Synopsis: Death is given time and goes off to use it. Chaos ensues because without death life cannot move on and in classic Discworld manner life hangs around.

My Thoughts: I think I read my first Discworld novel about ten years ago and it was instant love, and the character I fell the most in love with was Death. Death has always been a bit different from how death should be, sure he has a hood, carries a scythe and is a bit of a skelington* but he also has a contemplative side and he does have family.

When the auditors decide that Death has become a personality contrary to regulations they give him time. And in typical Death manner he goes off to use it. He becomes farm hand Bill Door. Deaths absence as, well...Death, leads to problems for the other Discworld inhabitants, amongst them the Wizards at the Unseen University (or UU one of the few reasons I considered going to Uppsala University was the acronym UU). The Wizards are, erm...special people. Very set in their ways as befits proper Wizards and when one of their own fails to move on they set about solving the problem. However, when Wizards solve problems this tends to create other problems.

Pratchett has a way of seeing society in a way that you yourself could not but when he writes it down you go "oh yeah, of course". One of these incidences comes at the beginning of the book when the Wizards are throwing Windle Poons a death party. It reminded me strongly of the leaving parties that pop up occasionally at work, where everyone pretends to like the person and hope them well but secretly just want to get on with their own lives. The forced jollyness is always palpable.

As with any Pratchett book it is hard to explain what happens without giving away the whole story but I will say that I haven't laughed this much over a book in absolutely ages. ( )

It's a rare book that can explore the fear of death (and undeath), yet ultimately leave the reader comforted. ( )

Terry Pratchett is everything good in the world. That's my own, very non-biased opinion. He's funny and insightful, and every time I read one of his books I think alternately, "I can't believe he said that! That's hilarious!" and "At last, somebody gets it!" ( )

Death goes missing and those who die start coming back without anywhere to go. Newly-dead Windle Poons, a wizard, wakes up in his coffin as a corpse while far away, a tall, dark farm hand is becoming really good with a scythe.

Paper or Plastic?: Imagine, for a second, this reviewer's bookshelves. Let your eye wander; there's the hardcovers, the Vonnegut collection, Asimov heaped carelessly near the top, next to a carelessly tossed collection of old batteries. And there's the Pratchett collection, book after book dealing with the delightfully organic and weird universe of the Discworld. All of the paperbacks are worn from use, but two stand out: Small Gods, which is waterlogged from being dropped in water, stained from coffee, and so helplessly battered that the front cover has fallen off, and Reaper Man, which isn't much better.

Reaper Man is obviously one of my favorite books in the Discworld trilogy. It was also the first: I randomly picked it up around the age of fifteen or so at an airport, because the cover intrigued me. (I possess what looks like th English version, with various characters parading across the cover on and around Death's horse: the black hardcover shown on Amazon looks nice, but the new bland paperbacks being issued now of this one are awful.) Suffice to say, I was immediately hooked, and what a book to start off with when it comes to an introduction to this series. It's held up well.

When we get down to the facts, this is a DEATH novel. In the Discworld, the reaper man has slowly become a full-fledged character, and because he's no longer just an abstract concept, he suddenly decides he doesn't want to do it anymore. (Existential psychosis: the bane of all thinking creatures.) Suffice to say, the powers that be are not happy, and they set out to make things right. Along the way, a recently deceased wizard who gets a second shot at life has to figure out, along with some very entertaining friends, on what exactly is happening with all this 'unreaped' life around...

This is primarily a book about redemption, the second chance, and what it means to be human. If you read this book and want to learn more about the character of death, here is his serial arc in terms of book titles, although, honestly, it's OK to start with Reaper Man:

ERIC , REAPER MAN , SOUL MUSIC , HOGFATHER

He also, of course, shows up quite regularly in other books as a special sort of cameo. Happy reading, I hope this review was helpful to you.

