Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns

FREE delivery Thursday, December 22 if you spend $25 on items shipped by Amazon. Order within 11 hrs 6 mins

Arrives before Christmas

In Stock.

As an alternative, the Kindle eBook is available now and can be read on any device with the free Kindle app. Want to listen? Try Audible.

[{"displayPrice":"$9.99","priceAmount":9.99,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"9","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"99","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"apZfh5e%2FfKB%2FcEHv2PFDF6xIHzCzGDJuBts%2BVGlfNTQvfAGdBpUUcO3jCA%2BOWj62hajaITXZyuC2BjXgb8TKcdPFmkZFg47pL1Pdyhp74W%2Fs8tweHwFztEtXJxt56c573UhxpEnGqIScre6vjzLvrg%3D%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW"},{"displayPrice":"$5.95","priceAmount":5.95,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"5","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"95","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"K7m9ZYNyO%2B2ebtwB3mVhtnMqH6Fc4IphY2NNTV9fJJZOvrfexZ6uRcS1urgAOl%2F8xK9x3%2FpWyE%2FKL%2Fh2oeqsKZP1Y8TYPQqc7GsMqnteFCTlqt79lDQUrDfhaLSBmCm5zBWjTJajSLzvybbhpnagUPlyzehiIziar9mEUbvUmzqLcrCbikS5JQ%3D%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED"}]

$$9.99 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details

Secure transaction

Ships from

Amazon.com

Sold by

Amazon.com

Details

Ships from

Amazon.com

Sold by

Amazon.com

Return policy: Returnable until Jan 31, 2023

Add a gift receipt for easy returns

$3.99 delivery January 9 - 13. Details

Arrives after Christmas. Need a gift sooner? Send an Amazon Gift Card instantly by email or SMS.

Select delivery location

Used: Good | Details

Sold by SuperBookDeals--

Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.

Have one to sell?

Sell on Amazon

Other Sellers on Amazon

Added

Not added

$11.36
& FREE Shipping

Sold by: MyPrepbooks

Added

Not added

$7.99
+ $4.18 shipping

Sold by: from_my_shelf

Added

Not added

$12.32
& FREE Shipping

Sold by: Book Depository US

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See this image

Follow the Author

Terry Pratchett

Mort: A Novel of Discworld (Discworld, 4) Mass Market Paperback – January 29, 2013

by Terry Pratchett (Author)

5,763 ratings

4.2 on Goodreads

226,857 ratings

Part of: Discworld (41 books)

See all formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$4.99

—

Audible Audiobook, Unabridged

"Please retry"

$0.00

Free with your Audible trial

Library Binding

"Please retry"

$20.80

$18.72

Paperback

"Please retry"

$13.95

$10.06

$17.56

Mass Market Paperback

"Please retry"

$9.99

$7.99

$5.49

Audio CD, Audiobook, MP3 Audio, Unabridged

"Please retry"

$71.95

$64.29

Enhance your purchase

New York Times bestselling author Sir Terry Pratchett makes Death a central character in Mort, his fourth sojourn to Discworld, the fantasy cosmos where even the angel of darkness needs some assistance.

When inept, but well-intentioned Mort gets only one offer for an apprenticeship—with Death—he can’t exactly turn it down. But Mort finds that being Death’s right-hand man isn’t as bad as it seems—until he falls back to his old, bumbling ways.

With more than 80 million books sold worldwide, Pratchett has solidified his place next to Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut, and Douglas Adams as one of the top satirists of all time. Mort offers readers an unlikely set of heroes and a comical, yet poignant look at life through the lens of its antithesis.

Part of series

Discworld
Print length

304 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Harper
Publication date

January 29, 2013
Dimensions

4.19 x 0.68 x 7.5 inches
ISBN-10

0062225715
ISBN-13

978-0062225719
Lexile measure

830L
See all details

Frequently bought together

+
+

Total price:

To see our price, add these items to your cart.

