Soul Music

Soul Music is the third entry in the Death sub-series of Discworld, and marks a low point in my journey with the character. This book was at some points a legitimate slog to make it through, but when it hit its stride, it hit heights that I wasn't quite expecting from it.

The book opens with Death reaping Mort and Ysabell from the first Death novel, intermingled with scenes of their daughter, Susan, receiving the news. Death, reeling from having to kill his daughter and former apprentice, goes off on a journey to understand the purpose of life, and by extension the Duty. This leaves an opening that has to be filled, or else the events of Reaper Man might be repeated, so Susan is forced to take up the mantle, and do the job in Death's stead.

Meanwhile, a young man arrives in Ankh-Morpork, looking to be the world's greatest musician, and with the help of a powerful magical guitar, takes the city by storm, creating a new type of music. Music with rocks in it.

It's not really accurate to call this a Death novel if I'm being honest, as he has extremely little screentime in this, with the focus sitting squarely on Susan, who, despite being a fairly solid character, doesn't bring much new to the table, as her arc is a sort of retreading of Mort's arc. It's concluded in a different way, but the steps that got us there felt very similar.

Despite being content with how Death was handled, I would have loved to see more of his journey of self discovery, as each of those scenes were highlights of the book, and only served to strengthen my absolute adoration of the character.

I really enjoyed getting a more in depth dive into Ankh Morpork's culture, as so far, all I've read has been Death, so I haven't really had an opportunity to get a grasp on what the city was like, so getting Buddy's PoV as he also has to learn about was a really good introduction to the culture of the city. The guilds were a definite highlight of the book.

Something I didn't really connect with was the satire of the book. I didn't think it was quite as clever as the previous two, and I think that's down to the fact that it's laser focused on one specific topic, making the humour feel really inflexible at times. It felt like it was relying on a lot of in jokes for a specific community, which is a shame, though when it was at it's best, it shone as brightly as the other works I've read from him.

The biggest issue with this book has to be the fact that it absolutely refused to go anywhere for a good quarter of it's page count. I understand that it's introducing a new character to the readers, but oh my lord, I was bored shitless for a good chunk of the book. It was definitely funny, and it had a few highlights here and there, but overall, it's early pacing was just really sluggish, which was a massive issue for me, especially since I started this the same day I finished Reaper Man, which had exceptionally tight pacing.

The middle section wasn't much better, as there's a subplot going on throughout the book, where Ridcully is trying desperately to understand the science behind Music with rocks in it. But this kicks off pages after we get a perfectly sufficient explanation from Death about what's going on. Overall, the entire wizard aspect of this book was fairly monotonous, and I feel like it getting trimmed down to their newfound obsession with the music would have probably led to the entire book flowing in a much better manner overall.

The conclusion of the book was genuinely the only point where I was content with the pacing of the story, as I felt like it wasn't missing a beat there. There wasn't any plodding along. It had a point, and it made sure to get to it before the reader got bored of it.

Despite my issues with the book, I still walked away having enjoyed my time with the book, though I'm beginning to expect that it's going to be nigh on impossible for me to not enjoy a Pratchett novel to some degree, as they're just utterly wonderful. It's a solid 3.5 stars, and despite my issues, I still fully recommend this book.

Rock and roll will never die. Seems like a good subject for a Death sub-series book. Plenty of opportunities for pop culture jokes that Pratchett excelled at. It's also a fine introduction to my favorite Goth Disney Princess, Susan, Death's Granddaughter.

I was always a little wary of these Discworld books that blend our modern world into the timeless fantasy of the Disc though I'm not sure why. Men at Arms, Moving Pictures, The Truth etc. are all fine books. I view this one as akin to Moving Pictures because of the pop culture and the effect the phenomenon has on the citizens of the Disc, causing them to embrace showbiz/music biz with all their manic hearts. Of the two, I prefer this one, as there is more opportunity to get attached to the characters if you've been reading the full series. Susan is Mort's daughter and, if you read Mort, you get to see her make the same mistakes her father did.

The novel's themes are woven into both the story of the music taking over the Disc, as well as the personal family story of Death and Susan. Rock music as described here is something that acts on the non-logical bits of the brain, it moves you, makes you want to move, makes you feel young and rebellious etc. Susan is a character who loves logic above sentiment but is torn when she sees Death had an opportunity to save her parents from the accident which killed them.

There is also the element of rebellion in their part of the story. Death frequently shows his attachment to humans, adopting Ysabell, wanting to get to know baby Susan, etc., which goes against his role as the unstoppable force of death. Susan can't understand why she should not try to make the world better if she can once she has Death's powers.

This holds a place in my heart for my love of rock music but also because it is the book that got my teenage daughter interested in Discworld, giving us a shared pleasure in the books.

My sixth Discworld book and least favorite. I do not think it's a very good book period. Immediately started Hogfather and it already seems much stronger.

8/10

Muy divertido. Quise ver más de Muerte en este libro, pero me gustaron los otros personajes.

The Susan/Death novella is great.

This is one of my least favorite Discworld books. Pratchett uses this literary device where he describes situations for far too long without telling you what's going on. Usually it works, but it completely fell flat for me in this book. I spent the last 30% having no idea what was going on. Maybe it's that I don't have enough knowledge of rock'n'roll imagery, but that doesn't mean it /works/.

Tried reading this twice and have struggled to get to the end both times (although this time I managed it). Something about the story failed to grab me, although I suspect it will work for others since all the usual ingredients are there. Unfortunately, this falls into the “for completionists only” category for me.

Lots of fun puns!

not as good as his other books but still good.

I have mixed feelings about this one. The story is quite gripping, and it introduces Susan, the granddaughter of Death, and one of the Disc's best characters. I like Susan, although here she's still a teenager, inexperienced and somewhat unsure of herself.

On the other hand, the main purpose of this story is to introduce the Disc to rock music, and I don't think the two go together. In the absence of an electricity supply, only magic can make rock music go at all.

Then, Pratchett starts taking it all a bit too seriously, and starts worrying about rifts in the fabric of the universe because someone hasn't died when he was supposed to.

I don't require him to be funny all the time, but when he's serious it works for me only sometimes, and this is one of the times that it doesn't really work for me. Perhaps he's trying to make some important point, but I don't see what the point is.

In case you're wondering, yes, there are funny bits in here; there usually are.