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63 of 65 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
In which Tiffany Aching faces a poison, September 29, 2010
This review is from: I Shall Wear Midnight (Discworld) (Hardcover)
Tiffany Aching is facing an insidious evil; "poison goes where poison is welcome". Not a literal poison, but a poison of souls that causes the people who need witches to question, misinterpret, and attack people like Tiffany. Tiffany spends her days helping people, she goes to "feed them as is hungry, clothe them as is naked, and speak up for them as has no voices". What comes for her is blind and hateful.
To add to this, the Baron is dying, his son is under the spell of someone other than Tiffany, Tiffany has to face the bane of witches throughout the ages, the other witches are watching and judging her, and, worst luck, the Nac Mac Feegle are ready help her again. Along the way, she meets the genius behind Boffo, a skeleton that is much happier with a teddy bear than without, a young woman with a unique gift for languages, and Roland's (the son of the dying baron) fiancée and her mother, the Duchess.
Dark, with humorous highlights. Sir Terry Pratchett addresses the worst aspect of the human soul; petty and willfully ignorant hatred for those to whom you are indebted. Someone spends their days healing and giving to others, so, of course, the human reaction is sullen rage and resentment. At the same time, the Nac Mac Feegle are in fine form. Jeannie, the Kelda of the Wee Free Men is growing into her role as their matriarch (and mother to most) of the clan. Rob Anybody has apparently mastered the hiddlins (secrets) of the explaining, the heart of being husband to the Kelda, but truly lets forth his rage before the tale is told. And of course, there is always Daft Willie and his pal, Horace the cheese.
This one was much darker than Pratchett's other books, cutting straight to what is worst in humanity and hauling it out into the daylight, then on to the fire. The themes and imagery are very powerful, and should have any reader stopping to think about where this has been seen, and what it is really about. Without spoilers, there is light at the end, but this is in question at times.
Deeply moving and absolutely brilliant.
Edward M. Van Court
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56 of 64 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The rough music comes, September 28, 2010
This review is from: I Shall Wear Midnight (Discworld) (Hardcover)
Tiffany Aching is the witch of Chalk, which means that she has to do all the messy rural stuff that witches do. But witches aren't always as appreciated as they should be, and Terry Pratchett's "I Shall Wear Midnight" flings the sensible young girl -- and the Nac Mac Feegles -- against a threat that really, really doesn't like witches.
Tiffany is doing the usual witchy rounds in Chalk -- nursing the sick, burying the dead, watching cheese races, and rescuing the occasional girl from an abusive father. Then the local Duke expires after a long illness, and it's up to Tiffany to tell his son Roland and his "watercolour-painting wife-to-be" about what happened.
The problem is, she's being stalked by a creepy eyeless man with a vile psychic stench, who is inspiring people to hate and distrust witches. Suddenly stones are being thrown, accusations are being made, and Tiffany even finds herself in the Ankh-Morpork jail. And if Tiffany doesn't find a way to stop the Cunning Man, things will get very toasty for the witches...
Due to having Alzheimer's disease, Terry Pratchett had to dictate "I Shall Wear Midnight" instead of the usual computer typing. As a result, the book's beginning is very rambly and scattered, as if Pratchett hadn't fully thought out how the plot was going to go -- but after the Duke's death, things start to tighten up and move faster.
And Pratchett hasn't lost any of his delicious wit, whether it's poking fun at cliches (the cackle box!) or sharp dialogue ("Have you boys got no shame?" "I couldnae say, but if we have, it probably belonged tae somebody else"), or his knack for writing truly chilling moments, such as Tiffany seeing the Cunning Man's holes-where-his-eyes-should-be, or the almost palpable darkness as hatred starts to take over people's hearts.
But unlike authors who talk down to "young readers," Pratchett doesn't shy away from realistically dark moments, like Tiffany caring for a girl who was badly beaten by her father until she miscarried. These parts -- and the "rough music" -- are more horrifying than the Cunning Man.
Tiffany herself is a very realistic depiction of a sensible, mature, no-nonsense young lady (like a younger version of Granny Weatherwax). While Pratchett occasionally reminds us that she IS still young (and prone to little stabs of jealousy), she grows up a great deal in this book. And there are some hints of romance with a young guard (who can pronounce the word "marvelous").
"I Shall Wear Midnight" is an excellent -- possibly final -- entry in Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching series. It starts out rather slow, but soon kicks into stride.
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28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
If you've liked the other Tiffany Aching novels, you'll like this also, September 29, 2010
This review is from: I Shall Wear Midnight (Discworld) (Hardcover)
This is the latest entry in Pratchett's four-book sub-series about a young witch, Tiffany Aching, as she grows up and learns, appropriately enough for her trade, to be a wise woman. (There are upwards of thirty or forty "Discworld" books total, which cluster into subgroups around individual characters). While you could certainly start here if you wanted to, new readers might find it more rewarding to begin with The Wee Free Men, the first in Tiffany's sub-series, followed by A Hat Full of Sky and then Wintersmith, before proceeding to this one.
This is billed as a children's / young adult book, although little sets it apart from Pratchett's other fantasy except for some (very) slight bowdlerizations; primarily, this is a young adult book because the heroine is a young adult, and it deals with issues that young adults have to deal with. Like the Harry Potter books, the content and tone of the Tiffany series have been maturing ever so slightly with each book to match the advancing maturity of the protagonist, and while this one's still suitable for younger readers, it definitely contains a few jokes likely to fly over their heads (at least unless some other source has educated them). Tiffany herself is portrayed as very mature for her age - a portrayal deliberate on Pratchett's part, I believe, as Tiffany is exactly as mature as most people that age tend to think they are, and almost as mature as she herself wants to be.
Each volume in the series sets Tiffany a particular problem to resolve; here the problem (s) are innuendo, rumour, gossip, romantic rivalries, and pointless mob hatred, things that many if not most teenage girls will identify with (even if in Tiffany's case the "witch hunt" she has to deal with is somewhat more literal). Tiffany's prior romance with Roland, the son of the local Baron, has clearly ended, and Roland's is about to marry Letitia, the daughter of a (very obnoxious) Duchess; meanwhile, some of the residents of the Chalk are stirring up hatred and accusations against Tiffany, and stalking her is the Cunning Man, a personification of suspicion, envious rage, hatred, mob violence, and the witch hunt.
Pratchett's typical mastery is still present here, his wit and his wisdom; the only real sign of his advancing illness is that there's a sense, especially in the novel's conclusion, that this may be the final Tiffany Aching novel and the final novel of his Witches series (if only because it features a cameo appearance from a character we haven't seen since the very first Witches-series novel, Equal Rites, first published twenty-plus years ago). All in all, it's an excellent book, fully as good as anything else he's written, and a book that will definitely please fans of the series and new readers alike.
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