This is part of the Pratchett Project.
The blurb:
Death has to happen. That's what bein' alive is all about. You're alive, and then you're dead. It can't just stop happening.
But it can. And it has. So what happens after death is now less of a philosophical question than a question of actual reality. On the Disc, as here, they need Death. If Death doesn't come for you, then what are you supposed to do in the meantime? You can't have the undead wandering about like lost souls. There's no telling what might happen, particularly when they discover that life really is only for the living...
I remarked soon after starting Reaper Man that there's a lot of similarity between the conversational style of a bunch of wizards from the Unseen University and Them (Adam, Pepper, Wensleydale and Brian) in Good Omens. That amuses me because, although I haven't hit the Wizards books yet, they do seem to have a fair bit in common with a bunch of excitable kids. But also it's a pointer to how distinctive Terry Pratchett's writing voice is. There is not another author you could mistake him for.
I have the feeling that Reaper Man is going to end up as one of my favourite books out of the many, many Discworld novels. There's a logical progression in Death's arc — in Mort, when he hired an apprentice, Death stepped out for a little bit to try out human pastimes. Reaper Man takes it step further: he's pushed out by the Auditors of Reality who feel that he's developing a bit too much personality and a bit too much attachment to the souls he harvests, given a timer of his own, and given the boot from being a personification. He's still pretty skeletal, and most people (more on 'most' in a minute) still don't see him as what he truly is...but he's not living in his timeless realm any more. Just him and Binky the horse.
He ends up in a small village, probably not that dissimilar to the one that produced Mort, bearing the name of Bill Door and working for Miss Flitworth for sixpence a week and his keep. Good value for Miss Flitworth, he's handy with a scythe. While there he encounters one of the few people who see him for what he is; a small child who sees him as a 'skelington' (but it's okay because he's not a dead one). One of the reasons the faceless forces pushed Death out was that he was beginning to identify with his charges; unwittingly, the little girl pushes that even further. Another mark of the change in Death is visible in the shift from his attitude to Mort and Ysabelle's future children (he claims to not have the right sort of knees to be a grandfather) but here he patiently listens to the child's flow of conversation...and in the end, when her life is at risk, he goes to great lengths to help. If the faceless forces didn't like him before, they certainly will have even stronger views about him now.
Meanwhile, with Death out of the job and nobody else taking up the mantle, things are going awry. People are coming to the end of their lives...but Death isn't collecting them. Ancient Windle Poons, wizard, finds that he's dead but still running around and, once he gets the hang of consciously managing his body, he finds he's actually in better shape now than he had been in a long time while still alive. And Windle isn't the only one affected; there's suddenly an excess of life force in Ankh Morpork (elsewhere too, but Ankh Morpork is a busy place) and something is seeding itself in the city, in a process involving snow globes, shopping trolleys and, eventually, a shopping mall of sorts.
Death's relationships formed while working as Bill Door are particularly touching, especially his gestures towards the little girl and to Miss Flitworth. Pratchett conveys Miss Flitworth's last night and her soul's final disposition in a beautifully understated fashion; it's emotional but written very delicately, letting the reader experience everything without clubbing them over the head to induce emotion. It's a lovely piece of writing, and an act of trust from the writer to the reader.
Windle and Death both learn to actually, truly live in their separate stories. Windle is, obviously, the more human of the two but Death's readjustment to living as a human is the more profound. He discovers having company, being a friend, the pleasures of small things. When he confronts the new Death, formed from humanity's overall beliefs, he is righteous, rightly, about New Death's crown and dramatic self-presentation; that is not how it should be done. There's no room for self-aggrandizement, there's only the harvest, done with care and respect. I really do think Reaper Man will end up being one of the top books in the Discworl series for me.
Started: 2 February 2025
Finished: 5 February 2025
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