Reaper Man
Final Thoughts
I’d forgotten how good this book is, it’s not one that has a natural place in the Discworld like some of the others. Death going missing is a recurring theme, it’s one PTerry really likes and it’s even in both video games, but this is the originator. Lots of really big Discworld details start their lives here, Auditors, the Death of Rats, the Unseen University in the shape it is, and it’s just a really fun book. The idea of shopping malls being the natural predators of cities is very pointed.
This is an S-Tier Pterry book!
Summary
Death starts acting a bit too much like a person, which the Auditors of Reality absolutely cannot stand. To teach him a lesson, they force him to live as a mortal. He calls himself Bill Door and takes a job working on Miss Flitworth’s farm, slowly learning what ordinary life feels like.
While he’s gone, humans take longer than other species to imagine a new Death, so all the leftover life force from the recently dead starts piling up. That leads to ghosts, poltergeists, and all sorts of strange happenings. One of the people caught in the mess is Windle Poons, an elderly wizard who dies expecting to move on, only to find himself back in his own body. He ends up joining the Fresh Start Club, a group of undead trying to make the best of things, led by Reg Shoe.
The club and the wizards eventually discover that Ankh Morpork is being invaded by a weird parasitic creature that grows in stages. It starts as little snow globe eggs, then becomes shopping carts, and finally turns into a full shopping mall. Together, they manage to destroy it before it takes over the city.
Eventually, humanity imagines a new version of Death, a cold figure with a crown and no trace of humanity. It comes to replace Bill Door. But Death has been preparing for this moment and manages to defeat it. He then gathers the other minor Deaths back into himself, except for the Death of Rats and later the Death of Fleas.
Death confronts Azrael, the cosmic Death of the Universe, and argues that Death has to care about the living or nothing means anything. Azrael gives him more time.
Death returns to Miss Flitworth and offers her anything she wants. She chooses one perfect night at the Harvest Dance. As the sun rises, she realizes she actually died hours earlier. Death gently takes her to reunite with her long-lost fiancé.
Finally, he meets Windle Poons and guides him to whatever comes next. The story ends with a small argument between Death and the Death of Rats about what the tiny skeletal rat should ride, with Death suggesting a dog and the Death of Rats insisting on a cat.
Favourite Quotes
- And this is the room where the future pours into the past via the pinch of the now.
- “I suppose there’s not some kind of magic you don’t know about?”
“If there is, we don’t know about it.” - “There’s still something about you I can’t put my finger on, Bill Door,” she said. “Wish I knew what it was.”
The seven-foot skeleton regarded her stoically. He felt there was nothing he could say. - On this Day 150 yrs. since, a Man killed by Freak shower of Goulash in Quirm” or “14 die at hands of Chume, the Notorious Herring Thrower.”
- Now that the memory problem was solved, there was only the dyslexia to worry about.
- It was about six inches high. It wore a black robe. It held a small scythe in one skeletal paw. A bone-white nose with brittle gray whiskers protruded from the shadowy hood.
SQUEAK - Mrs. Cake’s house was also in Elm Street. Windle knocked on the door.
After a while a muffled voice called out, “Is there anybody there?”
“Knock once for yes,” Schleppel volunteered. - I AM ALWAYS ALONE. BUT JUST NOW I WANT TO BE ALONE BY MYSELF.
References
- Reaper man is a reference to the movie repo man which is itself a reference to reaper man!
- Bill Door is frequently referencing classic Westerns.
- “‘What I could do with right now is one of Mr Dibbler’s famous meat pies –‘ And then he died.” – The attributed last words of William Pitt the younger were: “I think I could eat one of Bellamy’s veal pies.”
- The description of Windle Poons being dead is the same as Genesis’ description of the void before the world.
- Senior Wrangler is a genuine title in Cambridge (of course), math graduates are called junior optimes, senior optimes, wranglers, and finally senior wranglers for the 12 highest scores.
- The fresh start club at 668 Elm Street – Nightmare on Elm Street and the neighbour of the beast (a working title for Good Omens 2).
- The ingredients of Wow-wow sauce (which is real) include charcoal, sulphur, and saltpetre, which are ingredients in gunpowder.
- “Treacle Mine Road” where One-Man-Bucket was run over alludes to a long running Pterry/British joke that the UK used to mine up treacle but the trade was killed off with cheap imports of white sugar.
- “Glad to be Grey” badges are a parody of the Gay Liberation movement’s “Glad to be Gay”.
- Someone played Monopoly with death! Three streets and all the utilities no less!
- “The fabled hidden continent of xxxx” – XXXX (pronounced Four Ex) is a brand of Australian beer, a New Zealand joke is that if it had been called BEER Australians wouldn’t have been able to spell it.
- The university say “if they do let the younger wizards build whatever that blasted thing is they keep wanting to build in the squash court.” referencing the fact the first nuclear reactor, built by Enrico Fermi, was built under a squash court.
- “Behind him, the kettle boiled over and put the fire out. Simnel fought his way through the steam.” – a throwaway line about the construction of the Combination Harvester while Ned is looking for a better power source, legend suggests that James Watt had an idea for the steam engine from the same. This is not true.
- The harvesting contest between Death and the Combination Harvester references legend that an American lumberjack did the same against a lumber machine. The legend continues that after losing by an small amount he took his axe and walked into the wilderness never to be seen again.
- Stripfettle’s Believe-It-Or-Not Grimoire – referencing Ripley’s Believe It Or Not!
- The wizards exploring the mall underground is packed with references to Aliens.
- Bonsai! – of course meaning banzai. Later confused more with “bush-i-do” meaning bushido, the way of the warrior.
- The final word “YES” from Azrael was originally lined up so that it was the first word on a new page-turn, however on subsequent paperback editions this was messed up, much to Pterry’s annoyance.
- “DARK ENCHANTMENTS” chocolate is Black Magic.
- “‘I take it you do dance, Mr Bill Door?’ FAMED FOR IT, MISS FLITWORTH.” Dancing with death is of course a familiar metaphor.
- The finale; “”WINDLE POONS? ‘Yes?’ THAT WAS YOUR LIFE.” a famous show This Is Your Life.
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