2018 reading challenge: a book about death or grief.

Mort by Terry Pratchett

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This is probably not the kind of book that was thought of when the topic was chosen for the challenge, but oh well.

Mortimer, Mort for short, is told by his father he needs to become an apprentice and train in a career. So they go to the apprenticing fair and wait for someone to pick him. Just before midnight and they pack up and go home, they are approached and Mort gets an offer. He takes it, after all, there isn't exactly a rush of other offers and Mort becomes apprentice to DEATH itself. He studies... sorta. It's not exactly like DEATH has great social skills or base intuition to teach.

Eventually Mort is sent on his first set of assignments, which do not go as he had thought, especially when he finds himself unable to reap a beautiful Princess, and instead makes it so that her death doesn't happen. Of course he doesn't tell his new Master and just goes back to doing his job. Meanwhile DEATH has decided that with an apprentice to do the job, this gives him the chance to go out and learn why humans are the way they are, leaving Mort to do all the work with the "help" of DEATH's faithful butler Albert and his adopted daughter, Isabelle.

As with all other Discworld stories, things go pear-shaped but work out in the end.

Like all the other Discworld books I've read, I enjoyed this one. While one of the earlier books in the series, I had not read it to this point and generally have just kinda hopped around the series as books cross my path. Luckily most books are written that after you have read the first couple, you have a feel for the world and can drop in almost anywhere without much difficulty.



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