Albert agrees that the fable doesn’t work so well when he comes to think of it.

Meanwhile, his granddaughter Susan must find out what’s happened to the real Hogfather. She visits his Castle of Bones only to find the hung-over Bilious, the “Oh God of Hangovers” (So-called because “when humans experience him, they clutch their heads and say “oh god”) whom she rescues before the castle collapses due to the lack of belief. In an attempt to cure Bilious, Susan visits the Unseen University, where it is discovered that several of these small gods and beings are being created. The University’s thinking machine, Hex, explains that there is ’spare belief’ in the world - due to the absence of the Hogfather - which is being used to create them. Susan and Bilious then travel to the land of the Tooth Fairy where they discover that Jonathan Teatime has ‘killed’ the Hogfather by collecting millions of children’s teeth and using them to control the children, forcing them to stop believing in the Hogfather. Upon throwing the Assassin off the tower and apparently killing him, Susan clears the teeth away and brings back the Hogfather by rescuing him from the Auditors, who have taken the forms of dogs. They cannot return to their original state and so cannot stop themselves falling off a cliff.

Afterwards, Teatime tracks Susan to the Gaiters’ nursery, but is killed by Susan using the nursery poker, which passes through Death because “it only kills monsters”.

Feet of Clay is #19 in the Discworld Series, this one is all about golems. My rating:

Plot

A cabal of Ankh-Morpork’s guild leaders seek to gradually depose of the Patrician, replace him with Nobby Nobbs as the new king and rule the city through him.

The cabal order Meshugah, a golem newly-made by other golems in the hope he would be a king and leader for them, to fabricate poisoned candles and have them delivered to the palace. But the golems used an oven rather than a proper kiln to bake Meshugah, which leaves him literally “half-baked”. He goes mad, its mind overloaded with all the wishes and propositions of the golem community, and starts killing people. (The name Meshugah comes from the adjective meaning “crazy”, in Hebrew.)

At this point the City Watch steps in trying to solve the murders and Lord Vetinari’s poisoning. With the assistance of their new forensics dwarf Cheery Littlebottom, Commander Vimes and Captain Carrot unravel the mystery. Carrot and Dorfl, one of the golems, fight and defeat the golem king at the candlestick factory. Afterwards, Vimes confronts the city’s chief herald, a vampire, who instigated the whole affair. Dorfl arrests him despite tenuous evidence and Vimes burns down all the heralds’ records of the nobility as a sort of punishment.

In the end, Vetinari has recovered completely, Dorfl is sworn in as a watchman, Vimes gets a pay raise, and the watch house gets a new dart board (as per usual).

Maskerade is #18 in the Discworld series. The Phantom of the Opera comes to the Discworld.   My rating:

Plot summary

The story begins with Agnes Nitt leaving Lancre to seek a career at the Opera House in Ankh-Morpork. When Granny Weatherwax realizes Nanny Ogg has written an immensely popular cookbook but has not been paid by the publisher, the witches also leave for Ankh-Morpork to collect the money, as well as to attempt to recruit Agnes into their coven, to replace Magrat Garlick who left the coven when she became Queen of Lancre (in Lords and Ladies).

Agnes Nitt is chosen as a member of the chorus, where she meets Christine, a more popular but less talented girl. The Opera House Ghost, who has long haunted the opera house without much incident, begins to commit seemingly random murders staged as “accidents”, and also requests that Christine be given lead roles in several upcoming productions. Due to her incredibly powerful and versatile voice, Agnes is asked to sing the parts from the background, unbeknownst to Christine or the audience.

Having discovered the problems at the opera house and also having coerced the publisher to pay Nanny richly for her book, the witches investigate the mystery, with Granny posing as a rich patron, and Nanny insinuating herself into the opera house staff. Agnes unmasks Walter Plinge, the janitor, as the ghost, though as he is seemingly harmless, the others are unconvinced. Another employee is suspected, but turns out to be a member of the Cable Street Particulars. The witches determine that the finances of the Opera House, which are a complete mess, have been made so intentionally in order to hide the fact that money is being stolen, with the murders being used either as a distraction or to cover evidence.

It is finally revealed that two people had been masquerading as the ghost. The original (and harmless) ghost, Walter Plinge, was being psychologically manipulated by the second ghost, who assumed the identity to commit the murders and theft. With the witches’ help, Walter is able to overcome his fears and help defeat the murderer.

