Reaper Man

Title: Reaper Man
Author: Terry Pratchett
Published: Originally 1991, 2009 for the Kindle
Genre: Fa-ha-ha-ha!ntasy
Pages: 356


Needed a bit of a breather somewhere between the first two Hexslinger books, so why not a classic Pratchett? Discworld is always a nice place to visit, and who doesn't love Death?

The grey-cloaked auditors are poking around again (or rather, before, since Hogfather came after this one), and Death decides to take a holiday among the living. He has always picked up dying wizards in person, but when it's time for old Windle Poons to shuffle off his mortal coil, there's no sign of tall, dark and kinda skinny. Actually, no one seems to be dying, while tall, dark and kind of very skinny Bill Door is happily working for old Miss Flitworth.

People -and everything else that has a life- not dying start to become a problem, though, as the excess life force has to go somewhere. And so must the not-so-dead, like Windle, who is starting to enjoy his un-life.

I've read Reaper Man a few times in Finnish as a kid/teenager, and this was the first time in English.


   Ridcully silently passed him the brandy.
   "Just between the two of us," said the priest, "have you got any ideas about all this? The guards are trying to dig his lordship out. You know he'll want answers. I'm not even certain I know the questions."
   "Not magic and not gods," said Ridcully. "Can I have the snare back? Thank you. Not magic and not gods. That doesn't leave us much, does it?"
   "I suppose there's not some kind of magic you don't know about?"
   "If there is, we don't know about it."
   "Fair enough," the priest conceded.