The illustrations are at the same high standard and I love these explorations into the minutia of the various guilds.

Always buy these as they become available, cause when they are gone, they are gone.

Tired of those books where you finally get around to calculate that your cat has an IQ of just above 160 and that he could get paid more than you should he decide to take a job?

Terry Pratchett is one of the funniest author ever and this is no usual 'rate-your-cat' book. Anyone who likes cats but who is not really keen on answering questions like "If your cat could choose to read any of the following newspapers, which would it be?", will be happy to read this. It doesn't try to be clever like some other books may try, but you can see through it all that Terry Pratchett has had his share of feline company.

While most other books 'rating' any kind of animals are not really meant to be read as a whole ( tedious explanations before and after in order to understand the ratings, numbers, calculations etc really prevent that ) this book is just funny and entertaining all the way through. Of course, there is _some_ kind of rating process, but the book was more written, I would think, to unite cat lovers in recognizing the most annoying and delightful traits of our furry friends. Something he did with his usual witty sometimes nearly sarcastic sense of humour.

Lady Ramkin is still a tad flat (She doesn't come into her own, really, until Jingo) but her relationship with Vimes is very well done, and very . . . there. It wrenches at you. It's one of the best parts of the book. (i think that the Patrician's view on life, as explained to Vimes, is even better, but I'm a real Vetinari fan.)

If you haven't read any other Discworld books yet, START HERE. (or possily at Mort.) t's the best in the series, excepting Jingo, which builds too much on it to be a starting point. My only reget when I read this was that I had read Men at Arms and Feet of Clay before I got my hand! s on it.

The ending of this book didn't have much spark to it, but overall Johnny and the Dead is an even better read than the first Johnny Maxwell novel Only You Can Save Mankind. It also rings quite distinctly at times of the type of humor showcased by the author in his Discworld novels. There is one bit early on that is just hilarious. Wobbler puts the idea in Johnny's head that dead people basically lurch around like the zombie types in Michael Jackson's Thriller video, and this indirectly leads to the Alderman trying to moonwalk in the cemetery. The dead people as a whole put a lot of life into this book, oddly enough. Among the fascinating, entertaining dead folks we meet are an ardent suffragette, an inventor who is quite proficient at manipulating electronic equipment, a brilliant man named Einstein - Solomon Einstein the taxidermist, and a dyed-in-the-wool Marxist who is quite disappointed at the way things have gone in the world since his death. The vibrant personalities of the dead men and women more often than not clash in a number of very funny ways as they all try to cope with modern life or the lack of it.

This book does stand up fairly well on its own, but the characterization of Johnny and his friends is not detailed enough for you to really get to know them without having read Only You Can Save Mankind already. This is considered juvenile fiction, but as with everything Terry Pratchett writes, men and women of all ages, providing they have at least a nascent sense of humor, will find much to enjoy and laugh about in these pages.

Johnny Maxwell sees dead people. (Yes, like the little boy in "Sixth Sense.") For whatever reason, he sees the dead in their graveyard -- not really ghosts, but not alive either. Among them are a crabby former soldier, a distant relative of Einstein, a sprightly suffragette who died in a freak mishap, and a staunch Communist who STILL doesn't believe in life after death. All in all, they are a fairly harmless bunch.

But a massive, mercenary, progress-obsessed corporation has just bought the graveyard for fivepence, and it will soon be razed for new construction. The only people more dismayed than the living inhabitants of Blackbury are the dead ones. So as the dead break their bonds to "uvlive," Johnny and his friends will try to save the graveyard from... a fate worse than death?

This book is not only more entertaining and humorous than "Mankind," but it is also more polished. Pratchett's style becomes more flowing and easy, and the message he puts in it is not ham-handed or badly-written. It's also extremely light and entertaining most of the time, such as when the dead Communist calls up a radio talk show host and speaks frankly about being "vertically challenged."

Johnny is thoughtful and intelligent, quiet until he has a reason to speak out. His buddies Wobbler, Yo-less and Bigmac also return, with their individual personalities even more individualized: Wobbler is a little odd (wants to see a goat sacrificed), Yo-less is intellectual and more on Johnny's level, and Bigmac loves food. Perhaps the only problem is that if you haven't read "Mankind," you won;t know who the other boys are, but that is the only area in which "Dead" is difficult.

