Short Thoughts: Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett

I delayed my "What I've Been Reading" posts to alleviate pressure, and then ended up reading too many to include in one big post. So I've got another idea that should increase my engagement with the non-YA I read as well as my blogging frequency: writing up some quick thoughts on the other books I read. The reason why I review YA is because it's just easier to me; I started reading it to explore it because I was not too familiar with the genre as it is today, and so I approached it with a more critical and objective lens than some of the other things I read. A lot of my critique also came from the angle of relating it to my own experiences.

Anyway, so I just finished Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett. As many of you probably knew, Pratchett passed away in March. I had been familiar with him and had the Discworld series on my radar, but I had not really explored the various titles or read any of them before he died. When that happened, several titles went on sale on Kindle, and the one that most interested me out of the cheapest picks was Reaper Man: essentially, about Death having an existential crisis.

Reaper Man (1991) is actually the eleventh novel written that takes place in the Discworld universe, and the second featuring Death after Mort. While I've been told that the series can be read in any order, I did sort of feel that it may have been better if I had more foundation as to the various beings in Discworld. But it was still enjoyable. (Also, at least according to this--which additionally does a good job of explaining the strange structure--this novel includes a few recurring characters from other books. Or something like that.)

Another unique thing about the series is that it doesn't have any chapter breaks. For me, honestly, it sort of slowed down my reading because I was stopping it more frequently because a scene had ended and I wasn't sure when the next one would end. It's also written in third person omniscient, which lately I've found that I've struggled a bit with if I believe there is one main character that is more important than the others, because then I don't pay as much attention to the other parts of the story that probably end up being just as important. This happened with Reaper Man at times; the wizard Windle Poons (who does not die as he's supposed to because Death quits) is just as much a main character as Death, and while I did find myself focusing for the most part on his section of the story, I didn't enjoy it as much as Death's. Perhaps that was because I just found Death funnier. But alas, this is definitely a reading habit of mine I can work on.

Regardless, Reaper Man was pretty funny. I marked plenty of sentences that amused me, and I found that most of them fell into the category of social commentary, such as "Bill Door made the mistake millions of people had tried before with small children and slightly similar situations. He resorted to reason." Other things are just worded in a subtle but amusing fashion, Douglas Adams-style. Death himself was overall quite sarcastic or at least humorous in his lack of understanding, which was highlighted by his dialogue being written LIKE THIS WITH NO QUOTATION MARKS. And yet underneath all of the humor it had its poignant moments about aging and dying.

Overall, I enjoyed my first foray into Discworld and I look forward to checking out some of the other novels, perhaps starting with all of Death's arc!