Interesting Times is #16 in the Discworld series. Rincewind, the Great Wizzard is back and sent ot Hunghung where he meets Twoflower’s daughters. My rating:

Plot summary

The events of the novel are a “game” between the Discworld gods Fate and The Lady (Luck) with the Discworld as their game board.

This novel marks Rincewind’s reappearance on the Discworld after the events of Eric. The Patrician of Ankh-Morpork is sent a letter from the Agatean Empire on the Counterweight Continent commanding him to “send us the Great Wizzard”. The wizards of Unseen University, after some discussion, eventually realise the spelling of Wizzard can refer to only one man – Rincewind.

After using Hex to assist in performing a spell to summon Rincewind, Archchancellor Ridcully convinces him to go to the Agatean Empire and speak to whoever sent the message. A second summoning spell is used, which exchanges the position of Rincewind with that of a live cannon.

As usual, The Luggage is not far behind Rincewind, following him across the continents to its homeland. However, once there it gets the impression that Rincewind has relinquished ownership, and therefore the two are separated for a large portion of the book as The Luggage explores the land.

Upon his arrival on the Counterweight Continent, Rincewind is reunited with a companion of his previous adventures, Cohen the Barbarian. Cohen has brought a group of aging heroes, The Silver Horde, with him, in order to usurp the Emperor and “steal” the country. Rincewind also learns that the Empire is in a state of turmoil thanks to a revolutionary document entitled “What I did on My Holidays”. Later, Rincewind discovers that this book was written by none other than his travelling companion in the novels The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic, Twoflower the tourist. The Empire’s capital city of Hunghung is under “siege” from the Empire’s five most powerful feudal lords – Hong, Tang, Fang, Sung, and McSweeney, and a revolutionary group called the Red Army is also independently plotting to overthrow the Emperor.

Rincewind travels to Hunghung where he meets Twoflower’s daughters, who are members of the Red Army. He discovers that Agatean culture is not a good breeding ground for revolution and the Red Army doesn’t do much more than putting up posters and shouting limp slogans. Rincewind is cajoled into helping the Red Army free revolutionary prisoners, but they are captured and thrown into the dungeons, where Twoflower is also being held.

The most powerful feudal lord, Lord Hong, has in fact been manipulating the other four families and fomenting the Red Army to further his own political gains. His plan is for the Red Army to assassinate the Emperor, so that he in turn can mount a counter-revolution, take control of the Empire and eventually conquer Ankh-Morpork. To this end, Rincewind and the others are mysteriously allowed to escape and led to the Emperor’s bedroom, where they discover that the Emperor has already been murdered by Lord Hong’s soldiers.

At the same time, Cohen and his Silver Horde infiltrate the city, and penetrate the Forbidden City, home of the Emperor. Rincewind eventually finds his way to the Throne Room, where Cohen has now installed himself as Emperor. However, the city remains under siege from five armies, and the Silver Horde are called out to meet their challenge.

Rincewind, trying to avoid the battle, finds his way up an ancient hill outside Hunghung. As the battle is about to commence, a massive thunderstorm appears, and Rincewind finds himself dropped into a mysterious cave, filled with terracotta statues, the original, legendary Red Army. After locating some magic armour that allows him to control the army, Rincewind leads them out into the middle of the battlefield and begins destroying the five attacking armies, mostly by accident. Cohen is returned to Hunghung victorious, and re-proclaims himself Emperor.

Lord Hong escapes the battlefield, and returns to Hunghung for a final showdown. Twoflower challenges him to a duel, blaming Lord Hong for the death of his wife. Just as Hong is about to kill Twoflower, the the cannon is returned, lit, as a result of the Unseen University wizards’ attempts to resummon Rincewind. The cannon fires, and Hong is killed, along with one of the members of Cohen’s horde; Ronald Saveloy the civilization instructor, who had given up civilization as a waste of time and thinks heroes get a better class of afterlife. The rest of the Silver Horde is unharmed, due to many years of practice at not dying.

Due to a slight error in calculation by Hex caused by Luck’s interference, Rincewind is not returned to the University. The wizards determine that Rincewind has in fact been transported to “XXXX“, an unexplored continent. At the end, it appears that Rincewind is about to be pulled into another adventure despite his best efforts.

