Mort by Terry Pratchett
Dec. 2nd, 2009 08:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meganbmooreMort’s father thinks that Mort thinks too much to ever be a good farmer, and so he takes Mort to a local hiring fare, hoping he’ll be chosen as someone’s apprentice. It looks like he’ll be left to rot when a cloaked skeleton on a white horse rides up and offers him a job as his apprentice. At least, Mort sees a cloaked skeleton offering him a job as Death’s apprentice. His father sees an undertaker.
This is kind of a take on “Death takes a holiday” except that this Death tries to actually be responsible about it and train a replacement. Mort, however, isn’t very good at it and seems to mess up as often as not, something that Death doesn’t seem to notice. He’s too busy playing with kittens and trying to make more creative bugs and hint that Mort should marry Death’s adopted daughter, Ysabell. Since Mort and Ysabell pretty much hate each other, Mort is trying very hard not to notice the hints, and Ysabell is hoping that he’s successful at that.
This is my third Pratchett, and probably the one that worked best for me, though I spent a lot of it not really sure what I thought of it. I thought Death was a hoot (though I was briefly worried that he was going to make kitten curry, and if he did, you can just keep it to yourself) and enjoyed the zaniness of Mort’s mistakes and his various allies. I wouldn’t have minded reading an entire book at the princess who was supposed to die but didn’t, but the universe thought she was so she had to forcibly remind everyone she was there.
Also, Pratchett spent a lot of time dwelling on the fact that Discworld is supported by four giant elephants standing on the back of a giant turtle swimming through space. This made me wonder if there were people who lived near the edge of Discworld who could actually see the elephant’s heads, or see over the side. Or is that one of the things Pratchett would say their brains protected them from and would create an alternative?
This is kind of a take on “Death takes a holiday” except that this Death tries to actually be responsible about it and train a replacement. Mort, however, isn’t very good at it and seems to mess up as often as not, something that Death doesn’t seem to notice. He’s too busy playing with kittens and trying to make more creative bugs and hint that Mort should marry Death’s adopted daughter, Ysabell. Since Mort and Ysabell pretty much hate each other, Mort is trying very hard not to notice the hints, and Ysabell is hoping that he’s successful at that.
This is my third Pratchett, and probably the one that worked best for me, though I spent a lot of it not really sure what I thought of it. I thought Death was a hoot (though I was briefly worried that he was going to make kitten curry, and if he did, you can just keep it to yourself) and enjoyed the zaniness of Mort’s mistakes and his various allies. I wouldn’t have minded reading an entire book at the princess who was supposed to die but didn’t, but the universe thought she was so she had to forcibly remind everyone she was there.
Also, Pratchett spent a lot of time dwelling on the fact that Discworld is supported by four giant elephants standing on the back of a giant turtle swimming through space. This made me wonder if there were people who lived near the edge of Discworld who could actually see the elephant’s heads, or see over the side. Or is that one of the things Pratchett would say their brains protected them from and would create an alternative?