Skip to content

Maskerade

Maskerade

FantasyHigh Fantasy
Pages
352
Published
1998
Language
English

Synopsis

Agnes Nitt has fled Lancre and the coven destiny seems to have planned for her, arriving in Ankh-Morpork to pursue a career as an opera singer — only to discover the Opera House has its own Ghost. When murders begin, Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg arrive to investigate and recruit. A parody of Gaston Leroux's Phantom of the Opera that examines the difference between talent and presentation, the economics of the arts, and what it means to be the kind of person who does the work while someone else takes the credit.

Prose complexity
6/10

Vibe

FunnySatiricalMysteriousAtmospheric
Mentor FigureSecret IdentityComing of AgeMystery Box

Genres

Fantasy High Fantasy Comic Fiction Humor

About the author

T
Terry Pratchett

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) was an English author best known for the Discworld series, a sequence of forty-one comic fantasy novels set on a flat world carried through space on the backs of four elephants standing on a giant turtle. Across four decades, the Discworld grew from a parody of sword-and-sorcery fantasy into one of the most sustained works of social satire in English literature, examining politics, religion, science, gender, race, capitalism, and the nature of stories themselves. Pra...

Characters

Agnes NittProtagonist

A young woman with an extraordinary voice and a practical mind, who arrives at the Opera House to become a singer and is immediately overshadowed by a more photogenic (but less talented) colleague.

The GhostAntagonist

The Opera House's mysterious ghost — a figure whose identity and motives are the novel's central mystery.

Granny WeatherwaxSupporting

The Disc's most powerful witch, who arrives at the Opera House not to rescue Agnes but to bring her home to a coven that needs a third member.

Nanny OggSupporting

Along for the opera and the food, but as always considerably more perceptive than she appears.

GreeboSupporting
All characters in Maskerade

Frequently asked questions

  • When was Maskerade published?

    First published on 25 October 1995 by Victor Gollancz. It is the eighteenth Discworld novel and the fifth Witches book.

  • What does the title mean?

    'Maskerade' is a deliberately misspelled version of 'masquerade' — a nod to the masked phantom of the opera, to the novel's themes of false faces and hidden identities, and to Pratchett's habit of misspelling titles for comic effect (compare Sourcery, Guards! Guards!).

  • Is Maskerade a direct parody of The Phantom of the Opera?

    Yes, explicitly. The Opera House's Ghost is a deliberate Phantom figure, and the novel draws on both Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel and Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1986 musical. Pratchett inverts many of the original's romantic conventions.

  • Is Agnes Nitt the new third witch after Magrat leaves?

    Yes. Maskerade establishes Agnes as the replacement for Magrat, who has married King Verence and left the coven. Agnes (and her internal alter-ego Perdita) becomes the new junior witch for the remaining Witches books.

  • What is the novel saying about the arts industry?

    Maskerade examines how the arts reward presentation over talent — how a beautiful but mediocre singer can become a star while an extraordinary but plain-looking one does the real work behind the scenes. Pratchett writes this with genuine anger alongside the comedy.

Read all 4 reviews