The Shepherd's Crown (Tiffany Aching)

I've finally made myself read The Shepherd's Crown, Sir Terry Pratchett's final book. It's hard to separate that knowledge from the story especially as Granny Weatherwax meets Death for the last time. As the characters say goodbye to Granny, it feels like Terry was saying goodbye too. I cannot lie, I cried quite a bit.

I am not completely done with Discworld, I have not yet read Raising Steam which might have been a mistake as the railways play a key role in this book. However, like with all the books, I'm sure it will be perfectly readable out of order.

Granny Weatherwax's boots are hard to fill and Tiffany Aching isn't sure she's the witch to do it. However the steading was left to her and You the cat appears to have adopted her too. Soon the strain of attending both the Chalk and Lancre gets too much for Tiffany and the elves sense the weakness left by Granny's absence.

Yet the Discworld has changed since the elves last passed over. For iron is everywhere and goblins have rights. And if there's one things elves can't stand, it's iron.

In Discworld the witches were always the practical ones whilst the wizards were a little ridiculous (is it any coincidence that one is called Ridcully?). Terry's final farewell includes a message of gender equality, with a boy who wishes to be a witch and a female Nac Mac Feegle who doesn't wish to leave the mound she calls home to be a Kelda elsewhere.

If I'm being perfectly honest, it's not the best of his books and it definitely feels a little unfinished or rushed. Which breaks my heart a little. In Rob's note at the end he does say he thought Terry would have wrote more of it if he could have. There was something Death said to Granny at the beginning that isn't quite resolved, but if you check out the Wikipedia page for the book, apparently Neil Gaiman shared the answer to this (and it completely makes sense).

Mephistopheles the goat is fantastic and I liked the side story of Geoffrey. It was nice to gather all the witches together again too, I just wanted a little bit more and sadly Death chose to collect Terry before it was all there.

I've been less excited by the elves and Tiffany novels in the past but I really liked this one. Yes, it wasn't entirely finished. It was lacking lots of the richness that usually come with Pratchett books, but the amount of time he could put into plumping out the book was sadly cut short. It had a quite satisfying resolution of sorts to Granny and Tiffany's story.

However, it leaves everything in a quite odd state, this rich place and set of characters who will now be forever frozen in time. Carrot, Vimes, Hex, the wizards, etc will never do anything else except what they have already done.

Strangely different from a series that an author leaves behind because they've moved on, since Pratchett had a couple more books already in progress (and probably hundreds of plots and ideas) that he never got to finish. Sad to see it end but at least there are a huge number of old books which I can re-read someday.

The 41st and final Discworld book by Terry Pratchett, and the fifth about Tiffany Aching. After the end of the book, the editor's note says that Pratchett's normal method of writing was to get the beginning, ending, and middle in place and then spend quite some time going over the details and revising and polishing and revising again. This book was missing that polish, which the note acknowledges. Pratchett wasn't able to "finish" it in his usual way, so although the framework of the story is there it doesn't feel as complete and polished as his books usually do.

Still, there is a complete story, a new and interesting character joining the witches, and continuation of Tiffany's story, so it's a good read for Discworld fans, but it does feel as if some of the plot points and characters are missing depth they probably would have got if Pratchett had had the time. Very sad to have finished this book, now knowing there will never be a new Discworld book to look forward to. :(