Soul Music (Mass Market Paperback)

by Terry Pratchett (Author) "This is a story about memory..." (more)
Key Phrases: abut music, dwarf bread, music with rocks, Miss Butts, Foul Ole Ron, Senior Wrangler (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Soul Music is the 16th book in the bestselling Discworld series, with close ties to the fourth book, Mort. Susan Sto Helit is rather bored at her boarding school in the city of Ankh-Morpork, which is just as well, since it seems that her family business--she is the granddaughter of Death--suddenly needs a new caretaker. --Blaise Selby

From Publishers Weekly
Nepotism is given an unusual spin in Pratchett's 14th Discworld novel, as Death's granddaughter picks up the scythe when the Grim Reaper takes a vacation. Trolls, dwarves, magicians and rock music?music played with rocks?figure in this amusing but overlong romp, which begins with the formation of a band by aspiring musician Imp y Celen (aka Buddy). Arriving in the city of Ankh-Morpork, Buddy finds a magical guitar which enables the group?a rock-playing troll, an ax-wielding dwarf and an Orangutan pianist?to drive crowds wild. But the instrument causes conflict between the motley crew and Susan, Death's granddaughter, who is just adjusting to her new post. Many of the ensuing comic situations involve Death trying to get drunk, though Pratchett's liberal application of jokes scores as many misses as hits. Extraneous plot information slows the pace as the narrative rattles to a colossal, albeit uninspired, conclusion. Science Fiction Book Club main selection.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: HarperTorch (August 25, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061054895
• ISBN-13: 978-0061054891
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (78 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #20,039 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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• This is item 16 in The Discworld Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I Know, It's Only Rock N Roll, March 9, 2001

By	James D. DeWitt "Alaska Fan" (Fairbanks, AK United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

No one agrees on which is the best Terry Pratchett novel, but a lot of his fans, myself included, would name this as a candidate. In this novel, he takes his manic punning, wordplay and double- and triple-entendre to the highest level.

Soul Music has three narrative threads: Death takes a holiday (which Pratchett fans will remember from _Mort_), Mort's orphan daughter, Susan Sto Helit, and her attempts to cope with the family legacy, and the discovery of rock and roll on the disc. The three stories intertwine and the result, for me, ranged from snickers to guffaws.

The big news is that rock and roll comes to the disk, through the agency of a pawnshop guitar and a skilled harpist, whose name translates as "Bud of Holly" and who looks kind of Elvis[h]. With a dwarvish horn player named Glod and a trollish drummer named Cliff, the band Music with Rocks In takes the Discworld by storm. The Librarian, the monk... orangutan who runs the Wizard's library, sits in on keyboards, and exceeds even the excesses of Jerry Lee Lewis. You cannot imagine a rock music issue that Pterry doesn't reach. Women fans pitch articles of clothing; espresso shops appear; rock promoters - C.M.O.T. Dibbler, of course - arrive; even the sedate wizards wear leather, do their best James Dean and show they, too, are "Born to Rune."

Parts of the book are a pastiche of "Blues Brothers" ("We're on a mission from Glod"), "Spinal Tap," and "Woodstock." Other parts are simply Pratchett's own mad invention. And this book also features Pterry's best pun - "some felonious monk;" possibly the best pun in literature since Niven's and Gerrold's _The Flying Sorcerors_. You can spend a lot of time just working out the puns. And let me note that Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" gets the treatment it righteously deserves.

But while Buddy and his band tour with their roadie Asphalt and inescapably head towards Dead Man's Curve, and while Death does his best to learn how to forget with the help of the Klatchian Foreign Legion and alcohol, Susan makes increasingly frantic efforts to keep what passes for reality on the Discworld from coming completely unstuck. With the help of the Death of Rats, Albert and other favorites, the Disc is saved, but not without some uncommon poignancy.

There are scholarly articles on whether Pratchett writes parody or satire. However labelled, this was the high water mark for his experiments with the pure form. Anglo-American literature has never had as brilliant a satirist/parodist as Terry Pratchett. He may have written better Discworld books, but I'm not sure he has written a funnier book. Especially if you know and like rock music.

