Reaper Man: A Novel of Discworld

Death is my favorite character in the disc world, and this book is one of the best the series. Reaper Man gives you a chance to see just how much love and appreciation Death has for life. Not to mention this is where we are introduced to Death of Rats, <3!

Pratchett again produces a world of interesting intrigue, magic and a unique glance at our own lives through the life of a fantastic character. DEATH seems to show his more human side in this book... while still being death, and the ride is both hilarious and insightful.

A simply wonderful read.

In Reaper Man, Death is fired and becomes mortal. "At last I have time" he says, and goes out in the world. Will he have the time of his life? Read and see. An engaging twist on Death Takes a Holiday.

Second in the DEATH subseries and eleventh in the overall Discworld satirical series revolving around a planet that is flat and carried through space on the back of a turtle. A really big turtle. The focus is on DEATH and his coming death.

My Take
Reaper Man starts off with the Morris Dance, but I don't really see the connection. Yeah, okay, it's Pratchett. There never has to be one, and he does go on about the other dance.

It's all about existence, whether you're alive or dead…and I have no idea how shopping carts, a.k.a., trolleys, fit into this. Nor the purpose of those buzzing swearwords. Although it is funny how the wizards suddenly try to cut out the swearing. Unfortunately, there's only so much room and excess energy any world can take, and that energy has to go somewhere. With Terry Pratchett's imagination, even the sky isn't a limit.

And, here we go on page 11 with those mayflies whose entire life cycle takes 24 hours, ROFL:
"'Ah, er, yerse, you don't get the kind of sun now that you used to get,' said one of them.

'You're right there. We had proper sun in the good old hours. It were all yellow. None of this red stuff.'

'It were higher, too.'"

Pratchett does like to poke fun at everything, and this one is one of my faves. The parents who always had it worse/better in the old days. Pratchett then swings to the millennia life cycle with the Counting Pine and goes at it again, before he sets in on old professors moaning on about how the world is going to pot.

Ah, ambitions. Especially that wizard who doesn't want to give up Windle's rooms. I mean, the fellow's dead, ain't he? What's he need with his rooms just because he won't die all the way?

Says it all about them wizards at Unseen U:
"'It can't be intelligent, can it?' said the Bursar.

'All it's doing is moving around slowly and eating things,' said the Dean.

'Put a pointy hat on it and it'd be a faculty member,' said the Archchancellor."

Mmm, you'd be guessing right if you assumed this was third-person omniscient point-of-view what with all the thoughts we're reading. DEATH is evolving with his observations of behavior as he plunges into finally experiencing life. His panic. His hangover. Learning compassion. Windle evolves as well, becoming more appreciative of the little things in life. Poor Reg. Even the Death of Rats has his moments.

I don't know how he does it, but Pratchett yanks in every myth, superstition, stereotype from "playing kettle drums and doing that bimbo dancing all night" to "making him pass water", er, I mean "running water" to vampires who need hemogoblins to "contracting genetics" to new-fangled gadgets that'll never catch on, and more. The miraculous ability of a mind to regenerate after giving so many pieces of it away. The unnaturalness of, shock, taking all your clothes off to have a bath??!

Oooh, anti-crime… Nope, it's not what you're thinking. This is more along the lines of breaking-and-decorating, whitemailing…and worse!

Yeah, I can see that. Snowglobes as eggs to hatch cities.

In the end, it's all about the harvest.

The Story
They say there are only two things you can count on …

But that was before DEATH discovered the sands running out of his own timer. Seems he's developing, ahem, a personality. Can't have that.

It's rather sudden, this concept of time running out for him, and DEATH abandons his job and sets off to spend his time as he chooses.

But like every cutback in an important public service, the lack of DEATH soon leads to chaos and unrest — literally, for those whose time was supposed to be up, like Windle Poons.

The oldest geezer in the entire faculty of Unseen University — home of magic, wizardry, and big dinners — Windle was looking forward to a wonderful afterlife, not this boring been-there-done-that routine.

