The Shepherd's Crown by Terry Pratchett

The Shepherd's Crown: A Tiffany Aching Adventure by Terry Pratchett --- 276 pages

So this is it: the final Discworld novel by the late, lamented Sir Terry Pratchett.

Fittingly, it is a book about growing up and growing old. About saying goodbye and going on. Like Tolkien, like all the great writers of fantasy, Terry Pratchett did not merely invent his world. He opened the way into a world that was always there, waiting to be explored. Thank you, Sir Terry, for bringing us to that place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.

The Shepherd's Crown is the fifth book in the Tiffany Aching YA series, which also includes: The Wee Free Men, A Hat Full of Sky, Wintersmith, and I Shall Wear Midnight.

Sir Terry Pratchett OBE, was the auhtor of more than seventy books, including the international best-selling Discworld fantasy series. His novels have been adapted for the stage and film, and he was the winner of multiple awards, including the Carnegie Medal. Sir Terry was diagnosed with posterior cortical atrophy (early-onset Alzheimer's) in 2007. In January 2009, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in recognition of his services to literature.  He continued to write until the summer of 2014 when he finished The Shepherd's Crown. He died in March 2015 at the age of 66, at his home in England.

Click HERE  to read a review of The Shepherd's Crown. (Warning: Spoiler Alert)

Cleick HERE to read a review and an appreciation of Terry Pratchett by author A.S. Byatt. (Warning: Spoiler Alert)

Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett

Unseen Academicals: A Novel of Discworld by Terry Pratchett --- 416 pages

This is the 37th novel in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, and was the first one published after he announced that he had been diagnosed with a variety of Alzheimer's that impairs visual recognition and short term memory but leaves the sufferer all too aware of the slow, insidious decline of his mental abilities. 

That said, this is one of Pratchett's most brilliant efforts in a long-running series that very few authors can match. Pratchett's comic genius has been compared to P.G. Wodehouse and this is a story that Wodehouse would have loved.

The Patrician of Ankh-Morpork has decided it's time to regularize the until now completely unregulated game of football, and the Shove that surrounds the matches. To do this he involves the wizards at Unseen University, whom are inveigled into fielding a team to challenge the footballers of the city --- use of magic strictly forbidden on the field. Let's just say this is the "War and Peace" of football combined with a Romeo and Juliet motif, a Dwarf fashionista, and the rehabilitation of one of fantasy's most iconic villians.

A British television network that has created three previous made-for-TV films of three Discworld novels is making a film of this one too. I have all the books and the DVDs in my personal library. There are few writers who do really intelligent fantasy and even fewer who can do really intelligent comic fantasy. I'm happy to say that Pratchett continues to write and has published several novels subsequent to this one.  Long may he fight the good fight!

Click HERE to read Terry Pratchett's comments on how the story came together.

Click HERE to read a fan discuss both the book and how Pratchett is coping with his disability.

Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett

Raising Steam: A Discworld Novel by Terry Pratchett --- 365 pages

The 40th --- believe it or not, the 40th! --- book by Terry Pratchett, the acclaimed British author of some of the funniest fantasy ever written, much of it set on his own creation of the Discworld, an alternate reality universe that operates according to a set of magical principles that mirror the absurdity of our own.

Raising Steam is the third book to focus on the career of ultimate con man Moist von Lipwig, who has been persuaded to put his talents to better use by Lord Vetinari, the Patrician who rules Ankh-Morpork with a velvet-gloved steel touch. Moist is allowed to live under an indefinitely suspended sentence of death so long as he carries out the tasks assigned him by the Patrician. So far these have included reforming the defunct Post Office and rescuing the new clacks service in Going Postal, and reorganizing the Royal Bank and restoring the Royal Mint in Making Money.

Now in Raising Steam Moist is put in charge of shepherding a game-changing technological advance without unraveling the entire social fabric of the Discworld in the process. Dick Simnel has invented steam locomotion, and the world will not be the same again. As if that's not enough, the uber-conseervative elements among the dwarves are stirring up trouble for the Low King, who has championed change and interspecies cooperation.

In the midst of all the fun, Pratchett has tucked in some pithy observations on the inevitability of change, and the pros and cons of embracing technology's mixed blessings. Pratchett is an author who provides a very big payoff for your willing suspension of disbelief. Raising Steam, as Dick Simnel would say, is gradely!

Click HERE to read a review of Raising Steam in the Washington Post.   

Click HERE to visit Terry Pratchett's web site and read about Raising Steam.