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A Genteel Black Hole

Tag: discworld

  • Bookish Ramble: The Wee Free Men

    Ally

    Title: The Wee Free Men
    (Discworld #30, Tiffany Aching #1)
    Author: Terry Pratchett
    Year: 2003
    Country: UK

    Format: Hardback
    Pages: 310
    Read: 10 – 16 February 2026
    Reread

    Nine-year-old Tiffany Aching lives with her parents on a farm. Her duties include making the cheese and looking after her perpetually sticky little brother Wentworth. Also she’s a witch… or at least hopes to be someday, just like Granny Aching before her. One day Tiffany’s quiet, peaceful life is threatened by nightmarish creatures from another realm. Using Wentworth as bait, she fights off the first monster with nothing but an iron frying pan and righteous fury. But bigger, scarier things are coming, things too powerful for Tiffany to handle alone. Luckily she has help from a witch called Miss Tick, a talking frog that may once have been human, and a clan of tiny blue pictsies called the Nac Mac Feegle—the titular Wee Free Men. (Imagine, if you will, Braveheart crossed with Smurfs.)

    “Ye ken how to be strong, do ye?”
    “Yes, I think so.”
    “Good. D’ye ken how to be weak? Can ye bow to the gale, can ye bend to the storm?    “

    This is the thirtieth Discworld book overall, the first in the Tiffany Aching sub-series aimed at younger readers. As such it’s shorter than a standard Discworld book, the humour is moderately less bawdy (though there are still some references for Mum and Dad to stifle a smirk over), it follows a child protagonist, and it’s divided helpfully into chapters. But for me, as someone who first read it well into adulthood, it still ticks all my Discworld boxes.

    That was how it worked. No magic at all. But that time it had been magic. And it didn’t stop being magic just because you found out how it was done.

    In fact it’s one of my favourite Pratchett books! The Wee Free Men is a delightful, magical adventure told with Pratchett’s signature humour and keen insight. In some ways it’s very silly. Tiffany enters a whimsical world of dreams and, like Alice before her, finds it very annoying indeed. The Feegles—a clan of walking, talking (not to mention stealin’, fightin’ and drinkin’) Scottish stereotypes—constantly make me laugh, especially the scenes with No’-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock-Jock. But the passages where Tiffany reminisces about her late Granny, trying to learn from her example as she comes into her own power as a witch, are some of the most touching moments in any Discworld book. And for longtime fans there are excellent cameos from Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg, stars of the original Discworld Witches books.

    “The thing about witchcraft,” said Mistress Weatherwax, “is that it’s not like school at all. First you get the test, and then afterwards you spend years findin’ out how you passed it. It’s a bit like life in that respect.”

    My First Sight told me this book was wonderful. My Second Thoughts have since confirmed it. Crivens, it’s a bonnie wee book!

  • Bookish Ramble: Night Watch

    Ally

    Title: Night Watch
    (Discworld #29)
    Author: Terry Pratchett
    Year: 2002
    Country: UK

    Format: Hardback
    Pages: 475
    Read: 21-30 December 2025
    Reread

    Night Watch is the twenty-ninth Discworld book, and the sixth starring Sam Vimes and the Ankh Morpork City Watch. Vimes is on the trail of Carcer, a vicious and unrepentant killer, when a freak accident transports them both back in time. Vimes finds himself stuck in the Ankh-Morpork of his youth, right as the Glorious Revolution of the Twenty-Fifth of May is about to kick off. But Vimes and Carcer’s arrival has changed history: John Keel, the man Vimes once knew as his mentor, is dead before his time. Vimes is forced to take Keel’s place and mentor his younger self, at least long enough for the History Monks to patch up history and send him back to the future.

    ‘I mean, doesn’t it change history even if you just tread on an ant?’
    ‘For the ant, certainly,’ said Qu.

    This is certainly one of the most dramatic Discworld books. Pratchett’s work is never completely devoid of humour, but in Night Watch the scales are tipped more towards tension, drama, and righteous anger. Pratchett incorporates themes of civil unrest, police brutality and torture, social inequality, nostalgia, grief, and corrupt politics, all within the framework of a fantastical time travel romp. It’s definitely Pratchett at the height of his powers.

    ‘They attacked the other Houses, and what’s the Night Watch ever done to hurt them?’
    ‘Nothing,’ said Vimes.
    ‘There you are, then.’
    ‘I mean the Watch did nothing, and that’s what hurt them,’ said Vimes.

    In fact, Night Watch seems to have a reputation among my fellow Terryvangelists as The Best Discworld Book. When I first read it, my expectations were high—perhaps too high, so I ended up faintly disappointed. But even then, I had a feeling it would improve on rereading. And it did! This time round, I absolutely loved it. This is a powerful book with a lot to say, and it manages to say it between—or sometimes with—silly puns and dirty jokes. Well, if it’s good enough for Shakespeare…

    And the foreshadowing was much more effective when, like the older and wiser Vimes, I already understood the full significance of the Twenty-Fifth of May and its lilacs.

    How do they rise up?