But there will be no fresh start without DEATH, and Windle and the rest of Ankh-Morpork's undead and underemployed set off to find DEATH and save the world for the living (and everybody else, of course).

The Characters
DEATH is the Grim Reaper we all know. And fear to see coming to our door. Binky is DEATH's pale, living horse. They'll let DEATH keep him. Albert is his now-depressed human servant. The powers-that-be have had to outsource with DEATH out of the picture, so we have the Death of Rats, SQUEAK, and the Death of Fleas. The new DEATH is a prat.

Bill Door finds work as farm labor with Miss Renata Flitworth. Ralph? Rufus?, a smuggler, had been her fiancé. Nancy is the pig. Cyril is the cockerel with dyslexia. Lifton is the landlord at the local inn; Sal is his daughter. Other villagers include William Spigot, Gabby Wheels, and Duke Bottomley (his brothers are Squire, Earl, and King). Ned Simnel is the inventive blacksmith. Iago Peedbury has a field in which they test Simnel's latest.

Ankh-Morpork is…
…the most cosmopolitan city on Discworld where anyone is welcome…as long as they have a return ticket. The Shades is its worst neighborhood. And that's sayin' somethin'!

Unseen U is…
…the wizard university of Discworld based in Ankh-Morpork. Windle Poons is the oldest wizard in the entire faculty.
"It occurred to him that for most of his life he'd been an old man. Didn't seem fair, really."
Mustrum Ridcully is the current Archchancellor obsessed with hunting, dressing as he pleases, getting roaring drunk, jollying people along…and jogging! The Dean who discovers how much fun it is to ignore the rules. Yo! The Librarian is a wizard who was transformed into an orangutan. The Bursar obsesses himself with paperwork and doesn't need to worry about assassination. Who would want his job? Other wizards include the Lecturer in Recent Runes and the Senior Wrangler, who is the leading philosopher. Modo is the dwarf gardener. Unseen U insists on a lying-in period for wizards after the embarrassing affair of Prissal "Merry Prankster" Teatar.

The Fresh Start Club is…
…a support group for the undead started up by Reg Shoe, a mortuary worker. Members include Brother Arthur Winkings, er, no, I mean Count Notfaroutoe, a lower-middle-class wholesale fruit and veg merchant, and his wife, Sister Doreen, oops, Countess Notfaroutoe, the keep-up-with-the-Joneses vampiress; Brother Schleppel, a very shy bogeyman; Brother Lupine; Brother Gorper; Sister Drull is a ghoul; and, Brother Ixolite is a banshee with a speech impediment.

Sergeant Fred Colon is of the Ankh-Morpork City Guard, the city's policing agency. Captain Doxie is with the City Guard Day Watch. The Patrician, Lord Vetinari, rules the city. Captain Douglas is with the Guard.

Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler, he says he's a merchant adventurer, but he's really an itinerant peddler with lots of get-rich schemes, providing he can steal the products and cheat the customers. Detritus is the odd-job troll at the Mended Drum, a tavern. The tale of The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents provide the truth to the tale of the Pied Piper. Druto Pole is a florist with an order to die for.

Mrs. Evadne Cake is a small medium feared by all religions. Her daughter, Ludmilla, turns into a werewolf. Must be something to do with Great Uncle Erasmus. One-Man-Bucket is her spirit guide, and yes, it's the old joke about what the mother first sees on looking out the teepee.

The Chief Priest of Blind Io is the senior priest of the senior god on Discworld and therefore the religious spokesman. He's also Ridcully's brother. Other religious leaders mentioned include the priest of Offler the Crocodile God, the high priest of the Cult of Hinki, the Archdeacon of Thrume, and the scandalized Reverend Welegare. Guilds include the Alchemists, Geoffrey is the General Secretary and Chief Butt of the Guild of Fools and Joculators, and the Assassins.