Soul Music is # 16 in the Discworld series, The Band with Rocks In It hit the Discworld! My rating:

Plot summary

The story follows the short-lived but glamorous musical career of “The Band with Rocks In”, a group of musicians who become famous after their leader, Imp Y Celyn aka. ‘Buddy’, becomes possessed by the essence of an addictive new music dubbed ‘Music With Rocks In’. The band is “discovered” by C.M.O.T. Dibbler, who becomes the Disc’s first manager. He tries to cash in by any means possible whilst keeping the band ignorant. He also hires the troll Asphalt as a roadie to accompany the band on its tour.

Meanwhile, Death is in one of his philosophical moods, and takes a holiday in search of a way to forget his more troubling memories, such as the recent demise of his adopted daughter Ysabell and her husband Mort. In the meantime, his granddaughter Susan discovers the truth about her heritage when she is forced to stand in for her missing grandfather. Complications ensue when she falls in love with Buddy, and tries to save him from his “live fast, die young” destiny as the Discworld’s first rock star.

Buddy wants to do a free concert, and after Dibbler figures out how much money he can make by selling T-shirts, sausages-in-a-bun etc. to the audience, he agrees. A large number of bands, all of whom have formed in response to the original “Band with Rocks In”, participate in the largest concert of all time.

Afterwards the band flees from their crazed fans, pursued by the angry Musicians Guild, C.M.O.T. Dibbler, Susan and Death. The cart in which the band are riding falls into a gorge, killing all its passengers, but Death intervenes to save them, afterward destroying the guitar which was the source of the new music. Thus the band are freed from their self-destructive destiny, and the spirit of the Music With Rocks in is driven from the Disc.

Men at Arms is the # 15 book in the Discworld series, and we are back with the City Watch with some new recruits. My rating:

Plot

Edward d’Eath, an Assassin and son of a down-and-out noble family, is determined to track down the lost heir to Ankh-Morpork’s throne, and place him as leader, no matter how many people he has to kill.

Meanwhile, Captain Samuel Vimes, captain of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, is confronted by new problems. About to be married to Sybil Ramkin, richest woman in Ankh-Morpork, he has to deal with the new recruits first: a dwarf, a troll, and a werewolf, representatives of ethnic minorities in the city. He also has to figure out who stole a mysterious device from the Assassins’ Guild and solve a string of gruesome, seemingly random murders.

As the story progresses, it is made clear that d’Eath has stolen the ‘gonne,’ the Disc’s first firearm. He meant to use it to set the rightful king on the throne, but the device appears to have a strange mind of its own. After d’Eath takes it to Dr. Cruces, head of the Assassin’s Guild, along with his evidence of the king’s identity, he is murdered by Dr. Cruces who then becomes a puppet of the gonne.

The Watch foil his attempt on the Patrician’s life, losing Cuddy in the process, and Vimes and Carrot tail him into the sewers. After a brief struggle, Vimes manages to take the gonne and corner Cruces in his office in the Assassin’s Guild. With Carrot’s help, he resists the weapon and Carrot, learning of his heritage, kills Dr. Cruces with his distinctly non-magic sword. The gonne is destroyed, and Vimes takes over in the revived post of Commander of the Watch.

Lords and Ladies is #14 in the Discworld series, the three witches are back from Genua and the elves are breaking through the stones. My rating:

Plot

The book is a follow up to Witches Abroad. The witches Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick return home to the little mountain kingdom of Lancre, where they discover that amateur practitioners of witchcraft have weakened the fabric of fantasy. Elves manage to break through, and must be defeated.

The plot turns on Magrat’s wedding to King Verence II, and her misgivings about it. The plot includes several elements of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare, and quotes lines from various folk songs about elves. The sub-plot includes the Unseen University wizards, mainly Archchancellor Mustrum Ridcully, Ponder Stibbons, the Bursar and the Librarian.

Small Gods is #13 in the Discworld series and a very interesting concept that gods are created and ‘fed’ by the people that believe in them. My rating:

Plot

The great god Om tries to manifest himself once more in the world, as the time of his eighth prophet is nigh. He is surprised, however, when he finds himself in the body of a tortoise, completely stripped of his divine powers.

In the gardens of Omnia’s capital he addresses the novice Brutha, the only one able to hear his voice. Om has a hard time convincing the slightly stupid lad of his godliness.

