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Witches Abroad | Rating | |
| A | |||
| Terry Pratchett | |||
| Series | Related Books | ||
| Discworld | The Colour of Magic, The Light Fantastic, Equal Rites, Mort, Sourcery, Wyrd Sisters, Pyramids, Guards! Guards!, Eric, Moving Pictures, Reaper Man, Witches Abroad, Small Gods, Soul Music, Feet of Clay, Interesting Times, The Firth Elephant, Going Postal | ||
What happens when a fairy godmother dies of old age? On the Discworld, her wand and responsibilities pass to a new witch. And this time, it passes to Magrat. it will be her duty to make sure the poor peasant girl does not marry the prince. Unfortunately, this means she has to get to Genua, far from Lancre. It also means she won't be going along. Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg are coming, too. That makes one thing certain: it'll be an interesting trip - quite probably in the Chinese sense.
With this colume, Pratchett makes fun of a good many things. He touches on Dracula, Little Red Riding Hood, The Wizard of Oz, and, of course, Cinderella, among many other. What makes it all work is that, with the eception of the last one, they are all brief. They are all encounters along the way, not worth of being called side quests. Get in, get out, and poke some fun doing it. The tactic works remarkably well.
Pratchett also makes fun of travelling, tourism, and certain non-English customs and festivals and foods. All in a manner that could only be done on the Discworld. Along with the multitude of amusing footnotes, it turns every page into a twisted look at how people act.
This probably isn't the best book of the series, but it is definitely among he better ones. It is always nice when a novel meant to be humorous actually is. More than once I laughed out loud, in fact. What else do you want in a comedy?
It doesn't even seem to matter much that this could be considered a quest story, a genre I generally despise. The object of the story is only reached at the end of a long journey that consumes most of the book, true, but it's perfectly fine because the main plot still takes up a sizable amount of space. It's not like the typical quest tale, where the original reason for undertaking the journey might as well be an afterthought by the time they actually reach their destination. And because on the Discworld, getting there truly is half the fun.
At least half.
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