Guards! Guards! (Discworld, 8), Terry Pratchett. HarperCollins (ISBN: 9780063373761) 2024, first published in 1989.
Summary: When a secret society summons a dragon to get rid of Ankh-Morpork’s Patrician, the Night Watch gains a new sense of purpose.
Carrot Ironfoundersson is an orphan raised by dwarfish parents. But he’s human, even though he has tried to fit into the society of the dwarves. So they send him off to become a guard in the Night Watch. He’s a strapping young man with high ideals who has learned the laws of Ankh-Morpork. But his idealism is quickly put to the test. The Night Watch consists of just two officers and Captain Vimes. They have reduced the job to announcing all is well and avoiding trouble, as well as copious drinking.
Meanwhile. a secret criminal society has plotted to replace the Patrician, who runs Ankh-Morpork with a figurehead they can control. To do so, they have stolen a book from the library of the Unseen University, incensing its orangutan Librarian, who goes to the Night Watch. The book is about summoning dragons. The first hint of the secret society’s success comes when some criminals go up in smoke, leaving a pile of ashes. Captain Vimes connects these events to the theft of the book, concluding a dragon is on the loose. So he consults Ankh-Morpork’s resident expert on dragons, Lady Ramkin. She raises swam dragons, a miniature form. She even bestows the runt of the litter, Errol on the Captain. Errol proceeds to eat everything in sight.
But the big dragon is wreaking extreme havoc on the city and the Patrician asks his neglected Guards for help. But help comes in the form of a young champion, who gestures to do battle with the dragon and, poof, it is gone. They lock up the Patrician while they prepare to crown the champion as king. But Captain Vimes is suspicious. Dragons don’t just go poof. As it turns out, the conspirators are poor wizards and leave a way for the dragon to return. And it does with a vengeance. It makes itself king and demands a hoard.
The Night Watch, once lackluster, now has a renewed purpose. And Carrot’s idealism gradually infects the others. But how does one defeat a dragon when the odds are a million to one against them? It turns out those are the right odds. And Errol, the odd little swamp dragon plays a starring roll.
And the moral of the story: don’t summon dragons unless you are very sure of what you are doing and read all the instructions!
Pyramids (Discworld, 7) Terry Pratchett. HarperCollins (ISBN: 9780063393332) 2025, first published 1989.
Summary: Prince Teppic, having completed Assassins training, returns to be Pharoah of Djelibeybi, ordering the building of a huge pyramid.
Rather than cool his heels in Djelibeybi (pronounced like Jelly Baby), Prince Teppic goes to Ankh-Morpork to enroll in assassins training in the Assassins Guild. It’s a seven-year course few survived but if he did, he could bring a lucrative income into an impoverished kingdom that spent all its money on pyramids to house it’s dead kings. It was a practice that had drained the kingdom of money and, as readers will learn, of other things as well. Once it was a great kingdom. But now it is a narrow buffer along a river valley, serving as a buffer between two rival nations.
Just as he survives and passes his final exam, Teppic senses his father, the Pharoah had died. Indeed that is the case. On returning, Teppic suddenly finds himself a Pharoah and a god, responsible for the sunrise each day. New to all this, he is advised by the venerable high priest, Dios. However, he soon discovers that Dios really runs the show, when Dios twists all his novel ideas into the established traditions.
Nowhere is this more true than in the burial of his father. He has to be entombed in a pyramid. Teppic happens to know this is not what his father would have wanted (as the old king’s spirit tries to make known). In frustration, Teppic finally orders them to build the biggest pyramid ever, double the usual size.
Little does he realize the forces he has unleashed. Pyramids are objects of power. The others flared every night. No one has ever tried to build one this big. When Ptaclusp and his sons, the pyramid builders try to do this, they discover that workers and money and materials are the least of their problems as strange forces build up to a cataclysm.
But before that happens, Teppic, Ptraci, the old king’s handmaiden, and a camel with hidden powers, escape. Looking back, they see the kingdom vanish into a mere crack in the ground. Suddenly, nothing stands between the rival kingdoms which prepare to go to war.
