The Shepherd’s

Like many other readers I approached Sir Terry’s final book with a mix of excitement (A New Terry Pratchett book!!) and melancholy (it is the last Terry Pratchett book). I read it all in nearly one go.

There are several negative reviews posted here and elsewhere suggesting that those of us that enjoyed The Shepherd’s Crown are merely reacting emotionally to it being Sir Terry’s final book and are somehow incapable or unwilling to see the books faults. I would suggest that many of them are also having a purely emotional reaction because they did not like it, or perhaps it was not the final book they were hoping for. Several have even suggested that Sir Terry did not write The Shepherd’s Crown, unable or unwilling to realize that Sir Terry’s “voice” has been changing for awhile now. A degenerative fatal disease will do that to a person.

I did enjoy The Shepherd’s Crown. It was not the final book I was hoping for; I would have preferred a final romp with the wizards or the Watch. But this is still a Discworld book. It is true this book has its faults. I agree with other reviews that sometimes minutiae are described in minute detail while many important events go by very quickly. I cannot complain about the appearance of a few tangential characters reacting to a major event. This event would no doubt be noticed by a great many people on the Disc. These appearances, particularly Mustrum Ridcully and the Patrician do feel a bit forced, but I view them more as Sir Terry giving a last Hail! and farewell to characters he loved the best and could not let his final work pass without them getting a nod. And it was much less intrusive than it could have been, and much less ridiculous than say Russell Davies pathetic goodbye to Doctor Who. And I did not find any characters demonstrably different from how they have acted in the past. Nanny Ogg seems to be singled out in many reviews, but I thought she was Nanny Ogg. Some have lamented that Sir Terry gave us a few new characters that we will now not get to know better. In some cases this is true, however those wishing for more Mrs Earwig have clearly missed what Sir Terry was telling us about her. In this book a elf causes a person to doubt themselves to make them unable to fight back. This power is strangely ineffective against Mrs Earwig. In my view this is because she is such self centered raging ego maniac that no power anywhere can make here doubt herself. A one dimensional throwaway character at best, and certainly one I did not wish to meet ever again.

The plot does indeed boil down to the elves are coming and Tiffany Aching in her new role must stop them. This is one of Sir Terry’s young adult books, and as such, does not have the plethora of subplots and twenty major characters running around that we are accustomed to in other Discworld books. This in my view is also not worth complaining about.

The only thing that bothers me about this book is it shows us very clearly that even Sir Terry, with all his boundless optimism in the face of his health troubles was indeed losing his sense of humor. It began to show in Snuff, became a bit more pronounced in Raising Steam, and here it is undeniable. The only really funny bits are the easy laughs that can be had using the Feegles. Undeniably funny, but easy and far too few. Perhaps this was also a function of this being a young adult book and Sir Terry intentionally stayed away from true satire and commentary. I hope this is the case.

As his editor himself admits in his afterword, Sir Terry was unable to polish this book as he would have liked, to iron out the bits that many are complaining about. And it is a sometimes uneven read, no doubt. However, we must keep in mind that it did not get that final polish and allow some leeway there. We cannot simply wish for the book we wanted. This is the final chapter Sir Terry left us, warts and all, and while I agree it is not his best work, I feel Sir Terry would agree with that assessment as well, and we should not be upset that the publisher printed it in this state, we should be grateful that we were given one last go.

I put off reading this book for well over a year, until finally I couldn’t stall any longer.

This is a difficult book to review for several reasons. It is the last Terry Pratchett book that we will ever see written, and as such comes with a fair old amount of emotional baggage for those who are fans of his work. I’ve been an avid Discworld reader ever since I was a teenager, some thirty years ago. Getting a new Pratchett book was always an event, something to be savored and treasured. At his best, there was none better than Pratchett. Sadly, and for reasons that are both well-known and completely beyond his control, the last few books have not been his best. Still, even a second-rate Pratchett book stands head and shoulders above first-rate books from many other writers.

