P(r)atch(ett)ing the Gaps

Terry Pratchett’s Discworld Novels, pretty good eh? I started reading them when I picked up Pyramids as a 12 or 13 year old (circa 1991/92). I loved the wry sense of humour and imagination of that book, after reading it I decided it would be sensible to go back to the beginning of the series and so the next book I read was The Colour of Magic. From that point on I was hooked, I spent the next couple of years catching up with the series, once I’d caught up I’d buy each new book as it came out (in paperback, I wasn’t made of money I only had a paper round to fund these purchase to start with!). So it is that I’ve read the entirety of the Discworld series, well almost the entirety, for some inexplicable reason I never read the Tiffany Aching books. I knew they existed but I completely ignored them and I can only think that I dismissed then as children’s books (because, you know, I never read kid’s books). I remember each time a new novel was announced thinking it was a shame that Mr Pratchett had seemingly abandoned the characters of Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg, it didn’t even occur to me that here were these books featuring a young witch and that they might, just might, feature some older witches as well, what a Twonk.

Fast forward a few years and I’m nagging Tomeopathy Jr. about continually re-reading books that they’ve already read, when they’ve got loads of unread books sat on their Kindle. I suggest that they read The Wee Free Men, after all they are a child and it’s a book for children. Then I sit and listen to Tomeopathy Jr. giggle their way through the book, I listen as they demand the next book in the series, and the next and so on, and then finally the epiphany strikes and I think to myself, perhaps I ought to read a few lines myself. I’ve subsequently read the first three (‘The Wee Free Men’, ‘A Hat Full of Sky’, and ‘The Wintersmith’) in quick succession.

It turns out that like most Terry Pratchett books, the Tiffany Aching novels are really rather good, I’d go so far as to say, they’re very, very good. Also like most Terry Pratchett books, they’re not kid’s books, or rather they are but with adult only references and themes. Terry didn’t abandon The Witches (it was me who abandoned them), he just found a new perspective from which to continue their story. That perspective belongs to Tiffany Aching, a young girl growing up on The Chalk (broadly speaking a hilly region, mainly given over to sheep farming, more downs than broads really), whose Grandmother may, or may not, have been a witch, but who was definitely the bedrock upon which local society and tobacco sales were founded. Granny Aching passed away a short while before the start of ‘The Wee Free Men’, and since her death The Chalk has been missing a character who can define life on the hills. Step forward Tiffany who introduces herself to readers by smashing a river monster in the face with a heavy duty frying pan, an act which brings her to the attention of one Granny Weatherwax by circuitous means and into a witching apprenticeship of sorts.

As enterprising and resourceful as Tiffany is, she is rarely alone in her various adventures, help (unwanted though it may be) is on hand in the six inch high, heavily tattooed and frequently inebriated from of the local Nac Mac Feegle clan. Thanks to the Nac Mac Feegle’s penchant for violence (typically delivered in the form of a head butt), and their ability to pilfer anything (if you nailed something down, they’d just pinch the nails as well).

Tiffany is a worthy successor to Granny Weatherwax as the focal character for the Witches stories (or maybe that’s just what Granny Weatherwax wants you to think) and the Nac Mac Feegle are a seemingly infinite source of humour, in fact they’re right up there as one of Terry Pratchett’s greatest comic inventions.

For a slightly younger reader these books make an excellent introduction to the Discworld, as with most of the Discworld books, they work well as standalone novels but better when read as part of the bigger picture. Notwithstanding their later arrival in the series, nothing is revealed which would spoil the future enjoyment of older Discworld novels, indeed it’s likely that these books will pique the interest of younger readers to further explore the exploits of Granny Weatherwax, in Tomeopathy Jr’s case, I fully expect that to occur, probably sooner rather than later.