This review contains major spoilers for the movie Pusher 3The central joke in Mort is that Death is basically, you know, just a guy doing a job. The other day, I thought of Terry Pratchett's novel for the first time in ages when we saw I'm The Angel of Death, Nicolas Winding Refn's brilliant conclusion to the Pusher trilogy. In the first two movies, we've had several brief encounters with the terrifying Milo, a Serbian kingpin in Copenhagen's underworld. The first film ends with him and his assistant methodically laying down plastic sheeting on their floor; you're already familiar enough with his character that you immediately understand what they're planning to do to Tommy.In Pusher and Pusher 2, Milo is only a minor character. Here, he's in the center, and you soon see that, just like Mort's employer, he's a normal kinda dude with normal kinda problems. He's got to juggle work and family, and heck, why is everyone so goddamn difficult all the time? He's promised to fix good Serbian food for his spoiled, arrogant daughter's 25th birthday party, and it's making him seriously tense - even though Milo's day job is running a cheap restaurant, everyone keeps joshing him about his unreliable cooking skills. He attends a Narcotics Anonymous meeting and promises that he's going to try and take it one day at a time and keep clean. You can see he means it, and you're willing the poor guy to stay on track. And he's having a terrible day at the office. The shipment he received, which was supposed to be coke, turns out to be some pills which everyone says are ecstasy - but Milo's an old-fashioned drug lord, and he doesn't know shit about ecstasy. One of his younger associates starts openly mocking him and saying he's getting too old for this. The little punk demands a larger cut, and Milo lets himself be bullied into it. He's just so tired, and everyone's needling him all the time. It's impossible not to feel sorry for him.Things just get worse. One of his henchmen starts vomiting and blames Milo's food. Milo panics and throws away most of the stuff he's made for the party. He goes out and buys 60 orders of deep-fried fish at a Chinese restaurant. But his daughter doesn't want the fish, and further humiliates him by renegotiating the arrangement Milo's made with her part time dealer husband to give him a better percentage. Milo looks disbelievingly at her. How can she be so insensitive? He begs her to stop, and they just barely manage to patch things up before it gets really nasty. His feelings are deeply hurt.And on top of everything, he's somehow got himself into a stupid deal where he's helping two people he can't stand sell some young Eastern European girl to a Swedish brothel. It's a day when everything goes wrong. Against his better judgement, Milo accepts some Polish speed. Then the madam turns up, but doesn't want the girl; she doesn't answer to the description she was given. The pimps are angry and disappointed. One of them goes out for ten minutes; while he's away, the girl tries to run for it. The remaining pimp runs after her, catches her, and then drags her into the kitchen where he starts pouring boiling water on her hand to punish her. The girl is screaming.Milo's head's full of bad Polish speed he wishes he hadn't taken, and the girl vaguely reminds him of his own daughter, whose party he's now missing. And she just carries on screaming. He can't think! Before he quite realizes what he's done, he's picked up a hammer and bashed the pimp's head in. And then he has to wait for the other one to show up, so he can do the same to him too. Now, shit! He's got two bodies to take care of. But luckily he has an old friend who's an expert on this kind of thing. He sweet-talks him into helping, and the two guys methodically lay down that ol' plastic sheeting and butcher the two corpses. You can see from their practiced movements that they're actually pretty good at it and in a way rather enjoy working together again. But it's still disgusting, and it takes forever.No, it's not as much fun as you might think, being the Angel of Death.
The only other Discworld books I'd read were the Tiffany Aching sequence - The Wee Free Men, A Hat Full of Sky, and Wintersmith - and I was eager to try others. With those books, I found the humor hilarious and the worldbuilding excellent, but Tiffany a little obnoxious, mostly because she seemed too mature for her age, which ranges from nine to thirteen in the books.A few writing-style trends that I found continuing here: Pratchett can be a tiny bit repetitive, especially on really good details, as if he's proud of them and wants you to see them again. Also, I still think his romance is kind of awkwardly underdone. I do appreciate the understated romance subplots I've come to associate with some modern male English writers (Neil Gaiman does it well, Brian Jacques painfully), but sometimes it seems a little thin. *Now come the spoilers; ye have been warned* Frankly, I wasn't sure I bought Mort and Ysabell getting together. They have the starts-out-tempestuous relationship that goes through various annoyances which are put aside when impending disaster forces them to work together, but when Ysabell says, "I - love him, father. I think," I'm as surprised as anyone. They never had a "moment," not that I noticed. Fiction would have you believe that any two single people of genders appropriate to their inclinations, when forced by Fate to work together in the face of danger, will end up in let's-get-married happily-ever-after lurve. I'm generally a fan of the conceit, but you've got to have some suggestion of feelings before that - feelings that aren't annoyance and frustration. With Mort and Ysabell, we see some camaraderie, but not tons, and not the slightest hint of attraction. Honestly, I thought Keli and Cutwell were better set up.The setup of Discworld is fantabulous. I will say, though, that just as with the Tiffany Aching books, I feel like some things came conveniently out of nowhere that seemed like they should have been set up. Chiefly I'm thinking of Mort's making it to Keli in time because of "the speed of night." This might have been foreshadowed a little with the talk of Discworld light and its strange qualities, but there wasn't any previous reference to it or to Binky's ability to . . . move faster when night's falling? I'm not even sure I really understand why they were suddenly able to make it in time. I think Pratchett sometimes seems to fudge the magic a little for the plot. Some things of this type he handles well, though. When they take Keli and Cutwell back to Death's house, for example, that was just the way those things ought to be: I didn't think of it long before Mort and wonder at his slowness, but when he did come up with it, it seemed natural and obvious - the "why didn't I think of that?" moment.AND Death is awesome; the humor is awesome; the world is awesome. This book had more explicit worldbuilding than the Tiffany Aching ones - probably because it's earlier in the series - and I really enjoyed it. Death is a fantastic character, and some of the humor - even throwaway lines - is amazing. I loved when Mort asked Death how he got all those coins, and Death answered, "In pairs."
