Mort

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Complete and unabridged.
Compact discs.
Originally published in 1991.
Read by Nigel Planer.

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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

my beloved diskworld submitted by ferdoble on August 11, 2011, 3:53pm To describe Terry Pratchett’s books is a difficult thing to do. The disc world series is in a word fantastic. Terry Pratchett, would seem to use the disk world, to take any theme, or know story and then twist it in his own very humorous way. These are not always laugh out loud funny (sometimes they are), bur rather the sort of funny that just sort of lifts your spirits a little bit.

I will say that in some cases there isn’t always a really strong story, sometimes its just his characters moving through one of those twisted themes. I like them all, you may want to start with the Most Von Lipwig story line (“Going Postal” and then “making money”) as at least the first one has a really great story line.

I love to pepper my reading queue with these books to keep all those books that take themselves seriously fresh and interesting.

I recommend reading them ALL.

OR listening to them. The two main narrators of Terry Pratchett’s books are Stephen Briggs & Nigel Planer and they take Terry Pratchett’s phenomenal writing to a whole new level.

Death personified submitted by Jen Chapin-Smith on August 17, 2012, 11:10am One of beloved author Sir Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, "Mort" includes some sick humor (his name is Mort and he works as Death's apprentice; get it?). It starts with Mort, a young human, being apprenticed to Death when he can't get a job anywhere else and meeting Death's adopted daughter). A bizarre romance ensues with a perhaps happy or perhaps just funny ending.
This is the fourth of Pratchett's 39 Discworld books, which are all among those that Britons rate as their all-time favorites. I highly recommend this book, but read "The Colour of Magic," "The Light Fantastic" and "Equal Rites" first to better understand the background on Discworld.

discoworld submitted by unknown on August 10, 2013, 11:22pm When we mere male mortals reach a certain age we sometimes, aware that we are closer to our future death than our past birth, start to act up. We trade the 1981 Honda Civic in for a Corvette convertible, quit our old job to write a great novel, and have even been known to trade in our wives or significant others for a younger, newer model. It's known on Earth as a mid-life crisis. But on Discworld, and in the hands of the master Terry Pratchett, a banal mid-life crisis is turned into another one of his hilarious and thought filled romps. Through Pratchett's hilariously skewed prism this crisis is not being experienced by a mortal but rather by the harbinger of death, the aptly named DEATH. What we have is a mid-death crisis. Death may, like an ever-rolling stream, bear all its sons away but DEATH seems more than a bit tired of doing all the bearing away.

Terry Pratchett's Mort tells a rather simple tale. DEATH is looking for an apprentice. Young Mortimer, one of life's simple trusting souls is a young man with little career prospects. He is ungainly and spends a bit too much time thinking random thoughts. Mort's dad and relatives find him to be a well-intentioned but generally useless young man. Dad has been told that becoming an apprentice will get Mort off his hands and teach him a trade. So off to town they go for `apprentice day' in the market square. As luck would have it, DEATH arrives and takes Mort on as his apprentice.

Mort develops in the expected Pratchett manner. The relationship between Mort and DEATH, and the chores Mort performs to learn his trade, seem very similar to that in the movie Karate Kid. Shoveling poop is not immediately relevant to learning how to become the messenger of death yet Mort takes to his tasks well. Mort seems to enjoy living at DEATH's house and enjoys the food prepared by Albert, who may not be quite what he seems. He doesn't seem to get along to well with DEATH's daughter, Ysabell but that again may not be quite what it seems.

Within no time DEATH is entrusting Mort with more responsibility while he experiments with drinking, dancing, and a stint as the best short order cook in Ankh-Morpork. Meanwhile, Mort, left to his own devices makes a mess of things in short order. Specifically, Mort falls for the heavenly charms of a Princess and fails to bring her over to the next world. This of course causes no end of confusion as the natural order of things on Discworld has been greatly disturbed.

As with most Discworld books, events proceed at a furious pace followed by a conclusion that, like death itself, is inevitable. For any Pratchett fan, of which I am one, the joy in the journey and not in getting to the conclusion. Along the way we are treated to the usual array of cultural references and little jokes. When Albert mutters "s-odomy non sapiens" under his breath Mort asks what that means to which Albert replies "buggered if I know." When DEATH notes he is closing out a bar, alone, at a quarter to three, Pratchett tracks the lyrics to Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen's "One for My Baby". It is priceless.

Last, this is a stand-alone Discworld book. Although some recurring characters make cameo appearances the reader does not really need to be overly familiar with any of the other Discworld books to enjoy Mort. Mort was a pleasure to read.