‘Wintersmith’ is the third book about Tiffany Aching, a young witch in training on Discworld. Now 13, she faces an elemental force. Tiffany joined in dancing in the Black Morris dance on the autumn equinox, and for one brief instant, danced with winter. Winter has taken a shine to her, and has come courting. If she doesn’t get the Wintersmith to stop courting her, summer will never come, and the world will freeze to death. She doesn’t have to face him alone, however. She has the aid of several older witches, the Mac Nac Feegles (the Wee Free Men), an animate blue cheese, and Roland, a teenaged boy who she exchanges letters with regularly. This is a fantasy adventure filled with comic mishaps and satire, which Pratchett excels at. But this book goes a little deeper than most.

The characters are more realistic and fully formed –okay, the animate cheese doesn’t have a great deal of personality, but the others do. There are no caricatures here, even though there are opportunities galore to use them. Even the ill trained, spoiled, self centered teenaged witch who takes over a cottage when an older witch dies turns out to be solid character who just needed help. The drunken, feckless Feegles are heroic warriors.

In this book, Pratchett blends Discworld mayhem with mythology of the turn of the seasons and with a view of witchcraft that doesn’t involve wands and crystal balls as magical articles, but of witchcraft as a blend of practical knowledge (medicine, veterinary, plants) and of power coming from within. Compared to the wizards of the Unseen University, the witches are more sensible, useful and powerful. I liked that. This is one of my favorite Discworld books.