The next book in the Death series after 'Mort'. I really enjoyed this one. I love the Unseen University wizards anyway but I thought they were particularly funny in this one, and I loved Death as Bill Door! I found the trolleys really funny as well. A really good story, with lots of clever wit and laughter in it too. ( )

Definitely my favourite Pratchett novel Reaper man manages to seamlessly blend absurdity with metaphysical speculation. It's in this novel that the character of Death is developed to its full extent. Pratchett at his best. ( )

Death gets fired from his job as death for having to much of a personality and ends up working as a farm hand. Just death trying to live in the real world, and all the mistakes he makes, because the world is so strange, this is just by far and away my favourite diskworld novel. ( )

One of my favorite Discworld novels! ( )

Reaper Man nicely evolves Death's character arc. This was the first Discworld book I ever read, and although I was a bit confused, the added backstory helped me to appreciate Death in his appearances throughout the rest of the series. ( )

Death, can't stay in his job, can he?Always doing something different, heh.

This was one of my favorite Pratchett Discworld offerings to date. Containing probably my second favorite character (first favorite being a certain cranky box with hundreds of little legs). ( )

I enjoy all of Pratchett's books.

I laughed out loud, in public, several times. ( )

What can I really say about this? I re-read it because my older son's been reading them, and when he finishes one, I stick it in my TBR pile to re-read, the TBR pile being so huge that I need an excuse to re-read anything.

DEATH's got too much of a personality, so TPTB fire him. While he's off finding a new job and a new identity as farm hand Bill Door, his job is being left undone on the Discworld, leading to all kinds of problems.

One of those problems is Wizard Windle Poons. Wizards know when their time is up, and DEATH comes personally to collect them. The wizards at the Unseen University have thrown a farewell party for old Windle, but the time comes and goes, and, well, Windle doesn't.

To say that hilarity ensues would be putting it mildly. It would also be missing a good part of the point. There is incredible hilarity; there's also a large dollop of existentialism and pathos--much about the meaning of life and death, and there's even the poignancy of a relationship between Bill Door and his employer, aged spinster Miss Flitwick.

Reaper Man is one of the earlier books in the Discworld series--the 2nd in the DEATH sub-series, and, I believe, the 11th overall, so it's somewhat less complex than the later books. It's still an amazing, deceptively simple story. ( )

Oh those pesky Auditors! Always meddling in other's business. This time they have interfered with Death. He is given a life span, and a short one at that, so what does Death do when he knows his time is running out?
This is a great story, full of wizards, undead, Life and Death. We also meet the Death of Rats. On top of all the laughter are the underlying themes of life and death and why it all matters so much. I won't say Pratchett has the answer, but he sure makes the questions fun to ponder. ( )

Largely double-plotted novel about Death's retirement and impending death, and the chaos that ensues as no humans die due to Death's replacement taking some time to sort out. The life-force builds up, creating chaos and a parasitic life-form that feeds on cities, and looks rather like a shopping mall. I found all the sections with Death and Mrs Flitworth, his feisty old employer, utterly charming, warm, and exciting. Death is actually a fantastic character and it was wonderful to have him centre-stage in a novel again. However, the parts about Windle-Poons and the Unseen University crowd, particularly in the dragging middle section, were rather flat. There was no one character who was really engaging. And the ending section with the shopping mall I just thought was a silly idea that didn't really work. So definitely worth reading for the Death-as-farmer sections, but also worth skimming those parts where he wasn't involved. ( )

When the auditors decide that Death is taking too personal an interest in his job, they fire him. Until the new Death is constructed by conglomerate belief, no-one is collected. Meanwhile, Death gets a job as a farmhand.
Terry's 'Death' character is possibly one of his most interesting. He starts as a shallow character whose motivation is to catch Rincewind, who keeps narrowly evading him. In 'Mort', we learn that he doesn't understand humans but is trying to. Here, he experiences mortality and consequently there is another shift in his understanding.
An excellent read on many levels. ( )

Terry Pratchett is back on form with this story of when Death is suspended from his job. He takes a job helping out on a farm. Hilarities ensue as people are unable to die properly. Rather sad ending though. ( )

In which Death takes forced retirement and acquires time, the Auditors cause much drama, death (lower case D) backs up and life overflows, a dead wizard takes a hand in his own afterlife, and predatory seeds infest Ankh-Morpork.

