Lords and Ladies - Terry Pratchett

Amidst all the trash romance novels and paranormal whatever the spinner rack of books the nearby Dollar General has, something to read.

Pratchett says in author's notes that for better of worse, there is some earlier history for the characters in this book to mention, rather than simply letting it stand alone. I don't know if that's true. The only other Discworld book I've read was Eric, a few years back, and other than the Librarian of the Wizard University being an orangutan, there's almost no overlap between the two, and I followed along pretty well as it was.

I'm not saying the author's note wasn't useful, but I don't think it was absolutely necessary to follow the gist. Pratchett's more than able to give you the gist of the characters enough to figure out their relationships as he goes along.

Anyway, the three witches the live in Lancre, return from an earlier adventure to find some idiots have been dancing merrily around power stones out in the forest which shield their dimension from one full of elves, who are complete and utter dicks. The dancing is weakening the barrier, which is bad. The eldest witch, Esme Weatherwax, has got a bad feeling this is her last stand. Nanny Ogg's busy being courted (or courting) a dwarf bandit who styles himself as the second greatest lover, and an outrageous liar. And Magrat Garlick is about to get married to the King of Lancre, but is finding she's not sure she's really up for being a queen.

It breezes along, as Pratchett switches between characters to keep all the threads moving forwards. Which keeps any of the recurring bits from wearing out their welcome (the bit about the Bursar and his dried frog pills came close). I initially felt a little cheated at how the battle ended. Because I'd gotten geared up for Magrat to prove something to the two older witches (especially Esme) who seem to doubt and dismiss her. But it works the more I think on it, since it's all of the witches having a part in it, but each in their own way. From each according to their ability, or whatever.

I still don't really get all the stuff about the Stick and Bucket Dance. Whether it sort of hypnotizes the elves because it's dancing, because it's obscene dancing, or because it's just fricking ridiculous looking.

'Greebo had spent an irritating two minutes in that box. Technically, a cat locked in a box may be alive or it may be dead. You never know until you look. In fact, the mere act of opening the box will determine the state of the cat, although in this case there were three determinate states the cat could be in: these being Alive, Dead, and Bloody Furious.'