The auditors of reality are…
…supposed to be a group mind — think accountant. Azrael is the sky and appears to be the boss.

Discworld is a flat planet carried on the back of a turtle who swims through the galaxy.

The Cover and Title
The cover is black with a fossilized gray stone arched window with a deep sill. Leaning out the window is a golden skeleton with sly eyes wearing a straw hat and bib overalls, one hand resting on an hourglass. In the black background of the window is the hook-nosed, white-bearded, red-and-black-pointy-hat-and-dark-red-robe-wearing Windle Poons, the wizard who cannot die. The title is a bright yellow across the top while the author's name is at the bottom in white.

The title is a chance to try a different life as the Reaper Man with a different kind of harvest.

To begin, this is simply one of the best Pratchett books – arguably the best – that I have read so far. I have read them in order of publication, with the exception of Small Gods, Hogfather, and Dodger (fourteen), and this one had one of the most touching, tightly plotted, and enjoyable of all of them... Perhaps second to the enjoyment I got out of the first book, The Colour of Magic.

The story follows Death as he loses his job and has to make do with navigating a world that seems to not need him any longer. Turns out it does, but he doesn't find out until later. In the meantime, he takes jobs, meets people, and tries to fit in as the world crumbles around him. In the true Pratchett spirit, hilarity ensues... But what sets this book apart was the incredibly taut structure, prose, and sentimental ending that truly made me gasp at its beauty and execution.

This particular book contained some of the most incredible and hilarious sentences that I have ever read in all of literature. Granted, I mean this stylistically in terms of modern pop literature... But in this particular book, Pratchett really made a remarkable effort to bridge high thematic content with accessible diction and narrative structure. This book is simply a perfect little book, and my entertainment brain was stimulated along with my philosophical brain. It was absolutely a wonderful book to experience. As a writer, his bridging of the pop with the literary, and his structuring of some really incredibly stimulating sentences was truly an art in using the best words in the best order to say something for all audiences.

So far, this book is Pratchett's masterpiece for me... But I look forward to continuing to dance with Death and the rest of this wonderful world that I enjoy visiting so often.

DEATH is not only the main character of "Reaper Man", he becomes a humorous metaphorical concept in the hands of Terry Pratchett when imagining if the Grim Reaper got replaced and the consequence to the Disc. Pratchett is at his comical and narrative best, further developing previously established characters and introducing memorable new ones.

The Auditors, which I first learned about watching The Hogfather miniseries, make their first appearance in the Discworld novels and target DEATH because he's gained a personality. The result DEATH is forced into retirement, it's short but he decides to learn to live in what time he's got. While living on the farm of Miss Flitworth, DEATH learns about every day things and personal interactions as "Bill Door" all the while checking his golden watch tick down. While DEATH is on the farm, the Auditors didn't have someone to immediately fill his position resulting in people dying but not "moving on" as in the case of Windle Poons, a 130 year old Wizard who had a more active undead "life" than his actual life. Poons, the Wizards of the Unseen University, and many other assorted characters must contend with the build up of Life Force that could result in something that can be the death of a city.

The two plots are vaguely intertwined and only combine with one another at the very end, however each has little subplots that Pratchett uses not only to humorous but narrative effect that drives the book forward. Honestly, I could not find a fault in this book and probably because since I've started reading Discworld I've been looking forward to reading the DEATH series of books with anticipation. However, the time I spent reading this book has been with a smile on my face as noted by my co-workers who shared a table with me during lunches and breaks. I can't give a better recommendation than that.

I've always been a bit mystified how Pratchett, with his grating poor-man's-Adams style and paper thin characters, receives such universal acclaim. I decided to dive into Discworld after hearing from nearly everybody how absurd and funny the books are, and the early entries did nothing but frustrate me. However, since everybody claims the later entries are superior to the first few, I picked up Guards! Guards! and Reaper Man, and they were bad enough to convince me to give up on this author.

