The blurb:
Death comes to us all. When he came to Mort, he offered him a job.
Mort is the fourth book pubilshed in Terry Pratchett's beloved, iconic Discworld series and it's often said that it's the book where he really shifted from loving parodies of fantasy novels to fantasy novels. Still funny — but it's a big shift in goal, to go from gently, lovingly poking fun at something to doing it yourself.
Trying to get a grip on where to start reading Discworld can be dizzying. There are, after all, 50-odd books including aduult fiction, YA, Nanny Ogg's Cookbook, The Science of Discworld etc. Because it's where Pratchett moved from parody, Mort is often recommended as a starting point — it's early in the chronological series as well as being first of the Death novels, so it's a natural starting point. It's also a very quick, lively read.
There's a tonal shift through it. At the start, when we're first meeting Mort, he does have a parodic sort of feel, Pratchett taking the mickey out of the Chosen One sort of trope. Mort's nobody's idea of heroic; he's raised on a backwoods farm with family who view him as a bit odd, his legs seem all knees and so on. His family can't work out what to do with him and nobody wants him as an apprentice, so they take him to the local job fair, where Death arrives to hire Mort as his apprentice.
Around that point, the parodic aspect drops away completely and we start getting real story. And it's a nice lean fast-moving one too. Mort meets the boss's daughter, Ysabelle (she's adopted, she's been living in Death's home for more than 30 years without getting any older since time doesn't really pass there), gets a little on-the-job training and is sent out on his own to do The Duty. Predictably, just when he's starting to think that maybe he's getting the hang of it, Things Go Horribly Wrong.
Meanwhile, Death has taken the chance to step out for a little bit, to explore those things that humans seem to enjoy so much (and to pat some cats. Death likes cats).
The Discworld has a huge population and, throughout all those books, we meet most of them, but Mort only has a small cast: Death, Mort, Ysabelle, Alfred, Princess Keli and Cutwell the wizard are the main characters (plus Binky, Death's noble horse, who likes a good sugar lump now and then). Mort and Ysabelle change the most, with Mort gaining some...unexpected new skills in his new role, but only when he's not thinking about how to do them, and Ysabelle growing up a bit and realising that, whatever plays and books and tragedies say, maybe not everyone who falls in love needs to poison themselves at some stage. The shift from things being about getting a laugh to being about telling a story with some laughs in is gradual, and welcome. There's more than enough story in there to keep the reader going.
Started: 30 January 2025
Finished: 31 January 2025
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