The Shepherd's Crown, Terry Pratchett

Starting out with a challenge to myself to listen to the entire Discworld series as audio books has been quite a ride. I had expected to be hugely entertained, to laugh a lot, and feel a bit sad in places. I hadn't quite expected to be as thought-provoked as I turned out to be, with the range of issues that Pratchett cast light on, granted in a funny way mostly, being as wide-ranging and pertinent as they all turned out to be. I had expected characters that I would grow to really like, but nowhere near as much as I grew to love Tiffany, Granny, Nanny, Sam, Sybill, young Sam, Carrot, Angua, Cherry, Detritus, Rincewind, the Librarian, Wizards, Archchancellor, The Dean, the Bursar, dear Mrs Whitlow, everybody, every single one of them. I've loved spending time in their company and I dreaded finishing THE SHEPHERD'S CROWN.

I'm not even vaguely interested in criticism or discussion of Terry Pratchett's plotting and writing when it comes to this last outing, the man was dying of an insidious, vicious disease, and the fact that he managed to write what he wrote is something I'll always be slightly in awe of. Knowing that he'd died by the time I listened to this, I found THE SHEPHERD'S CROWN hugely entertaining, in a desperately sad, end of an era in more than one aspect, way. It's the story of Tiffany Aching really stepping up to the mark, struggling with the workload, and the threats, learning her limitations and finding ways and means of coping. It's the story of the death of the great leaders of one generation, and the passing on of the crown to the next. It's all about trust, and love and care for each other in a way that, frankly, had me sniffling and diving for the tissues on more than one occasion.

It has me back lurking around https://wiki.lspace.org/Main_Page, renaming poultry pens with Discworld names, and basically hanging onto the world for as long as I can. It has me wondering how long it will be before I start the odyssey again - right back at the start. I absolutely love this series. Everytime I read, or listen to, each of these books, I find something else that I missed, something else to really admire, something to make me laugh a hell of a lot, something to make me go hmmmm.