This novel consists of two halves, one of which - Death having to live among mortals - is a good idea that could have been executed much better. The idea of Death himself having to live among humans could, from a stronger author, have led to any number of insights on our own mortality and the human condition. Instead, all we get is that Death is a good farmhand because he's handy with a scythe, and he hates clocks. I suppose it's very insightful and moving if you're 14, but it's hard to see this storyline as anything other than wasted potential.

The other half isn't even a badly-executed good idea - it's just a bad idea from the outset. Windle Poons is supposed to die of old age, fails to because Death isn't on duty, comes back as a zombie with super strength and wanders around meeting all kinds of uninteresting characters. This is intended to be the zany, comedic side of the story, but it commits the cardinal sin of just not being very funny. This half is dragged down considerably by a lengthy subplot about killer shopping carts, along with nonstop unfunny bickering between one-dimensional wizard characters. The whole thing is irritating and badly plotted, and certain gags that aren't funny the first time (such as a wizard replying to everything with "Yo") get hammered home and revisited far, far too often.

I've seen many people make the claim that Discworld is a mirror that satirizes our own world, but to me Pratchett's attempts at doing this are far too straightforward and clumsy to be very interesting. Time to move on.

Wow, Terry Pratchett's Reaper Man is a crazy book and a whole lot of fun to read! I hadn't read him in many years and had forgotten how witty the man is. Sheer genius. In this book, Death is retired and given a mortal life (while still remaining a big skeleton). He goes to work as a farmhand named Bill Door. The old woman he's working for is either crazy or quirky -- you pick it. Since Death is no longer busy getting souls to take them on to the other world, and since a replacement has apparently not been found, everyone (and thing) dying is going right back into their bodies and the place is really messed up. An old wizard named Windle Poons, after dying, now finds himself back among the living as a sort of zombie. There are all sorts of delights in this book -- werewolves, vampires, bogeymen, etc. All with Pratchett's flair for wording things brilliantly. The man is simply funny. As things progress, you start to see how a couple of stories that don't seem to have anything to do with each other actually do and they come together. During the book, I wondered how Pratchett would end the book gracefully, and I've got to say, he did not disappoint. It's a very satisfying ending. This book is part of the Discworld series, and it's quickly become one of my favorite Pratchett books I've read.

Terry Pratchett's Discworld does for (or to) Fantasy what Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy did for science fiction--firmly sets a story within a genre, stereotypes intact, then goes to town. He's frequently irreverent, and it's an absolute delight to read.

Used to be the only two things you could count on were Death and taxes. Anymore, however...Death's bosses are getting dissatisfied. They think he's gone soft, and disapprove of the fact that he's evolved a personality over the eons. He should be a force of nature, not...well, not a "he" at all. So they resolve to fire him and let a new Death take over, which is all well and good aside from the chaos of the "transitional period...." Windle Poons was the oldest wizard alive. Now he's the only wizard undead. You see, when a wizard dies Death himself is supposed to show up and escort him to his destination. But Death never showed, so Windle is back in his body feeling better than ever and freaking out the rest of the faculty. But it's not just Windle; nothing is dying while Death is away, and random life force with nowhere to go is building up and requiring an outlet....Meanwhile, Death is trying his hand at living for the first time.

This eleventh Discworld novel stands on its own okay. Most of the wizards are recurring castmembers to some degree or another, as is Death and some of the other minor players, but you shouldn't be too lost if this is your first entry into the Discworld....

Back in the early eighties (almost thirty years ago, how time flies) "Discworld" was nothing but a witty parody of numerous tropes and idioms found in the genre of fantasy. It spawned many copycats and soon there was an entire universe populated by parodies - so that they themselves became subverted and lead a life of their own overtaking the genre that gave them birth. By that time, Pratchett was already moving far ahead. His early ventures in the world of Discworld were very particular - and only an avid reader of fantasy could really find enjoyment in them. You had to be able to spot a reference to understand what has been going on in the book. People who couldn't do this didn't care much about the whole thing and they wondered what all the fuss was about.

