# Finished Mort last night. Bought Soul Music and Reaper Man today. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 26, 2004, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finished-mort-last-night-bought-soul-music-and-reaper-man-today/276777 "2004-11-26T19:21:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![auRa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c4cdca/32.png) [@auRa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/auRa)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2004, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finished-mort-last-night-bought-soul-music-and-reaper-man-today/276777/21 "2004-11-27T19:02:18Z")
**Soul Music** is one of my favorite Discworld books, as well. The scene where The Band With Rocks In is playing at the Cauldron made shivers run down my spine the first time I read it. Also, bands like the “short-lived but grammatically correct The Whom” were really good for a laugh. As was “rat music”: “I’m mean and turf/and I’m mean and turf/and I’m mean and turf/and I’m mean and turf/and me and my friends/can walk towards you/with our hats on backwards/in a menacing way/yo”. I think the references to our-world themes and features is one of the best things about Pratchett, especially as a non-British or American native. It’s always a little confidence-booster when you get the little historical and pop-culture references or what have you. I have a constant argument going on with a friend of mine who enjoys the Rincewind-themed books most of all. I, on the other hand, find almost everything _other than_ Rincewind enjoyable. We both agree that the fact that we disagree indicates that Discworld books really cater to a wide audience. Something for everyone. Excellent. ---
**Author:** ![lee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lee/32/7455_2.png) [@lee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lee)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2004, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finished-mort-last-night-bought-soul-music-and-reaper-man-today/276777/22 "2004-11-27T19:27:04Z")
> [@Qadgop the Mercotan](#): > > **amarinth** , I had the same reaction to “We’re certainly dwarves”. My favorite was in _The Truth_ The dwarf named Bodoni, like the font. I point these kind of things out to **KellyM** aftery she has read them. She often misses these gems. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Death](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecccb3/32.png) [@Evil\_Death](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Death)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2004, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finished-mort-last-night-bought-soul-music-and-reaper-man-today/276777/23 "2004-11-27T20:20:35Z")
> [@Barbarian](#): > > Mort is the wife’s favourite, Reaper Man is mine. > > Both are signed by TP. … which makes them worth less than unsigned editions. If you didn’t get Night Watch, you didn’t read it right. It’s not meant to be funny. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2004, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finished-mort-last-night-bought-soul-music-and-reaper-man-today/276777/24 "2004-11-27T20:37:30Z")
I enjoyed **Night Watch** more once it was revealed to me that the novel is an inverted retelling of _Les Miserables._ ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2004, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finished-mort-last-night-bought-soul-music-and-reaper-man-today/276777/25 "2004-11-28T01:21:19Z")
> [@amarinth](#): > > Despite its lack of popularity here, I love Soul Music. I think it’s my favorite book of the series and definitely has my favorite blink-and-you-miss-it joke of the series. > for anyone who cares: > > “The Surreptitious Fabric” line completely cracks me up. Which might say about me more than the book itself. **Soul Music** was the first Discworld book I ever read, so it’ll always have a warm place in my heard. As a longtime “music with rocks in” geek, I also have a special fondness for it. I suspect that those who both get and enjoy the many little history of rock and roll jokes and band name puns in **Soul Music** will like it a lot more than those who don’t. My favorite: The Whom. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2004, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finished-mort-last-night-bought-soul-music-and-reaper-man-today/276777/26 "2004-11-28T01:55:22Z")
> [@Evil Death](#): > > … which makes them worth less than unsigned editions. Perhaps, but what kind of sick freak would ever sell off their Terry Pratchett collection? > [@Qadgop the Mercotan](#): > > Hm. IMHO, Soul Music was the point where TP began showing he was more than a clever genre satirist, and began to show some real depth to his writings, and where I began to appreciate them on an intellectual level, especially as regards social mores and human idiosyncracies and frailties. I agree, but **Peter Morris** does have a point in that the plot of _Soul Music_ rehashes many of the elements of _Mort_. I believe he did a better job of them the second time around, though, and I think that might be precisely why he did so: he felt he hadn’t adequatly addressed the themes he wanted to address in _Mort_, and decided to give them a second go. The addition of rock’n’roll was the clincher. What better vehicle to explore the themes of death, immortality, and immortality-through-death? ---
**Author:** ![Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2004, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finished-mort-last-night-bought-soul-music-and-reaper-man-today/276777/27 "2004-11-28T09:05:28Z")
> [@Evil Death](#): > > … which makes them worth less than unsigned editions. You’re fricking INSANE! Or a chump. I’m still wondering after reading your defense of the overweight dart-thrower. 😉 That being said, my #2 favourite TP, and the one I reread most often, is Small Gods. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Death](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecccb3/32.png) [@Evil\_Death](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Death)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2004, 10:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finished-mort-last-night-bought-soul-music-and-reaper-man-today/276777/28 "2004-11-28T10:10:10Z")
> [@Barbarian](#): > > You’re fricking INSANE! Or a chump. I’m just quoting Pterry himself on this one: “I’ve signed so many books that unsigned copies are probably more valuable now…” :wally ---
**Author:** ![Daylon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/45deac/32.png) [@Daylon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daylon)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2004, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finished-mort-last-night-bought-soul-music-and-reaper-man-today/276777/29 "2004-11-28T17:41:09Z")
LOVE Terry Pratchett… he’s hilarious - Reaper man was certainly my favorite after The Light Fantastic"…Terry’s a genius with the spoken word - one of the very few writers that can make me bust out laughing when I’m reading by myself somewhere… Some Favorites: “You’re dead,” he said. Keli waited. She couldn’t think of any suitable reply. “I’m not” lacked a certain style, while “Is it serious?” seemed somehow too frivolous. The thing between Death’s triumphant digits was a fly from the dawn of time. It was the fly in the primordial soup. It had bred on mammoth turds. It wasn’t a fly that bangs on window panes, it was a fly that drills through walls. Pets are always a great help in times of stress. And in times of starvation too, o’course." All dwarfs are by nature dutiful, serious, literate, obedient and thoughtful people whose only minor failing is a tendency, after one drink, to rush at enemies screaming “Arrrrrrgh!” and axing their legs off at the knee. People who are rather more than six feet tall and nearly as broad across the shoulders often have uneventful journeys. People jump out at them from behind rocks then say things like, “Oh. Sorry. I thought you were someone else.” D. > [@Lobsang](#): > > I enjoyed mort, although it is one of his early books (4th Discworld I think) so it lacked some of his brilliant word-play. (but I still enjoyed it so lay off) > > Today I bought Soul Music and Reaper Man, because they are both about Death and having exhausted the Watch books I may as well exhaust the rest. In my general experience Terry’s later books are better than his earlier ones, so I am half expecting these two books to be better. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finished-mort-last-night-bought-soul-music-and-reaper-man-today/276777.md?page=1)