Brutha is gifted with an eidetic memory (he recalls everything that happened in his life) and is therefore chosen by Vorbis, the head of the Quisition, to come along on a diplomatic mission to Ephebe.

With the help of Ephebe’s Great Library, and the deceased religious philosopher Abraxas, Om learns that Brutha is the only one left believing in him. All others either just fear the Quisition’s wrath or go along with the church out of habit. While in Ephebe, Brutha’s memory aids an Omnian raid through the Labyrinth guarding the Tyrant’s palace.

Fleeing the ensuing struggle by boat, Brutha, Om and a severely injured Vorbis end up lost in the high desert. Trekking home to Omnia, they encounter the small gods who are faint ghost-like beings yearning to be believed in to become powerful. Realizing his ‘mortality’ and how important his believers are to him Om begins to care about them for the first time.

On the desert’s edge a recovered Vorbis attempts to finish off Om’s tortoise form, abducts Brutha, and proceeds to become ordained as the Eighth Prophet. Brutha ends up to be publicly burned for heresy while strapped on a heatable bronze turtle. In a deus ex aquila moment Om comes to the rescue, dropping from an eagle’s claws onto Vorbis’ head, killing him in exactly the same way as the philosopher Aeschylus. As a great crowd witnesses this miracle they come to believe truly in Om and he instantly becomes powerful again.

In the book’s conclusion Brutha gets made Eighth Prophet, ending the Quisition and reforming the church to be more open-minded and humanist. The last moments of the book see Brutha’s death a hundred years to the day after Om’s return to power (part of a deal they brokered) and his journey across the ethereal desert towards judgement, accompanied by the spirit of Vorbis, who Brutha found still in the desert and took pity on.

Witches Abroad is #12 in the Discoworld series, the three witches are back and they travel to Genua and Magrat becomes a fairy godmother. My rating:

Plot summary

It features Granny Weatherwax (introduced in Equal Rites), and her two associate witches, Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick (introduced in Wyrd Sisters). They visit Genua, on the other side of the continent, where they confront Granny’s sister, Lily Weatherwax, who is manipulating people using the power of stories.

The plot contains references to many fairy tales and fantasy novels, including Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and The Frog Prince. There are also brief references to Gollum, and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The characters themselves recognize and acknowledge that other stories are influencing the plot.

Another main theme is that of Voodoo. One of the characters is a voodoo witch named Erzulie Gogol (Erzulie is the name of a voodoo goddess, Gogol a Russian author who wrote about “Dead Souls” ), and a zombie named Baron Saturday (which is an obvious reference to Baron Samedi).

Reaper Man is #11 in the Discworld series. Death becomes a farmer….. My rating:

Plot

The Auditors of Reality are beings who watch the Discworld to ensure everything obeys The Rules. As Death starts developing a personality the Auditors feel that he does not perform his Duty in the right way. They send him to live like everyone else. Assuming the name “Bill Door”, he works as a farm hand for the elderly Miss Flitworth.

While every other species creates a new Death for themselves, humans need more time for their Death to be completed. As a result, the life force of dead humans starts to build up; this results in poltergeist activity, ghosts, and other paranormal phenomena. Most notable is the return of the recently deceased wizard Windle Poons, who was really looking forward to reincarnation. After several misadventures, including being accosted by his oldest friends, he finds himself attending the Fresh Start club, an undead-rights group led by Reg Shoe. The Fresh Start club and the wizards of Unseen University discover the city of Ankh-Morpork is being invaded by a parasitic lifeform that feeds on cities and hatches from eggs that resemble snow globes. Tracking its middle form, shopping carts, the Fresh Start club and the wizards invade and destroy the third form, a shopping mall.

When humankind finally thinks of a New Death, one with a crown and without any humanity or human face, it goes to take Bill Door. Death/Door, having planned for this moment for some time, outwits and destroys it. Having defeated the New Death, Death absorbs the other Deaths back into him, with the exception of the Death of Rats (and ultimately, the Death of Fleas). Death confronts Azrael, the Death of the Universe, and states that the Deaths have to care or they do not exist and there is nothing but Oblivion, which must also end some time.

Death asks for and receives some time. He meets up with Miss Flitworth again and offers her unlimited dreams. She asks to go to the local Harvest Dance. They prepare and join the townspeople for a full night of dancing.

