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Reaper Man

Reaper Man

FantasyHumor
Pages
352
Published
1991
Language
English

Synopsis

Death has been fired. The Auditors of Reality, bureaucratic entities who prefer the universe to run without the messiness of individual personality, have stripped him of his position and granted him a finite lifespan. He retreats to a farm under the name Bill Door and learns — for the first time — what it means to live. Meanwhile, the uncollected life-force of the recently dead is building up in Ankh-Morpork, taking form as strange shopping trolleys and eventually something far more threatening. One of the most emotionally powerful novels in the Discworld series.

Prose complexity
4/10

Vibe

FunnyWhimsicalEmotionalSatiricalThought-ProvokingLighthearted
Fish Out of WaterFound Family

Genres

Fantasy Humor Comic Fiction High Fantasy Satire Thriller

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

Death (Discworld)Protagonist

Stripped of his office by the Auditors of Reality and given a finite lifespan, he takes work as a farmhand under the name Bill Door and learns what it is to live with an ending.

Miss FlitworthSupporting

Renata Flitworth, the sharp-tongued elderly farmer of the Octarine Grass Country who hires the mysterious Bill Door, and whose own long-deferred grief gives the novel its emotional close.

Windle PoonsSupporting

The oldest wizard of Unseen University, who fails to die on schedule and returns as a zombie, falling in with Reg Shoe's Fresh Start Club in Ankh-Morpork.

Reg ShoeSupporting

A zombie campaigner for undead rights who founds and runs the Fresh Start Club, the support group Windle Poons joins after failing to die.

Mustrum RidcullySupporting

Archchancellor of Unseen University, who leads the faculty's investigation into the strange phenomena spreading through Ankh-Morpork.

All characters in Reaper Man

Frequently asked questions

  • When was Reaper Man published?

    First published in May 1991 by Victor Gollancz. It is the eleventh Discworld novel and the second in the Death sub-series.

  • What does 'Bill Door' mean?

    'Bill' is an archaic word for a type of scythe — Death's traditional tool. 'Door' evokes a threshold between life and death. The name is a quiet joke that Miss Flitworth never unpacks.

  • Why do shopping trolleys keep appearing in Ankh-Morpork?

    As the uncollected life-force of the recently dead accumulates with nowhere to go, it begins animating objects — starting with shopping trolleys that move on their own and breed. This escalates into something far more threatening that the city's wizards must address.

  • Is Reaper Man emotionally difficult?

    Many readers find it the most moving Discworld novel. The Bill Door sections are written with unusual tenderness; Pratchett depicts Death discovering what it means to value a finite life. The ending is genuinely affecting for readers who have followed Death as a character since Mort.

  • Who are the Auditors of Reality?

    Recurring Discworld antagonists — cosmic bureaucratic entities who maintain the universe's physical laws and find individual consciousness deeply irritating. They appear in Reaper Man, Soul Music, Hogfather, and Thief of Time.

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