“It’s an inconvenience, true enough, and I don’t like it at all, but I know that you do it for everyone…” YOU ARE TAKING THIS VERY WELL, ESME WEATHERWAX. I’ve had my season, no doubt about it, and I was never one for pushing myself forward, or complaining…”

Well, you’ve finally got me, you old bugger. He knew what was to come, but, in the novel, he didn’t pull any punches for his readers or for himself.Ī key scene takes place when Granny Weatherwax lays down on her bed and waits:ĮSMERELDA WEATHERWAX, YOU KNOW WHO COMES, AND MAY I SAY IT’S A PRIVILEGE TO DEAL WITH YOU.ĮSMERELDA WEATHERWAX, WE HAVE MET SO MANY TIMES BEFORE, HAVEN’T WE? “An inconvenience”Īccording to a note from an editorial assistant in The Shepherd’s Crown, Pratchett wrote the book near the end of his life when he was dealing with increasing disability. And, then, on September 18, 2015, I reviewed the last of Pratchett’s books The Shepherd’s Crown, published posthumously, following his death from early onset Alzheimer’s disease the previous March. My review of I Shall Wear Midnight was the first entry in this Pump Don’t Work blog on July 23, 2011, the first of posts that now number over 1,000. I’m partial of the Tiffany Aching books because they’re very good, as good as any “adult” Discworld book, and a couple have been particularly important for me. In fact, he would get pretty dark, maybe especially dark, in such books.įive of those six YA novels feature a born witch named Tiffany Aching who’s all of nine when, in The Wee Free Men (2003), she’s called upon to save her world from living nightmares and other bona fide monsters seeking to invade from really terrible place called Fantasyland. It’s not like he reverted to words of single syllables or to Mother Goose ideas when he was writing a book that publishers sold as a YA novel.

I mean, I don’t understand why anyone would divide Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels into those for adults (35) and those for young adults (6).

Terry pratchett the wee free