As the sun is coming up, Miss Flitworth realizes she had died hours before the dance even started. Death escorts her through history to her old fiancé. Returning to the city of Ankh Morpork he meets up with Windle Poons, finally taking him to his just reward, whatever it is. At the end there is also a discussion between Death and the Death of Rats over what the Death of rats should “ride”, Death suggests a Dog while the Death of Rats suggests a cat.

Moving Pictures is the tenth novel in the Discworld series. The first book in the series that I did not really enjoy. It was just ok. My rating:

Plot summary

The alchemists of the Discworld have invented moving pictures. Many hopefuls are drawn by the siren call of Holy Wood, home of the fledgling “clicks” industry – among them Victor Tugelbend (”Can’t sing. Can’t dance. Can handle a sword a little.”), a dropout from Ankh-Morpork’s Unseen University and Theda “Ginger” Withel, a girl “from a little town you never ever heard of”, who become stars, and the Discworld’s most infamous salesman, Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler, who introduces commerce to the equation and becomes a successful producer. Meanwhile, it gradually becomes clear that the production of movies is having a deleterious effect on the structure of reality.

Faust Eric is #9 in the Discworld series and features the return of Rincewind from the Dungeon Dimension.My rating:

Plot summary

The story is a parody of the tale of Faust, and follows the events of Sourcery in which the Wizard Rincewind was trapped in the Dungeon Dimensions.

Rincewind wakes in a strange place, having been summoned by the 13 year old demonologist, Eric Thursley, who wants the mastery of all kingdoms, to meet the most beautiful woman who ever existed, and to live forever. He is disappointed when Rincewind tells him he is unable to deliver any of these things, and embarrassed when Rincewind sees through his disguise. Rincewind is disheartened to learn that the spells to confine the demon summoned are working on him; Eric’s parrot tells him that because he was summoned as a demon, he is subject to the same terms.

The arrival of Rincewind’s luggage causes Eric to suspect deceit on Rincewind’s part. Eric’s demands are renewed; he makes three wishes of Rincewind. Rincewind insists he cannot grant wishes with the snap of a finger, and discovers to his horror that snapping his fingers really does work.

• To be Ruler of the World. Eric and Rincewind find themselves in the rain forests of Klatch, in the Tezumen empire. The local people come forward to pay tribute to Eric and declare him Ruler of the World. During this tribute, Rincewind and the parrot explore the temple of Quezovercoatl, where they find a prisoner, Ponce da Quirm (a parody of Juan Ponce de León), who is to be sacrificed. Da Quirm tells Rincewind about the terrible fate the Tezumen have planned for the Ruler of the World, on whom they blame all life’s misfortunes. Shortly, Rincewind, Eric and da Quirm find themselves tied up at the top of a pyramid, waiting to be sacrificed, when Quetzovercoatl makes his appearance. Unfortunately for him, the luggage also makes an appearance, trampling the six-inch-tall Questzovercoatl in the process. The Tezumen are pleased to see Quetzovercoatl destroyed, release the prisoners, and enshrine the luggage in the place of their god.

• To Meet the Most Beautiful Woman in All History. Rincewind snaps his fingers again, and they find themselves in a large wooden horse (a parody of the Trojan Horse). Exiting, they are surrounded by soldiers, who take them for an Ephebian invasion force. Rincewind manages to talk their way out of the Ephebian guards and out of the city, only to fall into the hands of the invading army. Rincewind and Eric are taken to Lavaeolus, the man who built the horse, who tells them off for spoiling the war. They reenter Tsort through a secret passage, and find Elenor (a parody of Helen of Troy). Both Eric and Lavaeolus are disappointed to find that it has been a long siege, and Elenor is now a plump mother of several children, with the beginnings of a moustache, and that serious artistic licence had been taken in her description. The Ephebians escape the city while Tsort burns, and Lavaeolus and his army set out for home, with Lavaeolus complaining about voyages by sea (further reference to the Iliad and subsequent Odyssey). Eric notes that “Lavaeolus” in Ephebian translates to “Rinser of Winds”, hinting that perhaps Lavaeolus is an ancestor of Rincewind.

• To Live Forever. Rincewind snaps his fingers, bringing Eric and him outside of time, just before the beginning of existence. Rincewind meets the Creator, who is just forming the Discworld and is having trouble finishing some of the animals. Rincewind and Eric are left on the newly formed world, with the realization that “to live forever” means to live for all time, from start to finish. To escape, Rincewind has Eric reverse his summoning, taking them both to hell.

