Sunday 2 January 2011

I Shall Wear Midnight: Pterry’s most recent …

You know, you can tell we’ve just got past that time of year, can’t you … ?

Decorations are coming down, plastic Christmas trees are being put back in the attic, shedding tinsel’s being placed gently and reverentially in the bin …

And the interesting crimbo pressies are being oggled …

Yes, I know I’m being a touch self centred, there, maybe.

But there you go …

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At any rate, I mentioned, a day or two ago, I’d been given the latest Terry Pratchett hardback, I Shall Wear Midnight, for Christmas, and how impressed I was with it.

Having actually finished it … ?

I’m still impressed …

I Shall Wear Midnight — the fourth of the Tiffany Aching novels — sees Tiffany going about her day to day work as the only witch in the area she lives: one facing a slowly building climate of suspicion she’s never experienced, until now.

As the novel progresses, she — and we — find that the fear of witches is being caused by an entity called The Cunning Man: an Omnian witch-finder who’d died over a millennium before, after falling in lust with a witch he was due to burn.

An entity who’s found that the one thing he really wants to do …

Is still to persecute witches …

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Now, I said, earlier, that I was impressed … ?

Yes, I did, and I am.

Now, I’ll be honest, I’ve not actually re-read Unseen Academicals, the last Discworld novel: mostly were I felt that Pterry’s condition was seriously starting to show.

That doesn’t seem to be the case with I Shall Wear Midnight.

It is — by turns — frightening, laugh-out-loud funny, romantic …

And uplifting, as only Terry Pratchett can be.

Granted, it may not be his best work.

I think that honour goes to 2008’s Nation.

But I Shall Wear Midnight … ?

Definitely tells me Terry Pratchett is still fighting that demon …


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