One of my favorite Discworld novels, and the one in which Death of Rats first appears. Funny and pointed, and I discovered new details while re-reading, as always. ( )

See Mort. This might be my second favorite Discworld novel. ( )

A little bit of a slow starter, but once it got going, lots of fun and an engaging story. I loved Miss Flitworth. And Lupine and Ludmilla (I have a thing for werewolves though). I think I will read more of the Discworld series soon. ( )

This is one of my favourite of the Discworld series, for the sheer inventiveness of the thing, if nothing else. Both the storyline of Death's enforced replacement, and the storyline involving what happens in Ankh Morpork as a direct result of his absence, are highly original and very bloody funny. The undercurrent of satire is as strong as ever, and makes me even more creeped out about the existence of suburban shopping centres/malls than ever before has to be good. Because lets face it, I hate them enough as it is; for Pratchett to add an overlying element of fear means that he's a true master. ( )

Reaper Man is Terry Pratchett's goofball imagining of what would happen if Death was forced to retire from service. Suddenly Death has Time, a limited amount that he must go off and spend while his position is left vacant. He sets off in his robe of absolute darkness upon his pale horse Binky to find out what it's like to be a mortal being.

There are two main storylines running in this book: Death's adventures as a hired man called Bill Door, working for an old lady named Miss Flitworth; and the chaos Death's non-appearance causes in the rest of the Discworld. Windle Poons is a magician who has lived 130 years and is due to die. When his time comes, he dies... and then comes back because there was nothing there. He's an undead, also known as a zombie. The excess of the life-force floating around the universe without Death to provide a proper balance begins causing everything to come alive: light fixtures, compost piles, door handles, etc. The wizards of the University must find a way to combat the craziness and stay in one piece during the process.

There are some fun characters in these pages... squat little Mrs. Cake, the terror of organized religion everywhere simply because of her habit of taking over every administrative function in a given church and then, after having made herself utterly indispensable, leaving in a huff at something the religious leaders said or did... Ludmilla, her daughter who turns into a wolf at certain times of the moon... Schleppel, the shy bogeyman who never can get up the courage to actually jump out at anyone from a closet... Windle Poons, the undead wizard who is finally finding out who Windle Poons has been all these years, now that he's dead... Reg Shoe, an undead who is campaigning for undead rights and an end to "vitalism"... Renata Flitworth, who takes Death in as a hired man for sixpence a week and slowly starts to feel some tenderness for her very thin, very efficient reaper man... and of course Death himself, also known as Bill Door, who learns to be bad at things so people will like him and who gives some of his Time to a young girl he rescues from a fire.

As always with Pratchett, this story is very funny. I think I have a new favorite quote: "Five exclamation points, the sure sign of an insane mind." I couldn't agree more.

The main criticism I would make about the story is that the two plots, of Bill Door's experiences and the chaos in Ankh-Morpork, aren't tied together very well. I much preferred the storyline with Death, as his attempts to understand and imitate humans are quite amusing. His relationship with Miss Flitworth is also a lot of fun. Overall, a very enjoyable read. ( )

I've quite an extensive collection of Pratchett, but somehow had missed this one. I'm filling in the gaps in my library with PaperBackSwap, and this one showed up a few days ago, to my delight. I have a pretty steep standard on my ratings. 5 is reserved for those true classics, far above the madding crowd, 4 is reserved for those books that, as you close the last page, you sigh in regret and say to yourself, "Ah, now THAT was a story!" And this book IS a 4. I loved the development of DEATH, even though I had already met him in [Mort] and [Hogfather]. The wizards' plot was the low comic relief, clever as always, but not as moving as the other plotline. I always enjoy [Pratchett] but some of his books take that step above, and this is one of them. ( )

This is the second book in the Death/Susan series (the first is Mort). It was a great book,although reading Mort is not a requirement for reading this book. Quite enjoyable and full of witty puns, I love each one of Pratchett's novels.

In this story, Death finds out he's going to die and be replaced by a new death, so he takes his last days off and goes and lives like a normal human. You can imagine how he doesn't quite fit in. During his hiatus, and before the new Death starts, all the people dying in the world aren't being taken care of, and the excess life energy is causing strange things to happen. Wizards at the Unseen University are trying to figure out what's going on and how to put things right in their usual, argumentative ways.

It's a great read and well worth your time. ( )