A high point
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I came to this title late having started the discworld series with 'Jingo'. This is pretty close to being the best of the lot with the grumpy matriarch Granny Weatherwax, treble entendre spinning nanny Ogg & the seemingly hopeless Magrat Garlick all off to far flung lands to try & stop a totally unhinged witch from forcing everyone to live in one long giant fairy story.
The sparring between Granny & Magrat is sharp & very funny with Nanny Ogg trying her best to keep the peace while being given the chance to dabble with foreign liquor & show off her painful mastery of languages.
In amongst the lunacy mr.pratchett manages some real moments of touching sadness, the whole little 'red riding hood' story arc manages to mix laughter with a real lump in the throat moment where the 'big bad wolf' actually welcomes his death.
Talking of death, he too keeps popping up, but without anyone knowing who he is. Nanny Oggs fearsome cat Greebo gets to try his hand at being a human & the ladies all meet their deep south equivalent,(including zombie), who lends a hand.
Up 'til I read this I thought nothing discworld could touch 'nightwatch' and 'though that book still just beats this it's not by much. This is genuinely funny & has many laugh out loud moments.
If you've read other's in the series & enjoyed them but not tried this then don't hang about, this is superb. If you simply haven't tried Discworld at all then this is a great place to start,(if you don't enjoy this then you might want to get your pulse checked!),.
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Couldn'tThinkOfAGoodEnoughTitle
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To me, all Discworld books are a little bemusing, and i usually have to read them twice before I really grasp the plot. They alternate between succinct and elaborate language, with quite a lot of humour thrown in.
In any case, this book was a lot clearer than the others. A lot of it is based on the generic ideas of fairy stories, along with some voodoo traditions, starting with Erzulie Gogol, the voodoo witch, and Baron Saturday, both of which are derived from the names of voodoo gods.
It is one of the 'witch books' in the series - featuring the dominant and austere Granny Weatherwax, amicable, crude Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick, who is really just a new-age airy-fairy witch with some latent sensibility.
The story goes that the three witches have to travel to Genua to stop a servant girl from marrying a prince - with some difficulty even though she doesn't want to marry him. Why? Because the city of Genua has been turned into a fairytale city, run by a woman with whom Granny Weatherwax is surprisingly familiar (quite a plot twist).
As in most Discworld books, the reader may be able to see a faint outline of what's going to happen, but some aspects could not have been anticipated (such as what Nanny Ogg's fierce and malodorous tomcat Greebo undergoes).
Whether or not the book is actually a good book is, as with many things, purely a matter of taste, but it was one of my favourites. I'd recommend it if you like fantasy.
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How to Fight a Happy Ending
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Terry Pratchett's first novel, "The Carpet People", appeared in 1971. "Witches Abroad" is the twelfth novel in his hugely popular Discworld series and was first published in 1991. It's also the third book (after "Equal Rites" and "Wyrd Sisters") to feature Granny Weatherwax, the Discworld's greatest witch.
As with "Wyrd Sisters", Granny Weatherwax is joined by the Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick. Nanny Ogg, is the raucous head of the Ogg clan based in Lancre town. (She also owns a fearsome, one-eyed tomcat with an unbridled libido called Greebo). The other is Magrat Garlick, who has a few fanciful ideas about magic that Granny doesn't altogether approve of. She's always been fond of dancing, occult jewellery and runes, but now Granny thinks Magrat's gone funny in the head : there's the self-defence classes (despite being a witch), the attempts to 'find herself' and her refusal to marry Lancre's new King. (Despite never having been one, she refuses to be a 'sex object').
One of the trio's neighbours is Desiderata Hollow, a witch who specialises in fairy-godmothering. Despite the fact that witches know exactly when they're going to die, Desiderata never quite managed to train up a replacement. Instead, she has her magic wand delivered to Magrat, with a couple of very strict instructions : she's to travel to Genua to STOP a god-daughter marrying a prince, and she's to keep Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg from going with her. (In fact, Desiderata is banking on the two older witches tagging along : she knows she can only guarantee their attendance by forbidding them from travelling).
This isn't going to be an easy mission. Godmothers travel in twos, and Desiderata's counterpart - Lilith - wished for Embers (the god-daughter) to have beauty and power and to marry a prince. Whether or not the young lady actually wanted any of that was irrelevant, and Desiderata has been trying to do what's best for Embers. Unfortuantely, it's going to be very difficult to stop a good story...
Much of the humour comes from poking fun at fairy tales, though there's a touch of the Wizard of Oz, and a quick cameo from Gollum. There's also the renowned dwarf lover, Casanunda, the attempts to master 'speaking foreign' and the terrible privies in foreign parts. However, it's Nanny Ogg - with her fondness for a double entendre and a vulgar song - who provides many of the best parts. Thoroughly recommended !
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One of Pratchett's best
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This is one of my all-time favourite Pratchett books. Everything that he's good at is exhibited here - adapting stories and fairy tales, "translating" real life culture to the Discworld, great characterisation and dialogue, a great plot - and, of course, it's hilariously funny. If you're a fan of the Witches, it's even better. Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick each get a chance to shine, in their own particular ways (as does Greebo). Pratchett takes them far away from Lancre, and it's highly entertaining to see how they react to 'forn' cultures and people. Nanny's postcards home are particularly worth a mention for sheer comedy value! It's amazing how many references to real life cultures, stories and events Pratchett manages to fit into this book, and yet none of them seem hurried, forced or superfluous - each event fits in perfectly to one fantastic story. It's one of those books where every single line is a classic and every bit of dialogue is completely perfect. Hard to imagine how it could get better than this.
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Witches Abroad review.
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Witches Abroad is a captivating read.In Witches Abroad Granny Weatherwax,Nanny Ogg,Magrat Garlick and Greebo the cat have to go to the city of Genua to stop a serving girl from marrying a handsome prince.If you like sci-fi,fantasy or fairy tales then read Witches Abroad.If you enjoy this book then read books 3,6,14,18 and 23.
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