They discover hell steeped in bureacracy, where the Demon King Astfgl had decided boredom might be the ultimate form of torture. Rincewind uses his university experience to confuse the demons at their own game, so he and Eric can try to escape. While crossing through the recently reformed levels of hell (satirical forms of Dante’s Inferno) they encounter da Quirm and the parrot, as well as Lavaeolus, who tells them where the exit is.

The source of Rincewind’s demonic powers are revealed to be Lord Vassenego, a Demon Lord leading a secret revolt against Astfgl. Using Rincewind to keep Astfgl occupied while gathering support amongst the demons, Vassenego confronts his king just as Astfgl finally catches up to Rincewind and Eric. Vassenego announces the council of demons has made Astfgl “Supreme Life President of Hell”, and that he is to plan out the course of action for demons. With Astfgl lost to the bureacratic prison of his own making, Vassenego takes over as king and releases Rincewind and Eric, so that stories about hell can be told.

Guards! Guards! is #8 in the Discworld series and is all about the City Watch in Ankh-Morpork. My rating:

Plot

The story follows a plot by a secret brotherhood, the Unique and Supreme Lodge of the Elucidated Brethren of the Ebon Night, to overthrow the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork and install a puppet king, under the control of the Supreme Grand Master (Vetinari’s secretary, Lupine Wonse). Using a stolen magic book, they summon a dragon to strike fear into the people of Ankh-Morpork.

Once a suitable state of terror and panic has been created, the Supreme Grand Master proposes to put forth an “heir” to the throne, who will slay the dragon and rid the city of tyranny. It is the task of the Night Watch – Captain Vimes, Sergeant Colon, Corporal Nobbs, and new volunteer Carrot Ironfoundersson – to stop them, with some help from the Librarian of the Unseen University, an orangutan trying to get the stolen book back.

The Watch is in bad condition; they are regarded as a bunch of incompetents who just walk around ringing their bells, and this is mostly true. The arrival of Carrot changes this; Carrot has memorised the Laws and Ordinances of the Cities of Ankh and Morpork, and on his first day tries to arrest the head of the Thieves’ Guild for theft (the Thieves’ Guild is permitted a quota of legally licensed thieving, a concept that the book of ancient Laws does not take into account). Carrot’s enthusiasm strikes a chord with Vimes; the Watch should prevent crime, not ignore it. Vimes begins investigating the dragon’s appearances, which leads to an acquaintance with Sybil Ramkin, a breeder of swamp dragons. Ramkin gives an underdeveloped dragon, Errol, to the Watch as a mascot.

The leader of the Elucidated Brethren is initially successful in controlling the dragon, but he has not accounted for the dragon’s own abilities. The banished dragon returns, and makes itself king of Ankh-Morpork (keeping the head of the Elucidated Brethren as its mouthpiece) and demands that the people of Ankh-Morpork bring it gold and regular virgin sacrifices.

Vimes is imprisoned in the same cell as the Patrician, who has been leading a relatively comfortable life with the help of the rats he uses as spies. The Librarian helps Vimes to escape and he runs to the aid of Sybil, who has been chosen as the first virgin to be sacrificed. The Watch’s swamp dragon, Errol, reorganises his digestive system to form a supersonic jet engine and fights the king, eventually knocking the king out of the sky with a shock wave. While a crowd attempts to close in on the King to kill it, Sybil tries to plead for it, while Carrot places it under arrest; but Errol lets the dragon escape, to be his mate. It turns out the King is a Queen.

The Patrician is reinstated as ruler of Ankh-Morpork, and offers the Watch anything they want as a reward. They ask only for a pay raise, a new tea kettle and a dartboard.

Pyramids is #7 in the Discworld series, this one blends Egyptian mythology and quantum physics
as only Terry Pratchett could. My rating:

Plot summary

The main character of Pyramids is Pteppic (pronounced, and frequently spelled, Teppic), prince of the tiny kingdom of Djelibeybi (a pun on Jelly baby, a confection popular in the United Kingdom). Djelibeybi is the Discworld counterpart to Ancient Egypt.

Young Pteppic has been in training at the Assassins Guild in Ankh-Morpork for several years. The day after passing his final exam he somehow senses that his father has died and that he must return home. Being the first Djelibeybian king raised outside the kingdom leads to some interesting problems, based on the fact that Dios, the high priest, is a stickler for tradition, and does not, in fact, allow the pharaohs to rule the country (he earnestly believes that such mundane tasks are beneath them).