Choose items to buy together.

by Terry Pratchett Mass Market Paperback
$9.99
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Get it as soon as Thursday, Dec 22
by Terry Pratchett Mass Market Paperback
$9.99
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Get it as soon as Thursday, Dec 22
by Terry Pratchett Mass Market Paperback
$8.99
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Get it as soon as Friday, Dec 23

Terry Pratchett
6,531
Mass Market Paperback
44 offers from $4.16
Terry Pratchett
4,147
Mass Market Paperback
38 offers from $4.54
Terry Pratchett
5,464
Mass Market Paperback
45 offers from $2.96
Terry Pratchett
6,056
Mass Market Paperback
38 offers from $4.99
Terry Pratchett
4,809
Mass Market Paperback
36 offers from $5.48
Terry Pratchett
3,928
Mass Market Paperback
44 offers from $3.99

Popular Highlights in this book

What are popular highlights?

“It would seem that you have no useful skill or talent whatsoever,” he said. “Have you thought of going into teaching?”
Highlighted by 1,158 Kindle readers
People don’t alter history any more than birds alter the sky, they just make brief patterns in it.
Highlighted by 785 Kindle readers
He’d been wrong, there was a light at the end of the tunnel, and it was a flamethrower.
Highlighted by 750 Kindle readers

Editorial Reviews

Review

- The first seven Discworld titles are being reissued with stunning new covers, publication coincides with 21 years of Discworld anniversary and the hardback publication of "The Celebrated Discworld Almanak" and "Going Postal".

- "Like Jonathan Swift, Pratchett uses his other world to hold up a distorting mirror to our own, and like Swift he is a satirist of enormous talent... incredibly funny... compulsively readable." --"The Times"

- "His spectacular inventiveness makes the Discworld series one of the perennial joys of modern fiction." --"Mail on Sunday"

- "The great Terry Pratchett, whose wit is metaphysical, who creates an energetic and lively secondary world, who has a multifarious genius for strong parody... who deals with death with startling originality. Who writes amazing sentences." --A.S. Byatt, "New York Times"

"Consistently, inventively mad...wild and wonderful!"-- "Issac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine"Discworld takes the classic fantasy universe through its logical, and comic evolution."-- "Cleveland Plain Dealer"Unadulterated fun...Witty, frequently hilarious."-- "San Francisco Chronicle

From the Back Cover

Death comes to everyone eventually on Discworld. And now he's come to Mort with an offer the young man can't refuse. (No, literally, can't refuse since being dead isn't exactly compulsory.) Actually, it's a pretty good deal. As Death's apprentice, Mort will have free board and lodging. He'll get use of the company horse. And he won't have to take any time off for family funerals. But despite the obvious perks, young Mort is about to discover that there is a serious downside to working for the Reaper Man . . . because this perfect job can be a killer on one's love life.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harper; Reissue edition (January 29, 2013)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Mass Market Paperback ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0062225715
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0062225719
Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 830L
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 5.9 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 4.19 x 0.68 x 7.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #18,388 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #42 in Humorous Fantasy (Books)
- #331 in Fantasy Action & Adventure
- #642 in Epic Fantasy (Books)

Customer Reviews:
5,763 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Terry Pratchett

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Terry Pratchett sold his first story when he was fifteen, which earned him enough money to buy a second-hand typewriter. His first novel, a humorous fantasy entitled The Carpet People, appeared in 1971 from the publisher Colin Smythe. Terry worked for many years as a journalist and press officer, writing in his spare time and publishing a number of novels, including his first Discworld novel, The Color of Magic, in 1983. In 1987 he turned to writing full time, and has not looked back since. To date there are a total of 36 books in the Discworld series, of which four (so far) are written for children. The first of these children's books, The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, won the Carnegie Medal. A non-Discworld book, Good Omens, his 1990 collaboration with Neil Gaiman, has been a longtime bestseller, and was reissued in hardcover by William Morrow in early 2006 (it is also available as a mass market paperback (Harper Torch, 2006) and trade paperback (Harper Paperbacks, 2006). Terry's latest book, Nation, a non-Discworld standalone YA novel was published in October of 2008 and was an instant New York Times and London Times bestseller. Regarded as one of the most significant contemporary English-language satirists, Pratchett has won numerous literary awards, was named an Officer of the British Empire “for services to literature” in 1998, and has received four honorary doctorates from the Universities of Warwick, Portsmouth, Bath, and Bristol. His acclaimed novels have sold more than 55 million copies (give or take a few million) and have been translated into 36 languages. Terry Pratchett lived in England with his family, and spent too much time at his word processor. Some of Terry's accolades include: The Carnegie Medal, Locus Awards, the Mythopoetic Award, ALA Notable Books for Children, ALA Best Books for Young Adults, Book Sense 76 Pick, Prometheus Award and the British Fantasy Award.

