Hogfather

Rating:
Summary: A Good "Christmas" Story -- Discworld Style!
Review: This is a decent story - pretty good. I admit, judging by the pervious books featuring Death's family (not counting Death himself), I expected to be dissapointed, but I wasn't. This is not on a par with "Men at Arms," but it is still good.

Here we have a lot of variety - Death, the Death of Rats, Death's Grandaughter, secret assassins, the Auditors,...

The plot was interesting. The auditors have a nasty plan - get an assassin to kill the Hogfather, the discworld "Santa Claus." The assassin, Mr. Teatime (pronounce the vowels), tries to do that by getting children to disbelieve, thus negating the spirit of Hogswatch. He tries to do that with help from the world of the tooth fairies. Of course, Death takes it upon himself to play "Hogfather" with Albert in tow. And his granddaughter, pretty good at beating up bogeymen and other monsters, has to stop Teatime and foil the auditors.

Most of this story is good. Sto Helit, never really a milktoast like Magrat in the early Lancre books, becomes a fairly aggressive, take charge character. It was fun to watch her wield the fireplace poker against all foes.

Bilious was somewhat funny, and so was the "manifestation syndrome" of objects seemingly appearing when people mentioned them (like the "sock-eating demon elephant"). But after the first one or two times, it got too old. Enough with these insignificant characters adding to the confusion. Also, I know that wizards rarely make sense, but here they waste way too much time talking about non-consequentials - it becomes a big draggy and boring.

The criminals are funny - especially with the brothers who live by what their mother told them. It was funny to watch nursery-rhyme bogeys chasing grown men around screaming, and, while Teatime was not the best bad guy (although pretty good), it was great to see how Death and family finally dealt with him, and how someone finally pronounces Teatime's name correctly at the end.

All in all, a good book, an improvement for several characters. But Death can usually pep up just about any story - he's just such a memorable character. Yopu would never see Death the same way again.

4 well-earned stars.

Rating:
Summary: One of the greats
Review: This is the twentieth book in Terry Pratchett's series on the Discworld - a flat world, supported on the backs of four massive elephants riding on the back of a planet-sized turtle. Anything hilarious can happen here, and eventually does.

In this book, the Ankh-Morpork Guild of Assassins receives their strangest contract ever - they are to arrange the death of the Hogfather (the Disc's version of Santa Claus)! A very strange assassin is assigned the project, and he goes after it with disturbing enthusiasm. But, there are more players to this game than meets the eye, including Death and his granddaughter. Will the Hogfather survive? And if not, what might the cost be?

This is another great Discworld book, one of my favorites - heck, I love any Discworld book with Death in it! As with many of the later Terry Pratchett books, this one is not laugh-out-loud funny like the early ones were. I mean, it is quite funny, but even more so, this is a thoughtful book that is guaranteed to keep you on the edge of your seat and your nose planted firmly in the book. The characters are fascinating, and the plot is great!

So, if you like the Discworld books in general, then be assured that this is one of the greats. I highly recommend this book.


Rating:
Summary: Ah a little christmas cheer, Prachett style.
Review: Well well well. Look who has something for every season. Discworld holidays can be a little strange sometimes, but this seems almost normal. Except for the part about killing pigs and birds and such so the sun will rise. This is the kind of book you can pull put at christmas and offend some people. This book in a lot of ways makes a mockery of christmas, as death is running the scene. This is the book I use to get new people into discworld. I hope you like it too. Definitly good to read again and again...

~Rincewind