Fans of Terry Pratchett and his Discworld series will enjoy the Johnny Maxwell trilogy, full of laughs, thoughts, and weird occurrances that will have you rolling on the floor.

Otherwise, however, this is truly a Gem. The theory behind the story is that the Antichrist was, rather unfortunately, switched at birth with some other baby, and so he's spent his life growing up with a family instead of with Angels and Devils fighting for his attention. When the time for Armageddon comes around, he is, needless to say, not ready and not quite willing either. Add to this a cast of hilarious side characters (the 4 motorcyclists of the apocalypse, the angel/part time rare book dealer, Agnes Nutter (witch/prophetess extraordinaire), and Pulsifier Newton (witchfinder private) to name a few), and you're got yourself a story that will cause people to stare at you strangely when you suddenly burst out laughing in a public area. I heartily reccomend this book to anyone who's willing to try it.

For the yet untutored fan, "Color" is a great starting point to learn about the Discworld. The book is short, using most of its plot to describe the geography of the Disc and to introduce the earliest hero of the series, a cowardly and untalented wizard named Rincewhind. He's a thaumaturgical flop, but a comedic king.

Most of the Discworld novels are complex satires of our own world. "Color" begins, though, as a straight spoof of the fantasy genre. It isn't even a complete tale without the following novel, "The Light Fantastic." But it's the first bright grain of sand in the vast, murkey Nothing. Pratchett's own imagination was already birthing such wildly beautiful concepts as intelligent luggage and working classed pixies. Slightly philosophical police already skulk through the fans' beloved city of Ankh-Morpork and try not to be noticed by any criminals.

This book stands well enough on its own merit. It is a fun, Saturday afternoon romp that lets folks laugh at the "in" jokes of the fantasy genre. Non-Discphiles can file it next to "Bimbos of the Death Sun" by Sharyn McCrumb or "Bored Of the Rings" by Henry Beard and Douglas Kenney. Pratchett fans can tell themselves that the author has done better. Sure he has. The next book was better, and the one after that was jaw-dropping, and the next was eye-popping ... so don't knock "Color of Magic" until you've grokked it. If you really must be dazzled, go find the book with the shiny turtle on it.

Not Terry Pratchett. There's not a serious bone in this book's body. It's funny from start to finish and slaps nearly every fantasy convention in the face, repeatedly, and without regret. The characters are memorable, from the inept Rincewind the wizard (who doesn't really do anything very wizardly) to the tourist Twoflower (whose delightful naivete carries the book forward when it seems cornered) to the Hrun the Barbarian (testosterone anyone?) and finally to the Luggage (a dedicated chest made of sapient pearwood that has quite the appetite when it comes to munching bad guys).

I recommend this book to people who love fantasy and possess even just a single ounce of humor. Pratchett caters to the absurd lunatic in us all, and delivers a very silly, very satisfying story on a pretty platter called Discworld.

The general plot of Pratchett's novel is a romp around a fantasy world. A place where the world is flat, and people who tried to show it was round were proven wrong years ago. It's carried through the cosmos on the back of four giant elephants, the magnitude of whom is so great that simply trying to imagine it makes your head spin. Even more mind-boggling, these elephants stand atop Great A'Tuin, the star turtle, who moves with extreme deliberance over tens of thousands of years, and has thoughts so vast that time itself pales into insignificance.

Our heroes? Well there's Rincewind, the dropout wizard who failed Unseen University, the Wizard's universal school in all dimensions including ours, and TwoFlower, the tourist with the living luggage (and what stroppy luggage it is too). Happening upon each other in a pub, Rincewind finds the odd fellow strangely endearing; mainly because he is paying for a pint of ale with three times the value of the pub in solid gold. Their quest leads to run-ins with goblins, the local malitia, an entire array of very scary trees, demons with a penchant for the number eight, the local barbarian (who is usually for hire) and a crackpot set of scientists determined to travel to the edge of the world, and beyond...

Pratchett's writing style is both warm and intoxicating. He involves the reader from the very first page with such wild fantasy that it simply must be true! His wacky, irreverent humour is simply so fresh that I have not encountered such entertaining and strongly visual prose since Douglas Adam's and his series of books including "The Hitch Hiker Guide to the Galaxy."

If you're a little mad at heart, love a new perspective on things and want to be thoroughly engaged in a genuinely fun read that you won't want to put down till it's finished (and the fact that it isn't written in chapters aids to this end) then this book is an absolute must. Thoroughly recommended!