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Wyrd Sisters | 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 | ||
Duke Felmet has killed King Verance and taken the throne of Lancre. The rightful heir, a mere babe, has been spirited away, along with the crown. The baby and the bauble fall into the hands of a trio of witches. Granny Weatherwax knows just what to do in such a situation: as little as possible. No meddling! But fate and Felmet may just force their hands.
This is, in my opinion, among the best of the Discworld books. Though there are perhaps one thing that might argue against it. For one thing, there are plenty of humorous comments and situations but I found very little actually funny. It made me smile, it made me chuckle, but rarely did I laugh out loud. In other words, some of the other books are funnier. This sometimes almost didn't feel like a Discworld book! Silly, yes. Twisted, yes. But Pratchett has written sillier and more cockeyed tales.
So why is it placed so high in my esteem? Because this is a deconstruction of Macbeth, that's why. And when you take Shakespeare's works and turn them on their heads, you get either a horrible mess or an instant classic.
The Wyrd Sisters - the witches - are the main characters, not Felment. There's the ghost of Verance, a bit put out at being dead. There's the whole play-within-a-play thing, which is marvelously done. And plenty more parallels that are just slightly askew from the original. Listing and explaining them all would take pages, I'm sure, so I'll just leave that as an excercise for the reader.
This book also is the introduction of such well-loved characters as Nanny Ogg and Magrat, the other two witches in the coven. Granny herself appeared first in Equal Rites, but here is subtly different. I'm not sure how to express exactly how, except that she is more solidly herself here than she was back then.
This was just a great retelling of one of the Bard's greatest plays. Placed in a setting like the Discworld, it sould have remarkably wide appeal. I've given it to a few fans of Shakespeare, and they loved it. Those who are not so impressed by the classics and are merely fans of fantasy, especially light fantasy, should also like it, as the Macbethian elements are honestly not overbearing; it's a good story in its own right. And those who are already Discworld fans... well, no need to state the obvious, there, I think!
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