"Bee There Orr Bee A Rectangular Thyng"

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Death has job trouble, doesn't he?, June 11, 1997

By A Customer

Here we are again. Death, the skeletal fellow who goes around wearing black robes, carrying a scythe, riding a pale white horse (named Binky), and TALKS LIKE THIS, has once again grown tired of the job and gone to try to forget things by joining the... um... (glancing at a piece of paper) the Klatchian Foreign Legion.

That's an in-joke about how NOBODY in the Klatchian Foreign Legion can remember anything.

...so, his granddaughter Susan inherits the job accidentally.

Meanwhile, the young bard Imp y Celyn starts to make it big when he finds a magical guitar and music takes over his soul. He changes his name to Buddy...

...and, in positively classic Pratchett style, the two plotlines come together in a rush of magic, energy, and Music With Rocks In!

I very highly recommend this book to anyone with... well, anyone with a willpower rating of above 10, which is what you need to move.
As Death would likely say, DON'T FORGET. I CAN'T ANYWAY, SO IT'S NOT A PROBLEM. BUT YOU HUMANS...

And you don't want to miss the Death of Rats who goes around saying SQUEAK.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Too Old For Rock and Roll? Too Young To Die?, March 2, 2005

By	Leonard Fleisig "Len" (Washington, D.C.) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

The answers to those questions and more may be found in Terry Pratchett's hilariously funny and thoughtful Soul Music.

Soul Music consists of two parallel plot lines which, because this is Discworld and not the earth, converge as they reach the story's horizons. First we meet Imp y Celyn, soon to be known to the world as Bud of the Holly or Buddy, as he travels the long and winding road from his home of Llamedos to Ankh-Morpork. Back home, Imp's music always made his people smile and he knew if he had a chance he could make some people dance and maybe they'd be happy for a while. Unable to raise enough cash to join the musicians' guild, Buddy, after picking up a very odd guitar at a strange music store joins up with Glod the dwarf and Lias the troll and form a musical group. In short order the group has a gig at the Mended Drum.

In the meantime, DEATH is in the midst of his nineteenth nervous breakdown. As DEATH walks through his land of broken dreams, he seems unconcerned about what becomes of those who should now be departed. There will be disastrous consequences for the universe (see Reaper Man) if DEATH does not perform his obligations. The Death of Rats and his raven translator Quoth go desperately seeking Susan, DEATH's granddaughter. She is persuaded by Death of Rats to fill in until DEATH can be found and persuaded to return to work. Susan soon finds herself atop DEATH's horse Binky. She's eight miles high and when she touches down in Ankh-Morpork she enters the Mended Drum to meet her first assignment - - - Buddy. And then all heck breaks loose.

Buddy starts to play the guitar just like he's ringing a bell and the world seems to stop. It may be that only the good, like Buddy, die young but in this instance Susan says something DEATH would never say: "it isn't fair". Though no fault of her own, Buddy does not go up to that spirit in the sky, Buddy and his music live on. The obvious question becomes why is he still alive and to what purpose?

"Music with rocks in" it becomes the next big thing. Even the wizards at Unseen University fall prey to these musical magic moments, so different and so new. Cut Me Own Throat Dibbler soon makes an appearance and rapidly transforms himself from purveyor of sausages to greedy rapacious rock and roll impresario. Soon, every kid in Ankh-Morpork wants to be a music with rocks in star. They get electric guitars but don't learn how to play. They think with their hair swung right and their pants too tight it will be all right. Little do they know that in the crafty hands of CMOT Dibbler even musicians with talent will soon be in dire straights.

Meanwhile, Susan, Death of Rats and even Albert, DEATH's loyal man Friday, search Discworld for DEATH. DEATH has been seen sitting on the dock of the river in Ankh-Morpork, drinking whiskey and rye with the good ole boys at the Mended Drum, and standing guard at midnight at an oasis manned by the Klatchian Foreign Legion. His internal dialogue is priceless, funny, and thoughtful.

Events proceed rapidly as Dibbler prepares the band for a huge free concert in Ankh-Morpork. This will be Discworld's Woodstock. Will Susan's sense of justice prevail? Will Buddy survive even though the sands in his hour glass are long gone? Will the Librarian get money for nothing and his chimps for free? Will the wizards ride though mansions of glory in suicide machines? The answers to these questions aren't blowing in the wind but they are in the book.

As far as Terry Pratchett's Discworld books are concerned, Soul Music is near the top of the charts . . . with a bullet.

Elvish has left the building.