The Shepherd's Crown
I didn't cry when Terry Pratchett died.
This was a combination of many things. I've known he was sick since before I began reading his books. I've known that he was living on borrowed time. In his later years he emerged as a strong advocate for assisted death, and it was always his stance that he wanted to die before he lost his mind completely. Before he stopped being himself. I made peace with that early in my relationship with his books, so when I learned that he died in his bed surrounded by family having recently finished his final book, well it seemed like a close second to his stated desire to die while sitting in the backyard with a nice glass of whiskey.
There was also the fact that I learned this news on the ski slope in Colorado shortly before a wedding. Grief wasn't an emotion I was willing to experience that weekend. I could push it back, so I did.
When his final book was released, I read a review and started crying.
When I finally bought the book, I made it as far as the dedication before the tears came. I put it down, because I knew I wasn't ready for this series to end. I circled back and picked up Raising Steam instead, a book I hadn't entirely been planning to read so that I'd never really finish the series.
It turns out that reading Raising Steam first was a good idea. The railway that gets built in that book has an indirect but strong influence on events in this book. It becomes a metaphor for a world that's changing in more ways than one. The goodbyes we say to the old world are softened by the promise of the future.
I cried a lot while I read this book. But they were good tears, the kind that heal while they're still sliding down your cheeks. This book is about transitions, and as painful as those transitions are, they're ultimately good.
The Shepherd's Crown centers on the death of Esmerelda Weatherwax, a death that hit me harder than I ever could have predicted. A death that hit me harder, even, than the death of Terry Pratchett. And it's fitting that his final book, released posthumously, deals with the death of one of his most beloved and iconic characters. It's also about the hole she leaves in the world, the things that leak through because of that hole, and Tiffany Aching's attempts to fill the hole. She fumbles a bit, or comes close. But in the end she's successful, not in filling Granny Weatherwax's shoes, but in honoring and continuing her legacy.
I'm ultimately glad that the series ended here, on a fantastically high note. The Discworld is changing. Future books would have to deal with the death of Mustrum Ridcully and the changing Unseen University, with Ventinari and Vimes finally ceding their positions of power in the city (probably also through death) to a new generation. The characters I love have grown old, and I'm not sure how I would handle a more complete changing of the guard. I'm more happy to leave the Discworld as it is, a place I can keep coming back to whenever I need, where hope and justice prevail more often than not and change is always for the best.
This was a combination of many things. I've known he was sick since before I began reading his books. I've known that he was living on borrowed time. In his later years he emerged as a strong advocate for assisted death, and it was always his stance that he wanted to die before he lost his mind completely. Before he stopped being himself. I made peace with that early in my relationship with his books, so when I learned that he died in his bed surrounded by family having recently finished his final book, well it seemed like a close second to his stated desire to die while sitting in the backyard with a nice glass of whiskey.
There was also the fact that I learned this news on the ski slope in Colorado shortly before a wedding. Grief wasn't an emotion I was willing to experience that weekend. I could push it back, so I did.
When his final book was released, I read a review and started crying.
When I finally bought the book, I made it as far as the dedication before the tears came. I put it down, because I knew I wasn't ready for this series to end. I circled back and picked up Raising Steam instead, a book I hadn't entirely been planning to read so that I'd never really finish the series.
It turns out that reading Raising Steam first was a good idea. The railway that gets built in that book has an indirect but strong influence on events in this book. It becomes a metaphor for a world that's changing in more ways than one. The goodbyes we say to the old world are softened by the promise of the future.
I cried a lot while I read this book. But they were good tears, the kind that heal while they're still sliding down your cheeks. This book is about transitions, and as painful as those transitions are, they're ultimately good.
The Shepherd's Crown centers on the death of Esmerelda Weatherwax, a death that hit me harder than I ever could have predicted. A death that hit me harder, even, than the death of Terry Pratchett. And it's fitting that his final book, released posthumously, deals with the death of one of his most beloved and iconic characters. It's also about the hole she leaves in the world, the things that leak through because of that hole, and Tiffany Aching's attempts to fill the hole. She fumbles a bit, or comes close. But in the end she's successful, not in filling Granny Weatherwax's shoes, but in honoring and continuing her legacy.
I'm ultimately glad that the series ended here, on a fantastically high note. The Discworld is changing. Future books would have to deal with the death of Mustrum Ridcully and the changing Unseen University, with Ventinari and Vimes finally ceding their positions of power in the city (probably also through death) to a new generation. The characters I love have grown old, and I'm not sure how I would handle a more complete changing of the guard. I'm more happy to leave the Discworld as it is, a place I can keep coming back to whenever I need, where hope and justice prevail more often than not and change is always for the best.
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