Terry Pratchett: Mort (1987, New American Library)
181 pages
English language
Published Nov. 25, 1987 by New American Library.
I really liked this one! It's kind of a different version of the Death character than shows up in the later Discworld novels - this Death is a bit more of a jerk. But I think that helps with the plot development - it adds a little more stakes for the characters. And it was cool to learn that characters I was familiar with from later books had backstories that had already been fleshed out!
It's a good one!
The ending of this book really doesn't make justice for the whole setup and build-up.
One of the Pratchett books that certainly gets worse on the re-read. I will dare to say that both Colour and Light were significantly better as a whole than this one.
The interaction between Mort and Death is very engaging. I really like Pratchett's description of Death's voice.l and the usage of a different font for his voice
Because of course the person Death would choose as an apprentice has a name that means... Death.
ANYWAY
I really don't know what to say beyond the usual "Pratchett is a brilliant satirist" and "this is both hilarious and super deep". Because it is those things.
Audiobook generally excellent, though the fact that Rincewind's speech patterns were markedly different than Color of Magic/Light Fantastic was a bit jarring (yes, different narrator, but the fact that the speech pattern wasn't even close was annoying). (I wonder if this is why there's consistently a separate narrator for Death through this whole series of audiobooks?)
Terry Pratchett is what I’ve been missing when reading Douglas Adams. Mort is not just witty, but actually quite touching and even frightening. The humour seems somehow profound, for example when Death explains that everyone gets what they think is coming for them, because “it’s so much neater that way”. This light-hearted fun actually opens up a philosophical can of worms: If I expect a heavenly afterlife together with my family, but my brother expects to be rotting in hell, is the brother in heaven actually my brother? He can’t be, but did I then actually get what I expected? This dilemma is even touched upon later. I much prefer this humour to cliché nihilism.
Still one of my favourites: an easy read. Definitely a better starting point than #1 and #2, and probably better than #3. Admittedly some of the character motivations don't entirely make sense, although I'm sure they're just all swept up in the moment.
I have trouble with this book.
I love Rincewind. And I love Rincewind the most when Death shows up. Hence Death is like my favourite character too (it's DEATH). I alwyas wanted to read this book. So I first tried the german translation, it's bad, I gave up, several times and then I forgot about it. But then on Easter Sunday I was like "ha would feel like a joke to listen to it now" and I got the Audiobook. But the quality of the Audio book is super disturbing. It's really bad. Like it has been recorded 1980's and then copied from an old radio. It was also badly read. I did not like the narrator at all. But it was impossible to read, so it had to be the audiobook. BUT YOU JUST CAN'T DO DEATH JUSTICE ON AN AUDIOBOOK (well you could, if you rerecord and use …
I have trouble with this book.
I love Rincewind. And I love Rincewind the most when Death shows up. Hence Death is like my favourite character too (it's DEATH). I alwyas wanted to read this book. So I first tried the german translation, it's bad, I gave up, several times and then I forgot about it. But then on Easter Sunday I was like "ha would feel like a joke to listen to it now" and I got the Audiobook. But the quality of the Audio book is super disturbing. It's really bad. Like it has been recorded 1980's and then copied from an old radio. It was also badly read. I did not like the narrator at all. But it was impossible to read, so it had to be the audiobook. BUT YOU JUST CAN'T DO DEATH JUSTICE ON AN AUDIOBOOK (well you could, if you rerecord and use special effects, maybe)
But then I also realized that Mort is just very all over the place. Some jokes are great yes (if you are not too distracted by the quality and you can actually understand something), but at some point in the end, the storyline gets super messy. Like oldschool 1980's comedy messy. And with the bad audiobook i did nearly give up until I decided I will push through the last hour.
I hope at some point they will rerecord it. It's such a waste, honestly.
My least favourite of the Discworld series so far, I think because I really didn't like the titular character. At least there was a Rincewind cameo though.
