About the Author

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) was the acclaimed creator of the globally revered Discworld series. In all, he authored more than fifty bestselling books, which have sold more than one hundred million copies worldwide. His novels have been widely adapted for stage and screen, and he was the winner of multiple prizes, including the Carnegie Medal. He was awarded a knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to literature in 2009, although he always wryly maintained that his greatest service to literature was to avoid writing any.

Reviews

"Terry Pratchett is fast, funny and going places. Try him." -- Piers Anthony"The funniest parodist working in the field today, period." -- "New York Review of Science Fiction""Consistently, inventively mad . . . wild and wonderful!" -- "Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine""Discworld is more complicated and satisfactory than Oz. Truly original. Pratchett creates a brilliant excess of delectable detail!" -- A. S. Byatt

YA-Pratchett's 21st Discworld novel to be published in the U.S. examines the nature of belief and reality-and why rich kids get the best toys. The Hogfather, Discworld's jolly, red-suited, gift-giving, anthropomorphic personification of the winter season, is missing, and Death has taken his place. Death's granddaughter, Susan, determined to discover what's behind this, uncovers a plot to assassinate the Hogfather. It's a diabolically clever plan concocted by an assassin who's a few eggs short of a dozen even by Discworld standards. The story is best appreciated in the context of previous novels featuring Death, such as Mort (Bantam, 1989), Reaper Man (Dutton, 1992), and Soul Music (Bantam, 1995).

The master of humorous fantasy delivers one of his strongest, most conventional books yet. Discworld's equivalent of Santa Claus, the Hogfather (who flies in a sleigh drawn by four gigantic pigs), has been spirited away by a repulsive assassin, Mr. Teatime, acting on behalf of the Auditors who rule the universe and who would prefer that it exhibited no life. Since faith is essential to life, destroying belief in the Hogfather would be a major blow to humanity. It falls to a marvelously depicted Death and his granddaughter Susan to solve the mystery of the disappeared Hogfather, and meanwhile to fill in for him. On the way to the pair's victory, readers encounter children both naughty and nice; gourmet banquets made of old boots and mud; lesser and greater criminals; an overworked and undertrained tooth fairy named Violet; and Bilious, the god of hangovers, among other imaginative concepts. The tone of much of the book is darker than usual for Pratchett‘for whom "humorous" has never been synonymous with "silly"‘and his satire, too, is more edged than usual. (One scene deftly skewers the Christmas carol "Good King Wenceslas.") Pratchett has now moved beyond the limits of humorous fantasy, and should be recognized as one of the more significant contemporary English-language satirists. U.K. rights: Victor Gollanz, The Cassell Group; trans., first serial, dramatic, audio rights: Ralph Vicinanza. (Nov.)