After numerous adventures and misunderstandings, Pteppic is forced to escape from the palace, along with a handmaiden named Ptraci (pronounced Traci). Meanwhile, the massive pyramid being built for Pteppic’s father warps space time so much that it “rotates” Djelebeybi out of alignment with the space/time of the rest of the disc by 90 degrees. Pteppic and Ptraci travel to Ephebe to consult with the philosophers there as to how to get back inside the Kingdom. Meanwhile, pandemonium takes hold in Djelibeybi, as the kingdom’s multifarious gods descend upon the populace, and all of Djelibeybi’s dead rulers come back to life.

Eventually, Pteppic re-enters the Kingdom and attempts to destroy the Great Pyramid, with the helps of all of his newly resurrected ancestors. They are confronted by Dios, who, it turns out, is as old as the kingdom itself, and has advised every pharaoh in the history of the Kingdom. Dios hates change and thinks Djelibeybi should stay the same. Pteppic succeeds in destroying the Pyramid, returning Djelibeybi to the real world and sending Dios back through time (where he meets the original founder of the Kingdom, thereby re-starting the cycle). He then abdicates, allowing Ptraci (who turns out to be his half sister) to rule. Ptraci immediately institutes much-needed changes.

Wyrd Sisters is #6 in the Discworld series, and it features Granny Weatherwax; Nanny Ogg, and Magrat Garlick.
My rating:

Plot summary

Wyrd Sisters features three witches: Granny Weatherwax; Nanny Ogg, matriarch of a large tribe of Oggs, who owns the most evil cat in the world, (Greebo); and Magrat Garlick, the junior witch, who firmly believes in occult jewellery, covens and bubbling cauldrons, much to the annoyance of Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg.

King Verence I of Lancre is murdered by his cousin, Duke Felmet, and the King’s crown and a baby are given by an escaping servant to the three witches. The witches hand the crown and the child to a troupe of travelling actors, acknowledging that destiny will eventually take its course and Tomjon will grow up to defeat Duke Felmet.

However, the kingdom is angry and doesn’t want to wait 15 years so the witches move it forward in time. Meanwhile, the duke has decided to get a play written and performed that is favourable to him so he sends the jester to Ankh-Morpork to recruit the same travelling (now stationary) company that Tomjon is in.

The only problem is that Tomjon does not want to be king. Luckily, the jester turns out to be his half-brother and he becomes king instead.

Sourcery is #5 in the amazing Discworld series. Rincewind is back in this novel. My rating:

Plot summary

On the Discworld, sourcerers - wizards who are sources of magic – were the main cause of the great mage wars that left areas of the disc uninhabitable. Men born the eighth son of an eighth son are commonly wizards. Since sourcerers are born the eighth son of an eighth son of an eighth son, wizards are not allowed to marry or have children. The first few pages of the novel deal with a sourcerer’s father who cheats death by making a prophecy that Death must honour; the alternative is to risk destroying the Discworld. The rest of the novel deals with the sourcerer’s plan to have wizards rule the Discworld, and the efforts of a small group – including Rincewind the Wizzard, Nijel the Destroyer and Conina the Hairdresser, daughter of Cohen the Barbarian – to thwart those plans.

Mort is #4 in the Discworld series, in this novel we really explore the amazing character Death in Discworld. My rating:

Plot summary

As a teenager, Mort had a personality and temperament that made him rather unsuited to the family farming business. Mort’s father, named Lezek, felt that Mort thought too much, which prevented him from achieving anything practical. Thus, Lezek took him to a local hiring fair, hoping that Mort would land an apprenticeship with some tradesman; not only would this provide a job for his son, but it would also make his son’s propensity towards thinking someone else’s problem.

At the job fair, Mort at first has no luck attracting the interest of an employer. Then, just before the stroke of midnight, a man concealed in a black cloak arrives on a white horse. He says he is looking for a young man to assist him in his work and selects Mort for the job. The man turns out to be Death, and Mort is given an apprenticeship in ushering souls into the next world (though his father thinks he’s been apprenticed to an undertaker).

