Soul Music

Title: Soul Music
Author: Terry Pratchett
Published: 1994
Genre: Humour Fantasy
Pages: 372


A Pratchett sounded like a nice change after Byzantium Endures, so here's the 16th Discworld-book! I'm not sure whether I've read this one, not in Finnish anyway. It felt vaguely familiar, so I think I've read it at some point...

The story starts when a young harpist Imp, the troll Lias, and dwarven Glod try to get into the Musician's Guild in Ankh-Morpork, but can't afford it. To make money, they start playing music together. After an unfortunate sitting accident Imp loses his harp, and buys a strange guitar to replace it, from a shady little shop that surely wasn't there last time someone checked. The guitar seems to have a mind of its own, and soon The Band With Rocks In starts to get attention, both good and bad. The Guild doesn't like unlicensed music!

Meanwhile, Death is upset over the deaths of his daughter Ysabell and previous apprentice Mort, and decides to forget everything. It's not as easy as you'd think, and while Death is buried in sand at the Foreign Legion, his grand-daughter Susan has to take Binky's reins. But it's not fair that the cute young musician has to die, right?

As you might have guessed, the book is FULL of puns and references to the history of popular music. I'm sure I missed plenty, but giggled a lot and laughed out loud at the 'We're on a mission from Glod' -bit. Also, I have to point this out, since I didn't get it myself... Imp is from Llamedos, which spelled backwards issss Sod 'em all. *giggle* The only bit I didn't like was the Biography at the end... the Kindle version had been updated after March. Thanks for the reminder...


   Scum, who out of the whole group had the least amount of cerebral activity to get between him and true observation of the world, was trailing behind. He had an uneasy feeling that he'd just walked over someone's grave.
   'That one looked a bit sort of thin,' he muttered.
   The others weren't paying any attention. They were back to the usual argument.
   'I'm fed up with being Surreptitious Fabric,' said Jimbo. 'It's a silly name.'
   'Really, really thin,' said Scum. He felt in his pocket.
   'Yeah, I liked it best when we were The Whom,' said Noddy.
   'But we were only The Whom for half an hour!' said Crash. 'Yesterday. In between bein' The Blots and Lead Balloon, remember?'
   Scum located a tenpenny piece and turned back.
   'There's bound to be some good name,' said Jimbo. 'I just bet we'll know it's right just as soon as we see it.'
   'Oh, yeah. Well, we've got to come up with some name we don't start arguing about after five minutes,' said Crash. 'It's not doing our career any good if people don't know who we are.'
   'Mr. Dibbler says it definitely is,' said Noddy.
   'There you go, old man,' said Scum, back down the street.
   THANK YOU, said the grateful Death.
   Scum hurried to catch up with the others, who were back on the subject of leopards with hearing difficulties.