Discworld #4 - Mort
I'm reading all of the Discworld novels in order. Use the tags to find those posts.
I don't know for sure that this was my first Discworld novel but it's definitely the first one I remember reading (though not my first Pratchett, which was Only You Can Save Mankind). I had it in a hardback anthology printed alongside Soul Music and Reaper Man, and whenever I try to pick my favourite Discworld book I come back to those three (plus Thief of Time).
I can't remember how long it's been since I last read Mort but I'm very happy to say that it still holds up. The stakes are smaller and more personal than in Equal Rites and The Light Fantastic despite still tapping into some cosmic weirdness, and I think that restraint is a big strength of the book. Mort has a character arc and real growth in a way that the protagonists of the previous books don't really get, and there's a sense that Pratchett is realising that it's the characters that make these stories special and not the world itself.
I have some questions about where this sits in the general chronology of Discworld, since Mort and Ysabelle both appear in The Light Fantastic (though Mort is off screen, only referred to in one throwaway comment, and in fact that comment might just be someone referring to Death by a nickname (though it's unclear)) but Rincewind is, at the time of Mort, an apprentice librarian at Unseen University. Maybe the events of The Light Fantastic take place during the events of Mort? Or maybe I'm overthinking it, especially as I think it's largely accepted that The Colour Of Magic and The Light Fantastic are essentially practice runs that exist outside of the wider timeline. But who knows?
Now that the bank holiday weekend is over my progress on this will likely slow down, but I'm looking forward to starting Sourcery, which I think I've read once before but don't remember at all.