When it is a princess‘ time to die (according to a preconceived reality), Mort, instead of ushering her soul, saves her from death, dramatically altering a part of the Discworld’s reality. However, the princess, for whom Mort has a developing infatuation, does not have long to live, and he must try save her, once again, from a seemingly unstoppable death.

As Mort begins to do most of Death’s “Duty”, he loses some of his former character traits, and essentially starts to become more like Death himself. Death, in turn, yearns to relish what being human is truly like and travels to Ankh-Morpork to indulge in new experiences and attempt to feel real human emotion. Conclusively, Mort must duel Death for Mort’s freedom. Though Death wins the duel, he spares Mort’s life and sends him back to the Disc.

Equal Rites is #3 in the Discworld Series. A very good fantasy novel and we first meet Granny Weatherwax. My rating:

Plot summary

The wizard Drum Billet knows that he will soon die and travels to a place where an eighth son of an eighth son is about to be born. This signifies that the child is destined to become a wizard (on the Discworld, the number eight has many of the magical properties that are ascribed to seven in the real world), Billet wants to pass his wizard’s staff on to his successor.

However, the newborn child is actually a girl, Esk (full name Eskarina Smith). Since Billet notices his mistake too late, the staff passes on to her. As Esk grows up, it becomes apparent that she has uncontrollable powers, and the local witch Granny Weatherwax decides to travel with her to the Unseen University in Ankh-Morpork to help her gain the knowledge required to properly manage her powers.

But a female wizard is something completely unheard of on the Discworld. Esk is unsuccessful in her first, direct, attempt to gain entry to the University, but Granny Weatherwax finds another way in; as a servant. While there, Esk witnesses the progress of an apprentice wizard named Simon, whom she had met earlier, on her way to Ankh-Morpork. Simon is a natural talent who invents a whole new way of looking at the universe that reduces it to component numbers. His magic, however, is so powerful that it causes a hole to be opened into the Dungeon Dimensions.

Eskarina and Simon discover the weakness of the creatures from the Dungeon Dimensions - if you can use magic, but don’t, they become scared and weakened. They both manage to transport themselves back into the Discworld. Together they develop a new kind of magic, based on the notion that the greatest power is the ability not to use all the others.

The Light Fantastic , #2 in the Discworld Series, this one is the continuation of The Colour of Magic. and the story of Rincewind and Twoflower. My rating:

Plot summary

After the wizard Rincewind has fallen from the edge of the Discworld, the Octavo magic book saves his life and he lands back on it. Meanwhile, the wizards of Ankh-Morpork discover that the Discworld will soon be destroyed unless the eight spells of the Octavo are read: the most powerful spells in existence, one of which hides in Rincewind’s head. Consequently, several orders of wizards try to capture Rincewind, led by Trymon, a former classmate of Rincewind’s, who wishes to obtain the power of the spells for himself.

After Rincewind, who has met again with Twoflower, escapes them, it becomes apparent that Great A’Tuin, the giant turtle that carries the Discworld, has set a new course that leads it directly into a red star with eight moons. Rincewind and Twoflower are accompanied by Cohen the Barbarian, a toothless, aging hero, and Bethan, a sacrificial virgin saved by Cohen, with assistance from Rincewind and Twoflower.

Rincewind becomes one of the very few people ever to enter Death’s Domain whilst still alive. He is nearly killed when he meets Death’s adopted daughter Ysabell, but is saved by the quick-acting Luggage. The group also encounter people who, anticipating the apocalypse, are heading for the mountains (not for protection, but because they will have a better view). As well as this, they happen upon the kind of shop where strange and sinister goods are on sale and inexplicably vanish the next time a customer tries to find them. The existence of these shops is explained as being a curse by a sourcerer upon the shopkeeper for not having something in stock.

As the star comes nearer and the magic on the Discworld becomes weaker, Trymon tries to put the seven spells still in the Octavo into his mind, in an attempt to save the world and gain ultimate power. However, the spells prove too strong for him and his mind becomes a door into the “Dungeon Dimensions“, whence strange, horrible creatures try to escape into reality. After winning a fight against them, Rincewind is able to read all eight spells aloud ; whereupon the eight moons of the red star crack open and reveal eight tiny world-turtles that follow their parent A’Tuin on a course away from the star. The Octavo is then eaten by Twoflower’s Luggage.

The book ends with Twoflower and Rincewind parting company, as Twoflower decides to return home, leaving The Luggage with Rincewind as a parting gift.