Meanwhile, Djelibeybi still exists, just in another dimension. But all kind of craziness has ensued, beyond even Dios’ powers, which in fact are considerable. The dead kings walk the realm, as do the gods whose existence they usually ignored and disbelieved.
Will Teppic act to save his kingdom? Or will he take the opportunity to ride off with the pretty and scantily clad handmaiden into the sunset? I’ll leave it to you to find out.
Once again, this is a Terry Pratchett romp between fantasy and satire, showing religion at its silliest while making us ask, what would happen if the gods really showed up? And all those pyramids? Pratchett leaves us to wonder if the real Pharaohs would equally have hated the idea. And perhaps it all was just a poke at the silliness of “pyramid power”!
Wyrd Sisters (Discworld, 6) Terry Pratchett. Harper Paperbacks (ISBN: 9780063385559) 2024 (first published in 1988)
Summary: Three witches living in Lancre hide the king’s heir when the king’s assassinated by Duke Felmet, and work to set things right.
Granny Weatherwax, the senior of three witches in Lancre confronts a most unusual situation. A horseman delivers a child and a crown into her hands. King Verence of Lancre has been assassinated by his cousin, Duke Felmet at the behest of his cruel wife. She gathers her sister witches, Nanny Ogg, mother of a slew of kids, and Magrat, the youngest, still enamored with the conventions of witchcraft–cauldrons, jewelry and covens. Most of the time, they help villagers with what ails them. This is not most of the time.
First, what to do with the child, named Tomjon. A company of traveling actors agree to take him and he is raised by Vitoller, who becomes a father to him. Eventually, he will become a gifted actor. The crown is secreted among the props.
The more immediately vexing problem is what to do about Lancre. The land is in trouble as forests are cut down, village burned and people disappeared. The duchess is behind much of it. And as she realizes the danger the witches pose, she and Felmet mount a disinformation campaign to discredit them before the people.
The problem is twofold. One is that they cannot use their power directly against Felmet. The other is having to wait fifteen years until the Tomjon is of age. In the meantime, how much more will Felmet do and at what cost to Lancre? If only they could sidestep time…
Two others play a role. One is dead King Verence, whose ghost escapes the castle, ending up with Nanny Ogg. The other is the Fool, who becomes attracted to Magrat. He also becomes the means of bringing Tomjon back to Lancre. He contacts the company, know based at the Dysk Theatre in Ankh-Morpork. (One of the fun thinks in this book is to note all the Shakespearean allusions.) Hwel, the company’s playwright, accepts a commission for a play to “re-write” Felmet’s history for the people.
This is the least “hither and yon” of the books so far. Most of the action, apart from the troupe’s journey back to Lancre, is in Lancre itself. The maneuverings of the three witches make up for that.
There are some fun turns at the end. But most enjoyable throughout are the interactions between the witches, a parody of the three witches in Macbeth. If there is any lesson, it is knowing when to bend the rules and by how much. Granny and Nanny write the book, very different from the one Magrat consults.
A fascinating story of using soft power to defeat tyranny.
I came up with this phrase in writing this article, but it turns out that it is a real “thing.” Google’s “AI Overview (!) defines it as “the mental, emotional, and operational exhaustion resulting from the rapid, relentless influx of AI tools, news, and pressure to adopt artificial intelligence in the workplace.” My search turned up pages of articles on the phenomenon.
Within this definition, I think I’m able to locate my own fatigue. For me, it is the relentless news and discussion of AI in the world of books. I receive numerous newsletters, and instead of writing about books and the world of reading, they are writing about AI–reviews written by AI, books written by AI, the fear that writers will be replaced by AI, and the difficulty of detecting AI usage unless human developers and publishers are transparent. And the big element is the theft of intellectual property underneath all this. The work of humans. It needs to be talked about.