Customer reviews

5 star		72%
4 star		21%
3 star		6%
2 star		1%
1 star 0% (0%)		0%

How customer reviews and ratings work

Reviews with images

See all customer images

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Katherine

A good place for Discworld readers to start

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 22, 2014

Verified Purchase

Originally posted at Fantasy Literature.

Mort is the fourth of Terry Pratchett’s DISCWORLD novels. It stands alone, meaning that you don’t need to read the previous novels to enjoy Mort. It’s better than the previous novels, too, so it might be a good place for new readers to start.
Mortimer is a naïve but pensive — and therefore slightly odd — young man who doesn’t fit in with his farming community. It looks like he’s going to be jobless until Death arrives and chooses him as an apprentice. Why does Death need an apprentice? He has become bored with his immortal life and wants to travel to Ankh-Morpork so he can experience some humanity.
After only a little bit of training, Mort is left in charge. His job is to collect the souls of people who are about to depart the mortal world. When Mort becomes infatuated with a princess who’s about to die, he can’t stop himself from interfering with her death and he manages to “royally” screw things up. With the help of Death’s adopted daughter Ysabell, Mort must figure out how to put the princess and the world back right again, all without neglecting to do his job.

Unlike the three previous DISCWORLD novels, Pratchett has almost everything right in Mort. The characters are quirky and vibrant, especially Death. (Almost all of the characters are new to this story, though Rincewind the bumbling wizard makes a cameo appearance.) The plot of Mort is exciting and fast-moving, and the humor is truly funny. Especially entertaining is Death’s search for happiness. He tries many of the things he sees humans doing for fun (e.g., getting drunk, gambling, doing the Conga at a party) and can’t figure out why they’re so appealing. He keeps telling himself he’s having FUN, but he can’t quite convince himself. Pratchett is really making FUN of us, of course, and most readers will probably find themselves wondering, along with Death, what exactly “FUN” is.

There’s a completely unbelievable romance in Mort, but that’s unlikely to bother most readers — we’re not reading Terry Pratchett for romance, are we? In fact, the more ridiculous, the better in a DISCWORLD novel, and Mort is definitely ridiculous.
There are several allusions to our own world in Mort, making us wonder just what the relationship is between our world and the Discworld. I think some readers will be intrigued by these allusions while others will find that they momentarily throw the reader out of the story.

I listened to the audio version of Mort which was produced by Isis Audio Books and narrated by Nigel Planer who does a wonderful job, as usual.

4 people found this helpful

Helpful

Tara

Kindle version FULL OF ISSUES

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 24, 2019

Verified Purchase

I never write reviews, but the typos and errors in this e-book drove me crazy. There were numerous places where dialog had an open quotation mark and no closed mark, some lines were repeated at the end of paragraphs, and the footnotes did not appear at all in-line so I didn't see them until I got to the end of the book (out of context). I could have lived with the quotation mark/capitalization issues, but there are numerous places in the book where Pratchett is trying to show how two of the characters are changing, and he uses a different dialog formatting to demonstrate this, sometimes mid-sentence. This is super confusing with all these weird formatting issues. There were places where I think lines of dialog had line breaks in the middle but no closing quotation marks, so I wasn't positive if the next line was dialog or not. And it was all over, not just in parts. I opened other books on my Kindle, thinking maybe there was some glitch in the device, but the other books do not appear to have any errors.

On top of all of that. On top of it. The Kindle thinks the beginning of the dang book is 55% in. I didn't notice this and was confused about what was going on, but trusted Pratchett and rolled with it for a while, assuming things weren't being explained for a reason, until I went to see if these typos were actually intentional by comparing it to the free sample, and thereby discovered... I had read the middle of the book first. Again, I checked my other books--I own over 100, and while I did not check them all, I do read about a book a week so I think I would notice--and this appears to be the only one on my device that has glitches, so I have to assume it's a problem with the Kindle version.

If you're debating the Kindle version or buying the paperback, then go paperback!!!!

