493 pages
Russian language
Published June 13, 2005 by E ksmo, Domino.
As a first step in destroying humanity, evil men in Discworld try to undermine belief in Hogfather by abducting him. The plot is ruined by Death who takes Hogfather's place in his sleigh drawn by pigs. Part parody of Christmas, part meditation on the role of faith.
if you like your christmas with a hearty serving of humor and a side of philosophy, you'll like this one.
A lot of Pratchett's Discworld novels tend to have multiple chaotic plotlines that crash into each other. Sometimes that works well, sometimes it doesn't, and in this case, I would mostly put it into the latter category. I like the character of Susan, I wish it had followed her point of view more, and various shenanigans of the professors at the Unseen University were just tedious. That said, this book had some keen observations about how Western societies celebrate Christmas and what capitalism and commercialization do to cultural or religious observances. It was okay.
(Listened to the audiobook. It may have received a different score if I’d read it.)
