Hogfather: A Novel of Discworld

Rating:
Summary: The best Pterry I ever read.
Review: After reading about 10 Pterrys this is the one book I would give my mother to start reading Terry Pratchett. It's a fantastic story about Death who represents Hogfather, the Discworld version of Santa Claus. Unfortunately Hogfather has some problems with the Revisores (or however they are called in the english version). Susanne, Death's daughter, helps him to rescue Hogfather. I like this book because we learn a lot more about Death and his family and Death actually is the best character in all Discworld books.

Rating:
Summary: One of the Weakest Discworld Novels
Review: An incoherent mess. When a crazed asassin is hired by the Auditors to bring down the Hogfather, the reduction in overall belief allows new gods to pop into being as quickly as they are thought up: the "oh god" (the god of hangovers), the god of indigestion, a sock-eating fairy, and a miscellany of vicious childhood fears all come to life. Death has to take on the Hogfather's job so that people will keep believing in him. This setup has humor potential -- the pagan roots of Christmas could have made for an interesting subject -- but this book comes off as entirely too dark and mean; it plays at presenting a real philosophy, but this is really just a kind of cover or excuse glued on to a wretched excess of weak storytelling and bad editing. The humor features enemas, urinating pigs, vomiting gods, horrifying gluttony, a deranged crow constantly on the hunt for eyeballs to eat, and is largely just distasteful, a kind of Grand Guignol of snow, holly and mistletoe. Teatime is a vicious sociopath. Susan, Death's granddaughter, plays a major role here, and she's a great character, but not likable enough to make the whole book enjoyable. Worst of all, the Hogfather himself doesn't ever actually make an appearance as himself, but only as a sort of mythological object; we never do find out quite what happened to him and how how the army of mind-controlled children actually brought him down. Instead of this much-needed basic storytelling and characterization we get pliers-wielding tooth fairies and developmentally disabled thieves. The effect is rather like the trick played on the diners at a fine restaurant: instead of the delicacies on the menu, they get boiled shoe leather in mud sauce, but like the average reviewer on Amazon, the diners seem unable to taste the difference. Pratchett does supply his usual quota of great puns, and there are funny moments in this book, but speaking as someone who is more cynical about Christmas than just about anyone I know: Pratchett must truly despise the holiday to give us this steaming pile of... um, holiday cheer.

Rating:
Summary: Hogfather: A Novel of Discworld
Review: Another brilliant book by this author. Having read all of his books (several times)I can't say that any one of them ranks as the out and out best, but this one certainly comes close to being my favourite. Any book featuring DEATH as the Discworld's equivilent to Santa has to be good. His attempts to understand human nature are hilarious, especially when he gets things wrong. Albert is also a favourite character of mine. The scene in the fairy grotto is the best in the book. Definitely a laugh-out-loud book.