Hogfather

You wouldn't see too many Books entries because... frankly I just don't read that much. Don't have the time for movies AND comics AND books. I don't know, I used to be crazy about books. Now... I still read them, kind of just making sure I know how to read still.

Someone's been telling me to read Terry Pratchett for ages. Guess I never got around to it. Now I have.
Title: Hogfather
Author: Terry Pratchett
Year: 1996
Genre: Fantasy, satire
Wiki: Yes

Terry Pratchett wrote this whole world of novels, loosely called the Discworld series. They are all about this alternative universe where earth is flat, balanced on the backs of four elephants standing on the back of a giant turtle. The novels are more or less stand-alones, but they do feature some recurring characters and they elaborate on occasionally overlapping aspects of this Discworld.

Being the fastidious bastard that I am, of course I wanted to start with Book 1, titled The Colour of Magic. The books are not in chronological order, but I figured the order he published 'em is good enough for me. At least it must makes sense to him.

But also being a cheap bastard, of course I'm just gonna go to the library and check the books out. And that's where I run into the problem when it's summer and all the little buggers get out of school and some of the ones (perhaps with glasses) who like to read go crazy at the library (I know; I used to be one of them). So I end up placing holds on a bunch of books that I just know I wouldn't get before the summer's over and my window of reading time closes.

So I was forced to grab whatever Discworld novel they had available and read them all out of order. Which is a tiny bit frustrating to a mentally neat freak like me, but ... sometimes life doesn't give you lots of options.

First to be sampled is Hogfather, the 20th Discworld novel (DON'T say anything about it being out of order). I've read Good Omens co-authored by Terry Pratchett (with Neil Gaiman) and found that to be quite entertaining. I was quite charmed by the character Death, who only speaks in capital letters, so I decided to first hunt down the novels that showcase this character.

I'm not going to get bogged down with a synopsis of the novel. You can just wiki that. But just in a gist, Hogfather (an alternative version of Santa Clause) has gone missing because the Auditors have hired a completely psychotic Assassin from the Assassin's Guild to kill Santa... I mean, Hogfather. Death picks up Hogfather's reins and carries on his job for a good cause while his granddaughter (a human... Death's adopted daughter's daughter) investigates what happened to the Hogfather.

WHAT?!

What are the Auditors, in the first place? Well, that's where I wish I could start from day 1, book 1, first sentence. Even though the book is a stand-alone, these recurring characters are not explained fully because parts of them are mentioned in each novel so to get the real, big, complete picture, you should read all the novels. Otherwise you only get a general idea, a vague feeling of what the characters are supposed to be like.

The Auditors are like... laws of physics. They make sure things like gravity work, they file paper work for every chemical reaction, things like that (examples shamelessly copied from their wiki page). They like order, because free will makes them fall behind on their paperworks. Thus they hate life, with its randomness, and they hate humans in particular because any sentient being with an imagination makes things messy. Thus they scheme to eliminate the humans, but they cannot do so directly because it breaks the Rules. So they have to do so indirectly, hiring humans and manipulating other beings to do their dirty work.

It's certainly an interesting philosophy.

The book is really a hoot. Such fun. I really enjoyed it. Now, I can't make sense of everything either, because despite the fantasy genre, the family-friendly book cover, this IS not a children's book. Not even necessarily young adult. There are a lot of things that take a certain degree of maturity to understand fully. Otherwise they are just passages you read over and go like, "isn't this supposed to be funny? But there's nothing funny here!" In short, you just have to get the references.

Highly recommended.