tenorqueen's Full Review: Terry Pratchett - The Wee Free Men
Miss Tick looked up.
"That little creature in the boat was a Nac Mac Feegle!" she said. "The most feared of all the fairy races! Even trolls run away from the Wee Free Men! And one of them warned her!"
"She's the witch, then, is she?" said the voice.
"At that age? Impossible!" said Miss Tick. "There's been no one to teach her! There're no witches on the Chalk! It's too soft. And yet ... she wasn't scared. ..."
The rain had stopped. Miss Tick looked up at the Chalk, rising above the low, wrung-out clouds. It was about five miles away.
"This child needs watching," she said. "But chalk's too soft to grow a witch on. ..."
*****
No Plot Spoilers
"The Wee Free Men" is the latest in the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett, a former UK journalist whose imagination has sparked sales of more than 31 million books worldwide.
Pratchett is best known for creating the Discworld series - a collection of comic fantasy novels set in a world which is supported by four elephants on the back of a turtle, hurtling through space. Discworld is like a fairytale land, with characters that come from every realm of fantasy. Pratchett makes the characters humourous, reflective of our society in which we live, sometimes even reflective of issues that we are facing today.
Pratchett's popularity can be demonstrated by the inclusion of five Discworld novels in the top 100 favourite books of all time as voted by viewers of the BBC's Big Read. The only other author to get five novels included was Dickens. Pratchett's books included in the list are: The Colour Of Magic, Mort, Good Omens, Guards! Guards! and Night Watch.
In Pratchett's latest Discworld offering, The Wee Free Men, we meet a young farm girl, Tiffany Aching, who seems to be a witch in the making. A 'witch' in the sense of the old terms - a wise woman with a touch of magic. Except Tiffany Aching is unusual, even for a witch. Witches aren't supposed to be made in the Chalk country where she lives, the ground is too soft. Everyone knows that witches come from the hard country, the iron rich areas.
Tiffany's initial encounters with strange beings attract the attention of another witch - Miss Tick, and her companion, a talking toad. Miss Tick knows that this is a very unusual farm girl, and even more so when Tiffany bravely stands up to a powerful monster in a bubbling brook without any hint of fear.
Recent events suggest that the world of humans and the world of fairy tales are colliding, so Miss Tick must dash to get more powerful witches to help prevent this disaster. Meanwhile, in the Chalk country, our young heroine, Tiffany must go into Fairyland to recover her kidnapped baby brother, Wentworth.
Young Tiffany isn't alone, however. She joins forces with the Chalk's local Nac Mac Feegle -- aka the Wee Free Men -- a clan of sheep-stealing, sword-wielding, six-inch-high blue men who are as fierce as they are funny.
Imagine the crusty warriors of Mel Gibson's Braveheart shrunk down to six inches high, and you'll understand how funny they truly are. Imagine those same warriors grabbing a sheep and pelting off with it through a field, but all you can see is the confused sheep looking around as it moves in reverse.
Or another moment, when a Wee Free Man is using bits of rags and twigs to pretend to be an injured baby bird to attract a farm cat:
"Och! Im a poor wee injured birdy an' I canna fly awee!"
Tiffany Aching is a character who makes an excellent role model for girls. Her main weapons against the evils she finds herself up against are her First Thoughts and Second Sight: instincts and the ability to see what others do not. Its her wisdom that gets her out of tricky situations, not her use of magic.
Pratchett never ever fails to have me in stitches and he hasn't failed in this Discworld novel to do so again. Have the tissues handy, you'll literally cry from laughing so hard. I startled the heck out of my partner last night, after reading a particular passage. I'd laughed so suddenly and so loudly he nearly fell out of bed. But that's Pratchett's gift...he leads you into a situation, and with such clever language and comic timing you're suddenly alive with laughter.
I won't tell you more than that about the plot, the rest can be your own literary journey to discover. I have almost the entire library of Pratchett books, met the author last year after the release of Night Watch - in other words, a confirmed fan.
The Wee Free Men continues a wonderful tradition of story writing that is suitable for anyone in the family to read. I am certain that I'll be reading the Wee Free Men to my niece and nephews one day and that they'll enjoy it as much as we do.
Pratchett is already working on a sequel to The Wee Free Men, and hopes for it to be published next May. A further Discworld novel which he has already completed, to be titled Monstrous Region, is expected to be on sale in November 2003.
Four ooks!
*****
Further information:
http://www.terrypratchettbooks.com
Terry Pratchett's official website
http://www.ufbs.co.uk/dwm/
Worldwide Newsletter for Fans of the Discworld Series
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