17 people found this helpful

Helpful

Mike Phirman

Absolute masterpiece

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 23, 2022

Verified Purchase

Well, this may be the best book I’ve ever read in my entire life. It’s so good that I don’t know what to do (other than leave this review). Just incredible. This is my favorite book by my favorite author. I’m now going to sit in complete silence and wonder how to better fit my life to this book. (Audible performance is good, but the voice in your head will probably be better what with all of stylistic print effects like ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴀʏ Dᴇᴀᴛʜ "ᴛᴀʟᴋs".

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Karls

Death's first bit of spotlight

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 18, 2019

Verified Purchase

This is widely considered one of the best Discworld books--and how could it not be? It's the first one to feature Death as one of the main characters. He's appeared in the books before this one, of course, but now we're able to get a sense of his true personality: authoritative, terrifying, and yet inexplicably gentle. In this book he hires an everyman (or everyboy) named Mort, an apprentice who takes over as grim reaper for a little while. As one should expect, it doesn't go too well.
I found this one to be the easiest to get into compared to the ones before, all of which largely had to do with wizardry and the goings-on at the Unseen University. I like wizards and they do obligatorily occupy a number of scenes in this book, but their antics are a bit samey throughout the seriies. In this, the reader mostly follows the eponymous character, Mort, who's knowledge of the world is just about equal to our own--even if this is the reader's first Discworld novel.
My only problem with the book is that, in a properly Pratchetty fashion, it picks up a whole load of subplots as it goes on...maybe too many. I recall being considerably confused with how the story resolves itself. And as with few of his other books, like The Light Fantastic, the overabundance of humor gets to be a bit cloying: the joke formula gets a bit repetitive, thus sacrificing much of the charm. All in all, however, I'd recommend this one as the best introductory book in the series.

4 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

V. O'Regan

Delightful comic fantasy featuring Pratchett’s iconic Death

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 8, 2022

Verified Purchase

‘Death comes to us all. When he came to Mort, he offered him a job. ….‘

Terry Pratchett’s ‘Mort’ was originally published in 1987. It is Book 4 of The Discworld series and Book 1 of the Death series. I had originally read its paperback edition in 1988 though have long wanted to reread. I complemented my reading with its unabridged audiobook narrated by Nigel Planer.

After failing to be chosen at an apprentice fayre, Mort and his father are stopped on the road by a black-cloaked skeleton. Death, the Grim Reaper of the Discworld, offers Mort an apprenticeship. He accepts as there’s job security, free board, use of the company horse, and best of all being dead isn’t compulsory.

Mort slowly adapts to his new responsibilities yet on his first solo mission gets himself into a spot of bother. He has to correct the situation before the boss finds out and receives unexpected assistance from Death’s daughter, Ysabell.

Death is one of my favourite Discworld characters and this novel was just so much fun. I was frequently in tears of laughter. The banter between teenagers Mort and Ysabell was especially amusing.

The Discworld always delights and Terry Pratchett was so skilled in sending up various fantasy tropes alongside social satire. I plan to reread others in the series in the near future.

On a side note, I was pleased to see that the publishers have retained Josh Kirby’s iconic cover art.

Highly recommended.

6 people found this helpful

Stephen Clynes

A lightweight tale that lacks depth.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 30, 2018

Verified Purchase

Mort is a young lad who gets a job as an apprentice for Death on Discworld. This is the story of how he gets on as he learns his craft.

I have NEVER read a Terry Pratchett novel before and was curious to find out why he had become a top selling author. Fantasy novels are NOT my regular reading genre but like Real Ales, I like to try different ones to see if I like them.

There are 40 novels in the Discworld series, they do NOT have to be read in sequence and are all stand-alones. Why did I chose Discworld #4 as my first book? Unashamedly, it was on special offer for just 99p and the price was right!

Mort was written in 1987, so I wondered what a book written over 30 years ago has to offer. Well, Discworld is a fantasy planet, so very different from Earth. Discworld is flat and rides on the back of four giant elephants who stand on the shell of the enormous star turtle Great A’Tuin, and which is bounded by a waterfall that cascades endlessly into space.