Very soon Pratchett realized the potential of his creation - Discworld being both world and a mirror of worlds - and by the next decade he started using it in a totally different manner. Comedy and parody were still an integral part of the books (and spot the reference game was still heavily used) but they were no longer the main focus. "Discworld" grew shape, characters were developing personalities and what started as a mere nod to a pulp fiction soon became a full-bred world. Fictional world. Though fiction bits of it had suspicious ring of Truth to them. You could use this new "Discworld" to write real stories in it. Stories that had complexity, stories that reached outside the narrow borders of the genre conventions, stories that a total newcomer could understand and relate to, stories that spoke about the world outside. While rest of the world was getting busy trying to cash in on "Discworld" success, producing numerous parodies and subversions, Pratchett started with serious writing and people who got infected by a "Discworld" virus, people who became fans of the earlier versions of "Discworld" didn't know what hit them.

From the funny pages that spoke of the world carried across the universe on the back of four giant elephants placed on the shell of a turtle Literature emerged. Your old, ancient, classical, thought-provoking, complex literature. Many of the fans didn't like this change at all. Many of them did. And many more came.

In the early nineties came the "Reaper man", "Discworld" novel that embodied this change. You can read some of the reactions to it here on the store. Most common negative remark is that this `book is not funny'. Though `being funny' is an entirely subjective matter, "Reaper man" was never intended to be funny. It was intended to be a meditation on meaning of life - written for a stage full of clowns and chaotically inclined Wizards. In this sense, it was (and still is) a great book. "Reaper man" juxtaposes two narratives - one that has pastoral feel and other that has urban, metropolis-kind tone to it. It is a story about the battle of two viewpoints, traditional and modern. With life-force in abundance (Death being retired or `let go' the main reason for it), modern world will spawn man-eating, zombiefying shopping malls - while traditional world will remain unchanged. Almost unchanged. In the midst of it all, Pratchett will write about the ordinary man (wearing a guise of 130yr-old wizard and antropomorfical personification of Death itself) and his insecurities. He will write about acquiring identity, about loneliness, love, responsibility and the finite and unique existence of every individual. Underneath the usual Discworld paraphernalia of trope subversion, reader will get a zen-like story, story that celebrates life with a hint of melancholy, story that draws you away from an incessant rush and hive-mind of modern society, story that will remain with you for long and to which you will be returning.

"Reaper man" is a classic. Great literature wearing the guise of a clown - mirroring our world in yet another subtext. In the age of the kings Fools were the only ones who were allowed to tell the truth. "Reaper man" wears a Fool's costume, but there is nothing foolish inside of it.

To date I've read about a dozen Discworld novels, and this was the best of them by a full hand. What it's about is Death, who is sacked from his job by the cosmic auditors for taking too personal an interest in things. Given an hourglass of his own and nothing to do, Death renames himself Bill Door and goes to work as a farm hand for the redoubtable Miss Flitworth, who is about seventy-five and long ago lost her smuggler lover to an avalanche in the mountains. Bill Door, under the influence of the sand pouring down through his hourglass, slowly comes to understand how all these little humans live their scared, bunched-up lives sandwiched between cradle and grave.

While Death gains mortal perspective, the fact that Death has been retired means that the dead aren't dying properly. There is an upsurge in poltergeist activity, and life energy is bursting to express itself since it is stuck between worlds. Windle Poons is an ancient wizard who should have died but mysteriously comes back to "life" and has a big adventure stopping the birth of shopping malls from happening to Ankh-Morpork. He is joined by several wizards from Unseen University, and the orangutan librarian, and a society of the undead who help him see to the death of the shopping mall.

