The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett (Doubleday, 2001); audiobook read by Stephen Briggs (Isis, 2001) Only nominally a children’s book. Pratchett puts a sardonic spin on the Pied Piper fairy tale, foregrounding the rats so as to take humans down a notch. Narrator Stephen Briggs soups up the audiobook by using his Sam Vimes voice for…
Tag: Stephen Briggs
The Fifth Elephant
The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett (Doubleday, 1999); audiobook read by Stephen Briggs (Isis, 2000) A relatively dour instalment that, uncharacteristically, loses a little upon re-reading. As per many City Watch stories, much rests upon Vimes’s world view (good) and a slow-burning mystery (muddled). The grating Fred Colon subplot serves only to highlight the paucity of humour.
Monstrous Regiment
Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett (Doubleday, 2003); audiobook read by Stephen Briggs (Isis, 2003) Pratchett marries a senseless war with a young female protagonist of insight and independence, thereby taking aim at the way men in particular—and stupid people in general—make a mess of things. A droll standalone (albeit that Vimes makes a cameo).
Going Postal
Going Postal by Terry Pratchett (Doubleday, 2004); audiobook read by Stephen Briggs (Isis, 2004) One of the more focussed Discworld novels, and all the better for it. Pratchett cannot help being funny but the humour here is less discursive than usual. Instead we have new characters, incisive social commentary, and a beguiling story of personal redemption.
The Wee Free Men
The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett (Doubleday, 2003); audiobook read by Stephen Briggs (Isis, 2003) Behind all the humour, Pratchett sneaks in the quite moving story of a nine-year-old girl coping with loss. Tiffany Aching is a protagonist to watch out for, while Granny Aching is one of the finest characters ever to appear only in memory.
Making Money
Making Money by Terry Pratchett (Doubleday, 2007); audiobook read by Stephen Briggs (HarperAudio, 2007) Pratchett, in the midst of a sequence of novels aimed as much at modernising the Discworld as making merry, pits former confidence man Moist von Lipwig against Ankh-Morpork’s banking sector. The telling is droll but by Pratchett’s standards the story is uninspiring.
I Shall Wear Midnight
I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett (Doubleday, 2010); audiobook read by Stephen Briggs (Isis, 2010) Though not among the funniest of the Discworld novels, I Shall Wear Midnight nevertheless upholds Pratchett’s near-ubiquitous drollery, rustling from within a serious treatise on intolerance and antagonism and other such weak points of human nature. Stephen Briggs proves a volant narrator.