Mort is a fantasy tale involving wizards, magic and spells. There are 5 central characters in this tale, the main being Mort, a young lad moving into the world of work. Death is his boss and the tone of his speech is one of authority and appears “IN CAPITALS”. His daughter also has a role to play, so has a princess and a wizard. There is one animal taking a vital role, it is a horse. This is not any old horse but a special horse that belongs to Death which can fly into the air to travel extensive distances across Discland at great speed. This horse has great power and is very strong because later in the story Mort, Death’s daughter, the princess and the wizard climb onto its back and fly away! Oh yeah, whatever, this is a fantasy.

No time period is mentioned but the feel is of the dark middle ages. There is no mention of technology or modern infrastructures, far far away from our modern obsession with social media, smartphones, cars and CCTV. Yet the dialogue and attitudes between characters is relatively contemporary. For example…

The piercing blue eyes glittered at him. He looked back like a nocturnal rabbit trying to outstare the headlights of a sixteen-wheeled artic whose driver is a twelve-hour caffeine freak outrunning the tachometers of hell.

… Terry Pratchett uses an extensive vocabulary in this novel, it is NOT a children’s book and he uses some obscure and very old words. For a fantasy novel, this range of vocabulary makes for an intelligent and articulate adult read.

Terry creates his scenes with great skill and has a talent for great storytelling. For example…

Ankh- Morpork is as full of life as an old cheese on a hot day, as loud as a curse in a cathedral, as bright as an oil slick, as colourful as a bruise and as full of activity, industry, bustle and sheer exuberant busyness as a dead dog on a termite mound.

….There are odds bits of dry humour scattered through this book, for example…

‘It would seem that you have no useful skill or talent whatsoever,’ he said. ‘Have you thought of going into teaching?’

…So Terry wrote this novel and how did I rate it as a reading experience?

Ah, I thought a change from my usual genres of reading would be a refreshing and delightful change. I found Terry’s writing talent was GOOD but this story LACKED DEPTH. I think Mort is a lightweight tale, which if it was on TV, people would have one eye on the screen and talk over the whole programme. I did not get much out of reading this book. I found the entertainment value was POOR and just continued reading to the very end because that is the type of guy I am. For such a top selling and popular author I was disappointed. I think that Mort is a POOR read and only gets 2 stars from me. I am glad I only paid 99p for this book and that I now know what pleases some people.

10 people found this helpful

Fonz

Death's Book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on July 22, 2021

Verified Purchase

Brilliant Discworld book, it's about my favorite Pratchett character Death. You explore Death's struggle to explore if he is suited to a life of doing something else apart from being the Grim Reaper, He shows that he's always looking for the meaning of being human as he longs to understand the meaning of being alive, He takes on an Apprentice called Mort (Spanish for Death) so he can explore humanity and things go understandably wrong, hilarious.

4 people found this helpful

Simon Binning

Good fun; well paced, interesting characters, and some genuine laughs

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 6, 2015

Verified Purchase

According to many, this is the book where the author really got into his stride with his Discworld novels, and that the first three were appetisers. I'm not sure about that. It certainly runs on well from the earlier books, and as usual, you can easily read it as a standalone, although having read the previous volumes, you have a bit of a headstart concerning Discworld, and some of its places and inhabitants. The main characters in this episode are Death - who we have met in previous stories - and Mort, to whom Death offers an apprenticeship. I won't go into the story, as it would spoil it for you, but it is well written, well paced, and had - for me - a few geniune 'laugh out loud' moments.
I have enjoyed all four books I have now read in the series, and although this one is perhaps a little better plotted and paced, I would urge you to read them in order, as they make more sense that way. There are some great characters - Death is a wonderful creation - and many events do actually make you stop and think. Certainly Discworld is imaginary, but imagined worlds always allow authors to reflect on our own, real world.

21 people found this helpful

DeeDee

Timeless magic by a dearly departed genius

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 25, 2016

Verified Purchase

Nothing that the late great Terry Pratchett did was poor. This is no exception.
I started my Discworld journey with Mort nearly 25 years ago! I enjoyed it this time just as much as I did then. The characters are so vividly written and the Discworld is a truly humorous mirror of our own world.
It saddens me to realise that there will never be another novel by Sir Terry, but being able to revisit the old books is a constant delight.
I do have some on my kindle but I love the paper books too. You can't take a kindle into the bath!
If you've never had the chance to read any of these novels then Mort is a good place to start.

14 people found this helpful

See all reviews