Mini Review – Reaper Man

From Goodreads:

DEATH IS MISSING – PRESUMED . . . ER . . . GONE.

Which leads to the kind of chaos you always get when an important public service is withdrawn.

Meanwhile, on a little farm far, far away, a tall, dark stranger is turning out to be really good with a scythe. There’s a harvest to be gathered in…

Unfortunately this one wasn’t one of my favourites of the Discworld Novels that I have read so far. I just found it a little boring overall when comparing it to Mort or to the Watch series. As per usual I can’t fault Pratchett’s wit and the social observations he makes throughout this book. It still contained many inventive, creative and novel ideas, twisting the familiar and holding a mirror up to modern life in a funny and fantastical way. This book brought us the Death of Rats that of course is just such a cute concept. However I do feel that some of the allegories particularly those targeted towards consumerism took a lot more work that usual to figure them out. I tend to find that usually Pratchett’s jokes and intentional comparisons are really quite clear and allow the reader to be more ‘in on the joke’ but this one was a bit more convoluted. Once I worked out what the roving metal cages that grew into cities represented it was a very interesting concept.

It could just be me as a reader but it distracted from my enjoyment a little jumping from this story line with the wizards to the more quiet plotline of what was happening with Death. I was more interested in Death’s actions over that of the Wizard’s so was not as absorbed in the secondary plotline.