Welcome to Litsy!

Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax, Mother and Crone, are in need of a Maiden to round out their archetype but their best option, Agnes Nitt, is busy getting involved in a murder mystery at the Ankh-Morpork opera house.

What follows is Sir Terry‘s remix of The Phantom of the Opera (more Lloyd Webber than Leroux) & it is a whole lot of fun - although Agnes & her story were quite complicated & I‘m still processing my feelings there.

Discworld book 18

“...when you have ruled out the impossible, what is left, however improbable, ain‘t worth hanging around on a cold night wonderin‘ about when you could be getting on the outside of a big drink.” - Corporal “Nobby” Nobbs (pictured) on the Art of Deduction

#SummerOfShort3 #DiscRead

Me, texting my dad who just had knee replacement surgery a quote from my #CurrentRead

#SummerOfShort3 #DiscRead

It destroys me to So-So a Discworld book, and yes there were plenty of the usual genuinely funny and clever bits, but it was absolutely ruined by the setting which was composed of a mush of offensive Japanese and Chinese stereotypes.

And I think the moral was that raping looting barbarism is more straightforward and honest than hypocritical civilization? Or something?

I liked having Twoflower around again. And Mr Saveloy was good fun. Sigh.

#DiscRead #SummerOfShort3 #TeachersOfLitsy

Hey, listen, I‘m not going to complain about a book that gives me Death himself riding a motorcycle while wearing a leather jacket that says “Born to Rune”, but...

it kind of seemed like Discworld 16 was more a collection of fun ideas that Sir Terry had about rock n‘ roll on the Discworld, as opposed to an actual cohesive narrative.

Bud y Holly (get it?) was a nothing protagonist by design, but it was fun to meet Susan, Death‘s granddaughter.

I made it through 2 Discworld books during my career-change imposed Litsy hiatus, & my completionist spirit mandates that I add reviews of them to my #DiscRead thread.

Book 15 deals with the chaotic introduction of a fire arm into the fantasy of the Discworld, & the efforts of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch (newly diversified with a troll, a dwarf, & a werewolf in the ranks) to stop a killer.*

The subject matter made this the darkest entry so far.

“‘This is damn good wine,‘ she said, picking up another bottle. ‘What did you say it's called?‘ She peered at the label. ‘Chateau Maison? Chat-eau . . . that's foreign for cat's water, you know, but that's only their way, I know it ain't real cat's water. Real cat's water is sharper.‘ She hammered the cork into the bottle with the end of her knife, then stuck her finger over the neck and gave it a vigorous shaking ‘to mix the goodness in.‘”

“Many tall women accessible by stepladder across the continent had reflected how odd it was that the dwarfs, a race to whom the aforesaid art of seduction consisted in the main part of tactfully finding out what sex, underneath all that leather and chain-mail, another dwarf was, had generated someone like Casanunda.”

Art of Giamo Casanunda (the Disc‘s 2nd greatest lover (but he tries harder)) by Paul Kidby from the Discworld Imaginarium #DiscRead

“You make us want what we can‘t have & what you give us is worth nothing & what you take is everything & all there is left for us is the cold hillside, & emptiness, & the laughter of the elves.”

The elves of Discworld are the most genuinely frightening villains in the series so far. The witches three find themselves in the fight of their lives when a midsummer night‘s play unleashes these cruel beautiful monsters on the eve of Magrat‘s wedding.