Once you start it, you won't be able to switch it off!
How does it compare to similar audio books?
Excellent
How does it compare to audio works by the same author?
Excellent
Advantages:
Wonderful word - play, delightfully silly
Disadvantages:
(Apparently some people don't like Pratchett?)
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
Only Pratchett could start a story with an extract from a book on "Fairies and how to avoid them". For only in a world invented by Pratchett might there be fairies you would wish to avoid.
The "fairies" in question ~ and believe me, you would put the word in inverted commas too, and most certainly you'd be careful about using it within their hearing ~ the folk who are "technic'ly" of fairyland with whom we are concerned here, are the Nac Mac Feegle
a.k.a. Pictsies, the Wee Free Men, the Little Men and/or "Person or Persons Unknown, Believed to be Armed".
It is evident from the very beginning that this is Terry Pratchett at his most playful, and yet still sliding in cultural references that can pass you by if you're not paying attention. "Pictsies" for instance is not a simple manipulation of pixies. It is a direct reference to the Picts….the ancient peoples of these isles. Think "Braveheart" as played to Hollywood, all tartan and woad and mindless loyalty… shrink the physical size to leprechaun, increase the alcohol content to hogmanay to the power of 365, throw in the joy of the wild west saloon brawl and you begin to get close to the Nac Mac Feegle.
Ach, but in true Scots fashion…they're ~ well, ok, not harmless exactly, they'll brain you as soon as look at you, preferably before hand ~ but they have a value system that values the right things. They look after their own.
And that includes their adoptive own.
The adoptee in this case is Tiffany Aching. She has had prior dealings with the Nac Mac Feegle. For the detail you'd need to read "The Wee Free Men", the outcome of which explains why the wee men feel the need to enter into this particular adventure. In short, Tiffany, now eleven years old, was once the Feegle's kelda, for a while, sort of. In the real world, she is the grand-daughter of a recently deceased shepherdess; she is about to do what girls of poor families do and go into service, setting out upon her journey with her school-teacher.
Except, of course, that Granny Aching was not JUST a shepherdess….
Except, of course that Miss Tick is not JUST a schoolteacher…
Except, of course that Tiffany has (in those prior dealings) shown just a hint of witchcraft…
Except also…that something…something terrible has spotted her ability to absent herself from herself…and that something is looking for a new body to take over, a new mind to use…
~
A Hat Full of Sky is a story of Discworld*
Most of the Discworld novels are aimed at adults ~ or at least children of greater age and experience. They are all directed at the child in us, the playful, the reader of fairytales and legends, the part of us that wants to believe in magic, and is prepared to do so, so long as it doesn't work any better than our own version (technology).
Unlike most of the series, however, A Hat Full of Sky, is one of those which are deliberately directed at younger readers.
In common with the adult series, the story is a romp through the mires and mirths of a world that is too absurd to be anything other than our own looked at only slightly askew.
The main plot is never the point on Discworld. You know that good will win the day, there are even clues enough to point you to how it will be done. These are morality tales, liberally dosed with lessons worth noting. In the adult series, many of the 'points' being made are political… here they are about growing up. Lessons about 'substance' as against 'show'; about the unfairness of life ~ and how we don't necessarily like it any better when it is fair; about the nature of friendship; about positive manipulation ~ and how the absolute truth isn't always what needs to be said, that sometimes stories achieve the desired results; lessons about learning to "dree your weird" and about accepting help.
Alongside, there are real world facts and theories to tempt the curious mind to explore beyond the fiction. In this case, the main ones are the White Horse of Uffington, and the Doctrine of Signatures. Where science and history interweave in the mainstream Discworld books, we are left to spot them for ourselves; acknowledging the difference when writing for younger readers, the author appends a short note drawing attention to these two 'realities'.
All of it buried in joyful silliness. There are the trademark word-plays: "Haggling" for instance to mean anything done by a Hag (i.e. a witch). Miss Tick ~ being both an appropriate name for a teacher and a homophone for mystic. Daft names abound as usual, but as ever they somehow always seem to fit: Rob Anybody (not an instruction, but the name of the leader of the Nac Mac Feegles), the young witch apprentices: Dimity Hubbub, Annagramma, Getruder Tiring ~ derivations from those jolly hockeysticks girls-school novels of my childhood, with attitudes unchanged from the days of Blyton. Questions are posed and answered: What happens to the rest of a 120-pound person when you transform them into a tiny frog? How do you stop a wayward broomstick? What exactly is a shambles?
Although a direct follow-up to The Wee Free Men, A Hat Full of Sky stands well alone. The bones of the previous story are given in so far as you need to know them. No previous experience of Discworld is needed at all. For the fans though, Granny Weatherwax is deeply involved in events, DEATH makes a brief appearance (& even Binky gets an uncredited walk-on part). The language is generally easy, and explanations are worked in where there might be difficulties. There is nothing to shock a young mind.
As an adult, if you like Pratchett, you will love this. If you are of the mindset that simply doesn't "get" the Discworld, this will not convert you.
~ ~ ~
*For those who have not yet come across it,: the Discworld is flat. It spins hubwise (clockwise as we'd say on earth) about its axis, supported by the four elephants who ride the back of the Great A'tuin, the turtle who swims endlessly through space. At the edge the great circle sea forever pours over into nothingness. I'm still waiting for Mr Pratchett to explain its replenishment. It could be magic, but in Discworld books the best things are only ever partly magical. This is a planet where magic doesn't reign: it is tolerated. As a result technology doesn't have quite the same historical imperative…it limps rather slowly, leaning on the staff of magic whenever it gets a chance…but limp forward it does. This means the modern ideas and mediaeval technology and cutting edge science can be used at random. (As if there was any other way.) Witches still hold sway, especially in the countryside…but witchcraft, like magic, is open to interpretation.
~ ~ ~
Published in hardback by Doubleday under the KidsatRandomHouse imprint Cover price £12.99 ISBN 0-385-60736-9 pp 350
Also available in paperback.
~ ~ ~
hiker@Ciao! 2.7.05
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witch Tiffany Aching and the Wee Free Men, is so ridiculously well written and consistently funny it makes you wonder how he can keep writing such superlative no...
witch Tiffany Aching and the Wee Free Men, is so ridiculously well written and consistently funny it makes you wonder how he can keep writing such superlative no...
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