SPOILERS

I’m not ashamed to admit that I read the first fifty pages of the book through very watery eyes. The book comes across as one big goodbye from its author to his greatest creation, the Discworld. Although the Ankh-Morporkians are missing (and understandably so in a Tiffany Aching novel) the death of Granny Weatherwax will tear at all but the most jaded of heartstrings. If you’ve grown up with the Discworld, then it’s not much of an exaggeration to say that it feels like losing a friend. But it also serves as a useful way for Pratchett to begin examining the repercussions of his own impending death; the funeral, aftermath, and most importantly of all the fact that the loss of a woman who was essentially a force of nature seem very much like the author considering what the world will be like after he has gone…What sort of hole will be left in the world? (The answer, of course, is a bloody great big one). Scenes in which everything from the creatures of the forest to the Archancellor of Unseen University pay their respects to Granny Weatherwax are heartbreaking to read. Granny’s actual passing and her final encounter with Death himself are worth the price of the book alone. The final few pages of the book, which sees Tiffany taking her rightful place in the world and also a brief encounter with some very welcome ghosts, manage to feel very final indeed; in fact, there’s a sense of finality hanging over the entire book.

Unfortunately, this is a book that feels too short, which indeed it is. Pratchett’s assistant Rob explains in an afterword that Terry almost certainly intended to write more, had his health permitted him to do so. The concluding battle feels rushed, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that a healthy chunk was omitted, perhaps due to be written retroactively once the ending had been completed. “The Shepherd’s Crown” does suffer for this, and yet the good aspects far outweigh the bad. My personal preference would have been to see one final mainstream Discworld book, but then The Watch have always been my favorite characters, and it’s very sad to think we’ll see no more new adventures from that motley band of coppers. Sadly, that’s just the way it is. This is our farewell to the Discworld, and the swan song of its creator. I wasn’t disappointed, just deeply saddened, and the truth is that no matter which book had been written to fill this spot, it was never going to be any other way.

The Shepherd’s Crown is Terry Pratchett’s final novel and final Discworld story. It is Sir Terry’s farewell to Discworld and, in a way, it is his farewell to his readers. The first three chapters seem almost as if Pratchett were writing his own eulogy. Then the story proper gets underway (and it’s a good one) until it reaches its inevitable, heart-breaking conclusion.

This is an incredibly moving novel that spotlights Discworld’s famous citizens. If you haven’t read any Discworld novels, this is definitely not the book to start your journey. But if you’ve been a faithful reader, you owe it to yourself to visit this land of enchantment and wonder and bittersweet joy one last time.

Terry Pratchett wrote in Going Postal, “Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?” By this reasoning, Terry Pratchett will be around for a long, long time.

I didn’t want it to end. I bought this book the moment it came out and instead of reading it straight away, as I have with every other Discworld book, I left it half a year because I knew that once I had finished it, that would be it no more Discworld novels, no more Terry Pratchett stories left to read. I have spent most of my life looking forward to Terry’s next masterpiece, reading it cover to cover in the shortest amount of time that work and life allows and then looking forward, the cycle beginning again, to the next one. So I put off reading it as long as I could manage, just so I would have it to look forward to.

Until one day I realised I could wait no longer.

I don’t wish to give spoilers so I’ll tread carefully around the plot, as one major part of it came as a poignant surprise for me, but the main story as you will naturally have guessed from the cover revolves around the young witch Tiffany Aching, and although it could be said of any Tiffany Aching novel that that’s the one in which she comes into her own, in this one she really does, and it’s clear that this is the book in which she becomes what was clearly Terry’s long term vision for her, and that was a gratifying thing to realise.

Sadly, it was clear for me reading this book that although as indeed Rob Wilkins acknowledges in the afterword it has a beginning, a middle and an end, it is not the complete work that we all know it would have been if Pterry had more time on this particular mirror of worlds. There are some story elements and characters which are built up without being fully paid off, but that’s not something we can change, so if you’re a fan I am sure that you too will be bound to notice that about the book, but you will just as equally not mind that because the emotional undertone of the novel is complete and when you can say that about a book, then there can be no real regrets there.

I thought I would feel as sad when I got to the end of the book as I did in that moment when I finally picked it up from my bookcase and read what would be my final unopened Terry Pratchett novel, but I felt happy, resolved and thankful for having that experience throughout the years. And I will re-read Terry’s work in those of my years which lie in the future and I will love and appreciate it all over again.

Thank you Terry.

Don’t get me wrong.. I love the whole Discworld universe. But this isn’t Pratchett. The plot has all the framework sketched to be a great read. It just wasn’t filled in with all the usual character tics, insights, jokes and footnotes that make these novels such a treat. It has been ghostwritten with reverence I’d guess and as a result the big characters we know all feel diminished. It’s important being the last thing Sir Terry was working on. As a novel though, it feels quite unsatisfying and a bit out of kilter with the (Disc)world he created.

Galaxyaudiobook Member Benefit

- Able to comment

- List watched audiobooks

- List favorite audiobooks

- Bookmark will only available for Galaxyaudiobook member