Mort: (Discworld Novel 4) (Death, #1) (Discworld, #4)

by Terry Pratchett

Neil Gaiman (Introduction)

'Cracking dialogue, compelling illogic and unchained whimsy' Sunday Times

The Discworld is very much like our own - if our own were to consist of a flat planet balanced on the back of four elephants which stand on the back of a giant turtle, that is . . .

Death comes to us all. When he came to Mort, he offered him a job.

Death is the Grim Reaper of the Discworld, a black-robed skeleton carrying a scythe who must collect a minimum number of souls in order to keep the momentum of dying, well . . . alive.

He is also fond of cats and endlessly baffled by humanity. Soon Death is yearning to experience what humanity really has to offer . . . but to do that, he'll need to hire some help.

It's an offer Mort can't refuse. As Death's apprentice he'll have free board, use of the company horse - and being dead isn't compulsory. It's a dream job - until Mort falls in love with Death's daughter, Ysabell, and discovers that your boss can be a killer on your love life . . .
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The Discworld novels can be read in any order but Mort is the first book in the Death series.

• ISBN10: 0552166626
• ISBN13: 9780552166621
• Publish Date: 21 June 2012 (first published 12 November 1987)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Transworld Publishers Ltd
• Imprint: Corgi Books
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 320
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/isbn/9780552166621

Reviews

[layawaydragon]

HIGHLIGHTS MADE WHILE READING

The words came straight from his stomach without the intervention of his brain.


...by the time it got to The Shades even an agnostic could have walked across it.

Logic would have said all that, if only Logic hadn't taken the night off too.

He didn't quite know what had come over him, but he was enjoying it.

Mort felt that they slept like cats, with one eye open.

He tried to shut his eyes but the pictures in the darkness behind his eyelids were so vivid that he opened them again.

The trumpets of command had become the piccolos of supplication.

There was no opening, and the motor of his anger wouldn't last.

[deermoss]

Death is a great character and I love his appearances in the other books. My one gripe was with Mort being so set on saving Princess Keli even though he barely knew her. It was a little too hard to believe for me. It made the middle part a slow read, though I really enjoyed the beginning and end.

[Mercy]

4.5/5