I Shall Wear Midnight

I Shall Wear Midnight

By Terry Pratchett

5/5stars

Reviewer: Cheryl

Tiffany Aching is a young lady whose journey began in Wee Free Men where, as a 9 year old girl, she faced the Queen of Faerie in order to rescue her kidnapped little brother.  However, it is not necessary to read all three previous books of her story to enjoy this one.  In I Shall Wear Midnight she has completed her training in witchcraft and is now going about the mundane business of being the witch of the Chalk.  It’s hard work and hardly glamorous, and to make matters worse, an evil spirit has begun to creep into people’s minds, spreading fear and misinformation about witches.  Tiffany encounters attitude changes in friends and the village folk she cares for, and gradually it becomes clear that she must defeat this ancient evil to make the world safe once more in spite of itself.  To help in her quest, she brings along the Nac Mac Feegle, a clan of tiny blue faerie beings with a taste for mischief and brawling.  Their antics provide a big dose of comedy to lighten this dramatic tale and a balance for Tiffany’s good sense and responsibility.

In the midst of the humor and adventure, we learn some serious things along with Tiffany.  She remains herself in a world where those differences can be dangerous.  She must choose to do good for people even when they don’t appreciate it, and she has to find the strength to see the world beneath the world and not end up cackling.

Over the course of almost 40 Discworld novels, Sir Terry Pratchett has had a lot of time to cultivate a rich and complex fantasy world.  While you may be seeing only a half dozen characters in depth in any given story, there is a sense that everyone you meet is someone.  Much of this setting draws on the folk traditions of the British Isles, so it has a comfortable country tone.  For all their extraordinary attributes, his characters are realistic and interact in very normal ways.  The result is a world that relates well to our own.  Even while immersed in this place of magic and surprises, we get the impression that the author is winking just off stage, letting us know that there’s more of our world here than first impressions would reveal.