What is unique about this book is that it does not end abruptly, as most Discworld novels do, but unwinds slowly as the characters meet their Deaths and move on to new things. Windle Poons eventually dies for real, and Miss Flitworth and Death have a last dance before she is reunited with her lover in the next world. Terry Pratchett seems to have needed to do some metaphysical speculation in this book, and the ending(s) are very appropriate and quite satisfying. I was saddened that the characters who died didn't get a reprieve, but who among us does? It's better that their ends were good ones, and the story came slowly to a stop.

This book also features several sub-plots that unfold tidily and give the book extra kick. There is the wolf-man and the wolf-woman, there is the story of the harvester, there is the Death of Rats who wants to be independent. This book bursts with life without feeling busy, and it has been the most soulful of the Discworld books I've read so far. Read it, enjoy it, review it!

Death, the personification of the concept and process, is being retired from Discworld. This leads to a build-up of life energy on the disc, with serious fallout for its citizens. Death now has time, something he has never experienced, and sets out to make the most of it. Like Pratchett's other books in the Discworld series, they are simultaneously humorous and provoke deeper thought. The humor comes from the odd aspects of characters (e.g., a Ban Shee who is too shy to wail and thus instead leaves notes under your door with a transliteration of his wail, a reluctant vampire who would rather sell produce and his wife who attempts to embrace the varmpiric role). Throughout it all, the sections with Death stand out as both the funniest and the deepest. Death has developed a caring for those humans who puzzle him so. Living (and dealing with the idea of dying) among them now, he continues his philosophical explorations while learning from those around him. Particularly interesting was Death's reaction to his replacement, whom Death considers only with contempt for his vicious arrogance and love of drama. Death's character continues to evolve, as in his his breaking his own rules to save a little girl and his indignation at the idea that his corn harvest would be threatened by a severe storm. Look for the subtle cultural references (e.g., Death's discussion of a game of "Exclusive Possession," which jokingly skirts the copyright laws as he discusses who owned streets and utilities). Pratchett works hard to make sure that you can pick up random books in the series and hopefully not be lost. Each one stands on its own, although the more knowledge you have of the various characters from prior works, the more you enjoy their development. I also listened to the book on audible, and having the book read with the various voices, including the deep and echoing voice of Death, only added to the book.

So in this one Death (or Bill Door, whichever you like), has been given the sack and turns to reaping corn (you must admit, he's a lot of experience with a scythe) for an old woman while he waits for the new death. The way he reaps the corn one strand at a time had, to me, a reverential sort of feeling to it.
Now Death has got to be my favourite character. I think it's the way he tries to understand our world and will, on occasion, get the wrong end of the stick. His time in the village is very much like this. Especially when it comes to the little girl there that can see exactly what he is.
But it doesn't just focus on Death and the pastoral life. No, no. With no Death aren't dying ... that is to say, they are, but not in the typical sense. At least, not for humans. And there's the chaos with stuff that wasn't/hasn't been alive moving about.
On top of this, there are the mysterious trolleys. Lots of them. They were quite amusing actually. They're like the seagulls in Finding Nemo. You could imagine the seagulls saying "Mine" all the time and you could, without much trouble, imagine trolleys wheeling themselves to some out-of-the-way place.
The ending ... I kind of already knew the ending. At least the outcome for Death. What happened to the trolleys and the wizards was a whole different story.

So. What are your thoughts on death?

Or rather, Death?

It's a weird thing, death. I mean, you're here one minute and then you're... not. And while we all know intellectually that we're going to die, there's something in us that refuses to believe that the essential Person that we are could possibly cease to exist. We have personalities, unique aggregations of memory and experience and inborn preferences that all display themselves as a Person, as far as we know unique in all the world. Each human being is an entity that will never be seen again in this universe, and as far as we know, the cessation of life brings that entity to an end, reducing the person we knew to a mere insentiate object.

Is it any wonder we come up with stories for what happens... y'know, after?