What do You think about Mort (2001)?
Mort is a simple country bumpkin who has reached the age where he should find a career. Lucky for him he is chosen for an apprenticeship. Unfortunately, it's with Death.Without saying, this book is full of dark humour, mostly surrounding Death. It's a light hearted, yet deep view, of Death's job. About how Death feels about his job. About how Death has a mid life career crisis and goes off looking for something different. There are a few side stories, the apprentice learning the ropes of the death trade, Death's daughter falling in love with the new apprentice, and a strangely non comical story about destiny.I really enjoyed the idea of Death getting sick of going out night after night collecting souls and wanting to try something new. I could relate to Death's job search and his lack of 'real skills' forcing him into a job flipping burgers. It's actually kind of scary being able to relate to Death!?Pratchett's writing was again brimming with humour, he really knows how to turn a phrase, a paragraph, a page, a chapter, two chapters...it's funny is what I mean to say.I also thought this book had a bit more substance than the previous ones I've read, like there was a point in it. That point : you can't screw with destiny. When you are going to die, you are going to die, you cannot change that. You just have to accept it and move on, or reincarnate, or something?If you have enjoyed other Pratchett books, you'll enjoy this one.http://bookwormsfeastofbooks.blogspot...
—Bookworm Smith
With Mort, the fourth book in his Discworld series, Terry Pratchett is finally beginning to settle into the form that makes it so worth the time to read this series.As with the previous book, Equal Rites, Mort departs from the previous books in the series, introducing new themes and new lead characteres. Death, who has played bit roles in the previous books, appears here in a leading role. Oddly, it is by dint of Death's portrayal as a deliberately stereotyped anthropomorphic personification of an impersonal force that makes him such an excellent vehicle for representing the predicaments and paradoxes of the human condition. And it is, in part, his character that makes this book the first book in the series with real heart.In terms of plot, Mort is essentially an apprentice's tale - a young man, the title character Mort, sets out to make good in the world, only to fumble things up for a while - all of which is to be expected, perhaps, but which is a bit more problematic in Mort's case, as his duties as an apprentice involve helping Death to usher souls into the next world. Mort's own human emotions will soon have him up to his ears in the sort of trouble that might not only destroy the universe, but which could cost him his job as well.Of the first four books in the Discworld series, Mort has, by far, the strongest, most tightly-developed plot, though as with previous entries it does unravel a bit at the end (for whatever reasons, a number of the early books in this series do have a tendency to just come to a stuttering, stumbling halt). Overall, though, it is a very entertaining entry in the Discworld series and a promise of great things to come.
—Simcha Wood
In a previous review of Pratchett's The Color of Magic, I speculated that I might have become jaded since high school. I noted that I enjoyed that book, but it was not as hilarious as I had remembered it, initially. There will be no such danger with Mort, meaning, I probably won't be re-reading it. Again, this one was funny, but not hilarious, and more cutesy than clever.Still, it has its moments, the best of which, I thought, was the interchange between the Sun Emperor and his Grand Vizier, a game of wits, really, and a contest in the manipulation of societal niceties to one's lethal advantage. Death's own search for what it means to be human was very funny and almost poignant, though the lure of mortal banality was idealized with a bit too much treacle. I will give Pratchett one thing, though: he understands teenage awkwardness. I thought the book really hit its stride when Mort's unrequited love of Keli and Ysabell's growing fondness of Mort lead to a few uncomfortable moments. Again, these themes are almost emotive enough to be compelling. But Ysabell's sudden switch from being annoyed by Mort's very presence to her fawning on Mort, with no real indication of why she changed, left me feeling just a little cheated.I'll admit it - I like Pratchett best when he's off-subject. His little asides are what make this book enjoyable. The plot line is fairly flat, with big ideas that go unrealized. But it's the little ideas that I love and that make this a book worth reading, like valuable gems in a rather ordinary diadem. I'll search out another Discworld book, maybe two, looking for those same gems. But I can't say that I'm dazzleed by Discworld . . . yet.
—Forrest
