A time of endings and beginnings

posted in: Other | 2
illustration, white cat
illustration, white cat

I’ve just finished reading the last Discworld novel. “The Shepherd’s Crown”.  The tile of this post comes from the book’s blurb.

A SHIVERING OF WORLDS

Deep in the Chalk, something is stirring. The owls and the foxes can sense it, and Tiffany Aching feels it in her boots. An old enemy is gathering strength.

This is a time of endings and beginnings, old friends and new, a blurring of edges and a shifting of power. Now Tiffany stands between the light and the dark, the good and the bad.

As the fairy horde prepares for invasion, Tiffany must summon all the witches to stand with her. To protect the land. Her land.

There will be a reckoning . . .

Endings and beginnings… It starts with an ending. An ending that stopped my bed time read. I wasn’t ready for… that. In the morning I tried again. With numerous breaks to clean tear-splattered glasses, or blow my nose one more time.

But as we all (should) know, every ending is a beginning. There’s a gathering of witches, the Feegles – it’s a Tiffany Aching story so that’s hardly a surprise – and a number of surprises. Oh – and laughs. Many, many laughs.

There’s a page at the end of the book, written by Terry’s editor. He’s anticipated the question so many of us must have asked ourselves as we read page one. How much of this is REALLY Terry? Yes, he wrote it. You can feel it, especially in that early part, where he writes about ending. “Nation” was published in the year his Alzheimer’s was diagnosed. It wasn’t Discworld, it wasn’t a part of any of Terry’s lexicon. And it was a hard read. So much death. So much pain. So much “why me?” “The Shepherd’s Crown” is much gentler, as though he’d come to terms with his mortality. It gathers together characters, and themes, from many of his earlier works. Although only one wizard, and none of the Watch, made the cut.

A reviewer on Amazon commented that some things were left hanging, things that might have been finished if only he’d been given more time. Even now, just writing about the book I feel the tears pricking. But it was a good ending. I’ll read it again. Hey – it’s a Terry Pratchett book. I’ve read every single one many times. I’m pleased to know there won’t be another Discworld novel. Terry’s legacy might not live forever – forever is a very long time – but it will last for as long as his die-hard fans live. And if something like Star Wars is anything to go on, new fans will read his work, and so it goes. Just like Shakespeare, Dickens, Asimov, Verne, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, he has a form of immortality. And now I’m blathering, so I’ll stop.

Oh, by the way, there’s a cat.

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