Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Like many other readers I approached Sir Terry's final book with a mix of excitement (A New Terry Pratchett book!!) and melancholy (it is the last Terry Pratchett book). I read it all in nearly one go. There are several negative reviews posted here and elsewhere suggesting that those of us that enjoyed The Shepherd's Crown are merely reacting emotionally to it being Sir Terry's final book and are somehow incapable or unwilling to see the books faults. I would suggest that many of them are also having a purely emotional reaction because they did not like it, or perhaps it was not the final book they were hoping for. Several have even suggested that Sir Terry did not write The Shepherd's Crown, unable or unwilling to realize that Sir Terry's "voice" has been changing for awhile now. A degenerative fatal disease will do that to a person. I did enjoy The Shepherd's Crown. It was not the final book I was hoping for; I would have preferred a final romp with the wizards or the Watch. But this is still a Discworld book. It is true this book has its faults. I agree with other reviews that sometimes minutiae are described in minute detail while many important events go by very quickly. I cannot complain about the appearance of a few tangential characters reacting to a major event. This event would no doubt be noticed by a great many people on the Disc. These appearances, particularly Mustrum Ridcully and the Patrician do feel a bit forced, but I view them more as Sir Terry giving a last Hail! and farewell to characters he loved the best and could not let his final work pass without them getting a nod. And it was much less intrusive than it could have been, and much less ridiculous than say Russell Davies pathetic goodbye to Doctor Who. And I did not find any characters demonstrably different from how they have acted in the past. Nanny Ogg seems to be singled out in many reviews, but I thought she was Nanny Ogg. Some have lamented that Sir Terry gave us a few new characters that we will now not get to know better. In some cases this is true, however those wishing for more Mrs Earwig have clearly missed what Sir Terry was telling us about her. In this book a elf causes a person to doubt themselves to make them unable to fight back. This power is strangely ineffective against Mrs Earwig. In my view this is because she is such self centered raging ego maniac that no power anywhere can make here doubt herself. A one dimensional throwaway character at best, and certainly one I did not wish to meet ever again. The plot does indeed boil down to the elves are coming and Tiffany Aching in her new role must stop them. This is one of Sir Terry's young adult books, and as such, does not have the plethora of subplots and twenty major characters running around that we are accustomed to in other Discworld books. This in my view is also not worth complaining about. The only thing that bothers me about this book is it shows us very clearly that even Sir Terry, with all his boundless optimism in the face of his health troubles was indeed losing his sense of humor. It began to show in Snuff, became a bit more pronounced in Raising Steam, and here it is undeniable. The only really funny bits are the easy laughs that can be had using the Feegles. Undeniably funny, but easy and far too few. Perhaps this was also a function of this being a young adult book and Sir Terry intentionally stayed away from true satire and commentary. I hope this is the case. As his editor himself admits in his afterword, Sir Terry was unable to polish this book as he would have liked, to iron out the bits that many are complaining about. And it is a sometimes uneven read, no doubt. However, we must keep in mind that it did not get that final polish and allow some leeway there. We cannot simply wish for the book we wanted. This is the final chapter Sir Terry left us, warts and all, and while I agree it is not his best work, I feel Sir Terry would agree with that assessment as well, and we should not be upset that the publisher printed it in this state, we should be grateful that we were given one last go.