13 September, 2004
Wee Free Men, Terry Pratchett (320 pp, MMPB, 2003)
Tiffany Aching is unhappy about having to baby-sit her drooly, sticky baby brother, but when he's stolen away by the faeries, she's determined to get him back--if only because he's hers. Lucky for Tiffany, she's not an ordinary little girl; she is a beginner witch. Now, this is the Discworld, where witching is less about hocus-pocus and more about psychology. In Tiffany's case, it is also about the Nac Mac Feegle--little blue men who were long ago kicked out of Faerieland for being drunk and disorderly, or something like that.
This is a pretty typical Pratchett. If you've read his other books, you know what to expect. If you've read Lords and Ladies, you'll know exactly what to expect, since Wee Free Men covers much of the same thematic territory. I want to say that the book reads like Pratchett was phoning it in, but that'd give a false impression, since Pratchett phoning it in is still ten times funnier and interesting than most other authors working at their best. The one newish bit in this book is the expanded role of the NMF, who have only appeared briefly in the other Discworld novels.