Mort

Now I continue along my Discworld journey from the Moist von Lipwig saga (tragically cut short by the fact that the bundle I purchased did not in fact include Raising Steam) to the Death saga! That most primordial of beings in the Discworld setting has his own set of books, starting with Mort, about a young boy who becomes Death’s apprentice and has to get used to the eccentricities of being the assistant of the Grim Reaper himself.

Well. I finished that one rather quickly, wouldn’t you say? I think it was a very interesting introduction to Death as a character in Discworld. I mean, he has already had short appearances in the other Discworld books that I have read, in fact I have read somewhere that there are only a handful of books in which the Anthropomorphic Personification himself does not appear.

The series of books that are about him directly? Well, he definitely does appear in those. Not quite sure what you were expecting me to say about that.

Mort is lovely, strange, serious, and funny. Funny in that all Discworld books are, serious in that it is about a boy struggling to come to terms with helping the primordial force of Death himself undertake his solemn duty. It tugs at the heartstrings a bit in a good way and I found myself very easily becoming invested in the story.

The major named characters are rather few and far between, mostly consisting of Death and his various associates, including his (adopted) daughter and the titular Mort. In this way, the shortest Discworld book I have read so far was able to keep its moments memorable without trying to cram too much in the way of exposition in there.

A book done in two days. I am quite honestly going to try to pace myself going into this next book. Reaper Man is fifty or so pages longer than Mort so it should at least take me a few hours longer.