“I Shall Wear Midnight” is the fourth book in the Tiffany Aching series by Terry Pratchett, which, in turn, is part of the larger discworld series. The first three books in the Tiffany Aching series are: “The Wee Free Men“, “A Hat Full Of Sky“, and “Wintersmith“. I recommend to read them in that order before starting on “I Shall Wear Midnight“.
I Shall Wear Midnight
Tiffany Aching is 16 and finished her training to become a witch, not just a witch but the witch of the Chalk, or hag o’ the hills as the Nac Mac Feegle would say. She does what witches do: doing her rounds, delivering babies, salving wounds, being there when people die, bandaging legs, taking pain away, and cutting old ladies’ toenails.
Then things start to go bad, an evil has awakened and with it come all the old stories, the stories about evil old witches. It starts with whispers, murmurs, and looks. Then someone picks up a stone. Before you know it they start looking for fire-wood. The evil has set its eyes on Tiffany. I don’t want to spoil the story, so I will just mention that Tiffany Aching ends up in Ankh-Morpork with a bunch of Nac Mac Feegles, meets a city witch and a legend, … before returning to the Chalk to face the evil on her own turf and on her own terms, and finds some unexpected allies.
These last couple of years some new elements have entered Terry Pratchett’s novels: sentiment, romance, drama, tragedy, and some novels have become darker, like this one. This came at the expense of what made the discworld series of comic fantasy novels so unique; a mix of great storytelling, wit, humor, satire, parody, and littered with puns, allusions and culture references. Those elements are not gone, but they are not as abundant as before.
It is a very good story, but it is not a very good traditional discworld story; the tumbling-down-the-rabbit-hole kind of fun has gone. I miss the shear joy, sarcasm, and wittiness of “Going Postal“, “The Wee Free Men“, “The Last Continent“, “Eric“, “Pyramids“, “Thief of Time“, …
Rating: 
| The duke had a mind that ticked like a clock and, like a clock, it regularly went cuckoo. |
| Terry Pratchett |