We also need to come to some solutions. Rules, tracking, and appropriate compensation of intellectual property. Transparency about AI content and blacklisting and withholding of payments for deception. I’d like to see an emblem used indicating a book or other written content is 100% human.
So why do I press for this? Frankly, I’m tired of all the AI stories (even though I’m posting one this week). I’m eager for us to get back to talking about books. Many of us read to engage with another human. And we often talk with other humans about what we read. We like to hear authors read their works. The world of books and reading is actually a highly social world. I also think it would be helpful to make it an AI-free world. Wouldn’t it be great if the world of books and reading could serve as a retreat for the AI fatigued?
Five Articles Worth Reading
John Cheever is back in the news. His daughter Susan has published a new book exploring the relationship between Cheever’s fiction and his own life. Rands Richards Cooper reviews it in “The Father Behind the Fiction.”
Another name in the news is Lena Dunham. Actually, I knew nothing of her until I learned she is a leading voice of young adulthood in these times. I learned much more about her in Sophie Gilbert’s “What Does Lena Dunham Want to Tell Us?,” a review of Dunham’s new memoir, Famesick.
Speaking of names, Andrew Lawler asks “Who Is Blake Whiting?” “Blake Whiting,” for whom no biography or CV exists published thirteen books on complex historical subjects in one week. Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing publishes his work, yet they missed the lack of biography, and the fact that “Blake Whiting” exceeded their ten book a week limit. Of course, there is no Blake Whiting, but only Amazon knows who is behind this.
Another name I keep coming across is Iris Murdoch, novelist and philosopher. We often speak of “the good, the true, and the beautiful.” In “Iris Murdoch and the Metaphysics of the Good,” Matthew B. Crawford explores Murdoch’s thinking about “the good.”
Thornton Wilder, born on April 17, 1897, offers a watchword for all of us:
“Seek the lofty by reading, hearing and seeing great work at some moment every day.”
Miscellaneous Musings
We are grieving the passing of my wife’s lifelong friend. They met when my wife was three–sixty nine years ago. She was a dedicated educator and reading advocate, working in our state’s Reading Recovery program for many years and teaching the children of children she’d had in classes. She fed my son’s love of reading and writing. And she typified the very best of public school education.
I’ve come to the end of Deb Gregory’s Spiritual Wayfinding. I had the delightful experience of finding my son’s name in the acknowledgements for a lesson on fractals, one of his loves. Deb used to live in our home town, but I am really curious how they crossed paths. A bit of a wayfinding project in itself. By the way, if you like to walk and care about spiritual life, the book creatively combines the two!
Lastly, I bit the bullet and ordered a new Kindle after Amazon’s email (and had it sitting at my door 6:30 the next morning). I’ll still use my old one to read the many books already loaded on it as long as it works. But I decided to go that route to avoid juggling multiple e-book accounts and different platforms, and to be ready when my old Kindle finally bricks. I really like reading on e-readers versus phones or tablets–easier on the old eyes.
Next Week’s Reviews
Monday: W. David Buschart & Ryan Tafilowski, Worth Doing
Tuesday: David J. Claassen, The Divine Profile
Wednesday: Deborah Gregory, Spiritual Wayfinding
Thursday: Richard Osman, The Bullet That Missed
Friday: Tom Holland, Dominion
So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for April 12-18.
Find past editions of The Weekly Wrap under The Weekly Wrap heading on this page.
Mort (Discworld, Number 4, Death, Number 1), Terry Pratchett. Harper Paperbacks (ISBN: 9780063393233) 2025 (first published in 1987)
Summary: Mort is apprenticed to Death, who collects dying souls. Mort messes up the timeline when he saves a princess, killing her assassin.
In Discworld, you do not want to meet Death. As you may recall from earlier installments, Rincewind spent much of his time eluding Death. Because Death comes to collect souls of people when they die and to set them onto their destiny in the afterworld. He has bit parts in previous Discworlds. This is his first as a significant character, and this is the first of several of the Death series within Discworld.
