If you are still counting, ‘Mort’ is the fourth novel in the Discworld series. It is also the first novel in the series where Death is a central character – some people read the books thematically like that (i.e Death 1, 2 etc.).
Anyway, experiencing the need to get out a bit more and live, Death takes an apprentice, Mortimer, aka Mort (see what he did there?) to help with the harvesting of souls. And mucking out Binky’s stable. There is also the nod and a wink promise in the unwritten job description of taking over the family business when Death finally retires, however unlikely that sounds. (If that is the bit that sounds unlikely, whereas Death taking an apprentice you are OK with, then I would question your grip on reality!
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One of the things readers of the Discworld novels know is that Sir Terry was a bit of a philosopher. He had important insights into the way the world works, and shared them with us through the medium of humour. ‘Mort’ includes plenty of examples of this, because there are few more serious or profound issues to meditate on than death itself (or indeed, Death himself). Death doesn’t kill people, he is just there when they die, and eases their passage into the beyond. People react to Death’s arrival in a range of ways, from anger to annoyance, surprise, resignation, and occasionally with a welcome. Sir Terry’s insights range across all of life’s big issues, and most of the small ones – this sentence jumped out at me for example:
“People don’t alter history any more than birds alter the sky, they just make brief patterns in it”.
Which is a bit wonderful don’t you think?
A quick plot synopsis for those of you who expect that kind of thing in a book review. Once his initial stable cleaning duties have been completed, Mort gets to accompany Death on ‘the duties’. In Sto Lat King Olerve is due to be assassinated, but in the course of their otherwise successful visit Mort falls heavily for the King’s daughter, Keli. Later on a unscheduled half day off Mort tries to return to Sto Lat to find out whether the princess really saw him, in the course of which he meets Igneous Cutwell, a young wizard, whom he hopes can help explain his developing tendency to manifest magical powers such as walking through walls. We can tell that Mort is becoming like his master, but he remains blithely unaware of it, for now.
Death then decides that Mort is ready to perform the Duty on his own, and sends him to collect three lives. Goodie Hamstring, a witch from Lancre is very understanding about his inexperience, as is Abbot Lobsang, from the Listening Monks who is destined to be perpetually reincarnated. As soul collections go these are ideal learning deaths. But the training wheels come off with a big when Mort finds out that the third death is to be that of Princess Keli, due to be assassinated on the orders of her uncle. Mort can’t bring himself to do it, thus creating a rift in reality that is going to cause some serious issues when time catches up with it.
Keli, suffering a temporal anomaly in which everyone thinks she is dead, appoints Cutwell as Royal Recogniser. In a badly timed move, Death decides to take some more time off, leaving Mort in charge. He tries drinking, gambling, partying and fishing before finally taking a job as a short order chef in Ankh-Morpork. Mort tries to keep the show on the road, but in doing so he slowly becomes more and more like Death, including the capitalised speech. Reality is beginning to assert itself now, for example by changing a pub sign from The Quene’s Head to The Duke’s Head. Finally, after the intervention of a very ancient wizard, (and a brief reappearance by Rincewind) Death discovers Mort’s mistake, and in a climatic scene they duel as the old reality closes in on the Princess.
Pratchett’s “and they all lived happily ever after” endings can sometimes feel a bit forced, but the resolution to this clash is well managed, and well, they all live happily ever after. If Death can’t adjust reality just a tweak to make matters right, then who can? The old universe (in which the Princess dies) becomes a wedding present which will expand into another universe once the current one dies. Which I thought was rather neat.
P.S. You will recall, because I have written about it before, that the way Sir Terry chose to notify people of his death in 2015 was the extraordinary tweet “AT LAST, SIR TERRY, WE MUST WALK TOGETHER”. Of the thousands of comments this tweet received, one of the earliest was by an account in the name of the ‘Death of Rats’ (aka The Grim Squeaker) which went “Squeak, squeak, squeak”. For reasons known only to themselves, Microsoft offers the option to “translate this tweet” – sadly the link doesn’t work. But I think we know what he was trying to say.
The Reading Bug 