Reaper Man: A Discworld World

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Harper Collins, Oct 13, 2009 - Fiction - 352 pages

"Engaging, surreal satire. . . nothing short of magical." —Chicago Tribune

The eleventh installment in the Discworld fantasy series from New York Times bestselling author Terry Pratchett — in which Death has been fired by the Auditors of Reality, and Ankh-Morpork's undead and underemployed set off to find him.

They say there are only two things you can count on. But that was before Death started pondering the existential. Of course, the last thing anyone needs is a squeamish Grim Reaper and soon his Discworld bosses have sent him off with best wishes and a well-earned gold watch. Now Death is having the time of his life, finding greener pastures where he can put his scythe to a whole new use.

But like every cutback in an important public service, Death's demise soon leads to chaos and unrest—literally, for those whose time was supposed to be up, like Windle Poons. The oldest geezer in the entire faculty of Unseen University—home of magic, wizardry, and big dinners—Windle was looking forward to a wonderful afterlife, not this boring been-there-done-that routine. To get the fresh start he deserves, Windle and the rest of Ankh-Morpork's undead and underemployed set off to find Death and save the world for the living(and everybody else, of course).

The Discworld novels can be read in any order, but Reaper Man is the second book in the Death series. The Death collection includes:

  • Mort
  • The Reaper Man
  • Soul Music
  • Hogfather
  • Thief of Time

From inside the book

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Page 19 - Now that you have it, what are you going to do with it?
Page 116 - Workers of the world, arise ; you have nothing to lose but your chains.
Page 17 - He was a real horse. Death had tried fiery steeds and skeletal horses in the past, and found them impractical, especially the fiery ones, which tended to set light to their own bedding and stand in the middle of it looking embarrassed.
Page 45 - Yes, indeed, there he stood, gazing about him placidly and goodhumouredly enough ; but there was no telling what he might take it into his head to do on finding himself his own master, which he certainly was for any of us.
Page 10 - Most species do their own evolving, making it up as they go along, which is the way Nature intended.
Page 346 - It wasn't exactly the feeling he'd had when he knew he was going to die.
Page 77 - Someone who will put certainly salt and probably pepper on any meal you pui in front of them whatever it is and regardless of how much it 's got on it already and regardless of how it tastes.
Page 300 - Dean, who was in an entirely different world now. "I would be remiss in my duty if I failed to help a brother,

About the author (2009)

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) was the acclaimed creator of the globally revered Discworld series. In all, he authored more than fifty bestselling books, which have sold more than one hundred million copies worldwide. His novels have been widely adapted for stage and screen, and he was the winner of multiple prizes, including the Carnegie Medal. He was awarded a knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to literature in 2009, although he always wryly maintained that his greatest service to literature was to avoid writing any.

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