But the title character is really the main character here, even if he must constantly remind people of his name. Mort is the teenage son of a farmer who doesn’t want to farm. So, his father takes him to town on the day various tradesmen choose apprentices. But no one wants him. That is, no one wants him except for Death, who comes just shy of closing. The irony, if you know any French, is that mort is the French word for death.
He goes to the home of Death. Two others live there. Ysabell is Death’s daughter by adoption. The other is Death’s ancient manservant, Albert. Ysabell takes a decided disliking to Mort, despite Death’s efforts to promote their companionship
Part of his apprenticeship is to accompany Death to collect souls. He quickly learns he is not to meddle with the fatal destinies of people when he attempts to prevent the assassination of the king of Sto Lat. He learns that theirs is not to decide the time of death or prevent it, but to assist the deceased. But he does not learn this well-enough, and Death, tired of the work and wanting a change, quickly turns over collecting duties to Mort.
One of those he is assigned to collect is the daughter of the assassinated king. A rival Duke is going to kill her. Instead of allowing Princess Keli’s death, he kills the Duke. But he doesn’t reckon with altered timelines. People act as if the Princess is dead, even when she tries to interact with them. She hires the wizard Igneous Cutwell, who can see her, to promote her existence and arrange her coronation. She wants to live and wants to be Queen.
But there is another problem. The real timeline is swallowing up the alternate one. Cutwell can’t stop it but is trying to get her crowned, even if briefly. Meanwhile Mort, as he seeks a solution discovers there may be more to Albert than meets the eye. And he and Ysabell team up. Meanwhile, Death is AWOL, enjoying life as a short order cook.
If you’ve not read this, I will leave it to you to discover how this all works out, as well as if anyone learns to remember Mort’s name. What is most interesting to me is that by and large, the figure of the Grim Reaper is a character without character. Pratchett gives him one, and even gives him a midlife crisis! And since Mort is such an interesting character, I hope he turns up again!
The Light Fantastic, (Discworld, 2)Terry Pratchett. HarperCollins (ISBN: 9780063373679) 2024 (first published in 1986).
Summary: Saved from falling off Discworld, Rincewind, Twoflower, and the Luggage try to avert its destruction by a red star.
Well, I decided to go on in Discworld! Only 39 to go. If you read the first Discworld, we left Rincewind and Twoflower falling off the edge of Discworld into the oblivion of the cosmos. Instead, they wind up in a Gingerbread house in the forest of Skund. How did this happen, you ask? It turns out that the Octavo, the book of eight spells, the eighth of which is lodged in Rincewind’s head, would not let them fall. The spell preserves itself. Thus their rescue.
There is an urgent reason for doing so. A red star is approaching Discworld and only a reading of all eight spells in the Octavo can avert it. Several groups of magicians with varying motivations are searching for Rincewind. Not knowing why they are after him, he and Twoflower elude them. However, they have a sense it is time to return to Ankh-Morpork, where the Octavo and the Unseen University of Wizards is located.
But not before they encounter a few adventures. They save Bethan, a druid maiden from sacrifice with the help of Cohen the Barbarian, a toothless, 80 year old parody of the superhero figure, who still has got it! But Twoflower is poisoned and must be rescued from the realm of Death. Finally, with the help of a traveling magic shop, they return to Ankh-Morpork.
But will it be in time? Trymon, an overly ambitious wizard, attempts to read the seven remaining spells, which vanish from the pages of the Octavo and transmute Trymon into a horrible creature. Meanwhile, the red star, with eight moons is heating up Discworld. The end is near.
A nagging question throughout is why Great A’Tuin, the massive turtle who carries Discworld, supporting four huge elephants, does not simply swim away from the star rather than toward it. It’s not a dumb question, as it turns out but not one I’ll answer. The answer, and the fate of Discworld, Rincewind, Twoflower and the loyal Luggage, I’ll leave you to discover. Along the way, I’m sure you will have fun with Pratchett’s satire.