Just about very culture that's ever been has come up with some form of afterlife, be it an eternal feast for heroes, a paradise in which we can bask in God's glory, a place of exquisite pain and torment, or a ticket back to Earth for another go 'round. There is no way of knowing if any of those are actually what happens to us when we die. At least not until we actually do it. So since we cannot know, we make stuff up, if only to make the whole thing easier to bear.

What often goes with that other world is someone to take us over. A ferryman or a guide, someone who knows the territory and knows where we need to go in what is very likely a rather confusing time. It's another piece of comfort - knowing that there's Someone out there who knows where we need to go and what we need to do.

Which brings us to Death.

He's been portrayed many ways over the years - my favorite is the Death from Neil Gaiman's Sandman series - a sort of older sister who's known you all your life and loves you anyway. If she shows up for me when I die, I think I'll be okay.

I would be just as happy with Pratchett's Death, even though he is the more traditional robes-scythe-and-skeleton type. Fans of Discworld love Death, which I imagine was somewhat baffling for Pratchett early on. In the first few books, Death was a bit character - he showed up a couple of times to collect the recently deceased, and that was it. But his scenes were so memorable and so good that they sometimes stuck out above the rest of the book. He speaks <span style="font-variant: small-caps;">entirely in capital letters, which lends him a voice that is probably reminiscent of James Earl Jones.</span> He's aloof, but not uncaring, and seems to take a rather curious interest in humanity. He likes cats, has a house off on the edge of nowhere, and rides a great white steed named Binky. Death has become, in short, an interesting person.

And it seems that's a problem.

The Universe, you see, is a finely tuned instrument, one which needs monitoring and, occasionally, adjusting. There are... let's call them Auditors, who make sure that reality stays real - no odd deviations or anomolies such as, for example, anthropomorphic personifications of natural forces. In all honesty, they would eliminate all life if they could, but that is, as yet, beyond their capabilities. So they settle for telling Death that it's time for him to retire. He gets a little hourglass all his own, and time to kill until the new Death comes into being.

In the interim, this time between Deaths, a new problem arises: nothing is dying. Or, to be more specific, things are dying, but the vital energies that empowered everything, from cabbages to clergymen, aren't being taken away. Without a Death to handle this very vital - so to speak - function, the life energy is looking for a place to go, an outlet. As a result, things that shouldn't be alive are up and moving around. In some cases this means objects running along of their own accord, and in others it means that the dead simply have nowhere to go.

Such is the case with the wizard Windle Poons. After 130 years at the Unseen University, he was rather looking forward to a nice rest and then a bit of reincarnation as a woman in a far more liberal society. What he got instead was nothingness. Given that option, he went back to his body and became Undead, much to the consternation of the rest of the UU faculty. Unfortunately for them, they have bigger things to worry about - the buildup of life force is having a rather larger and more dangerous effect on the city of Ankh-Morpork itself. The lack of a Death may well doom the city in a manner that will be horribly familiar to many of Pratchett's readers.

And where is Death in all this, or at least the person who used to be Death? He has found a small farm below the famous Ramtop Mountains. An old maid, Miss Flitworth, needs a hand and Death needs a way to spend his time - something he's never had to worry about before. He takes the alias Bill Door and starts to learn what it means to be alive, despite the short time he has left.

The book, as you might imagine, is all about being alive. What makes life special and precious and ultimately worth living. Windle Poons let life go past while he grew old behind the university walls, and it is only in death that he finds out all that fun he'd missed. Bill Door learns that it is the fragility of life, and its most certain end, which ultimately gives it meaning. In the middle, we see that everything that can live yearns to do so, from the mayflies to the great Counting Pines to cities to ideas.

While the book gives no answers to what may happen after death (the Discworld books rarely do), it does give us another way to look at life. And that, ultimately, is the goal of any great story.

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"Huh! Priests! They're all the same. Always telling you that you're going to live again after you're dead, but you just try it and see the look on their faces!"
- Reg Shoe, Reaper Man
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