Adventures in Bookland: Mort by Terry Pratchett

Strange and sad to think that Terry Pratchett has met HE WHO SPEAKS IN CAPS LOCK. I first read the Discworld novels just after they started coming out – I think I read The Light Fantastic and The Colour of Magic (in the wrong order, naturally) before Equal Rites had been published – and while I enjoyed the first two books enough to read on, it was with the third and, particularly, the fourth book, Mort, that Discworld really came alive (sorry!). In part, that was because I found Rincewind, the hero of books 1 and 2, rather annoying (although the Luggage remains one of my favourite Discworld characters), so his disappearance in book 3 was something of a relief. But, really, I think it’s because in writing Death, Discworld did come fully alive in the imagination of Terry Pratchett. The world opened up and opened out; rereading Mort after so many years, you can almost feel the authorial excitement as he begins to see the connections between what he writes and what he wants to say. In Mort, you can see magic happening before your eyes.