SPOILERS The Shepherd's Crown WARNING **Spoilers**

[DaveC]

Re: The Shepherd's Crown **Spoilers Allowed**

Well, I finally finished it tonight. :clap:

I like a lot of it but did feel that it was a bit too easy. I understand all of Raisins comments earlier and this is probably why its not just having a toddler in the house that has seen me read these last 2 books at a pace of months rather than the average 2 weeks for the rest of DW (and the fact I bought Snuff, Raising Steam and this one in hardback so less easy to take everywhere I go...).

I laughed out loud in a few places, got sad in a few places, moved and so forth but it didn't bring me to tears as I've seen some say. Afterwards I was just kind of ...

"Hmm".

But I liked it, it ended well enough, I really liked the Mrs Earwig stuff and Geoffrey, kinda, the Granny stuff was amazing and liked the flashes to different areas of the Disc. It just needed more.

Now I have to squeeze it into the bookshelf somewhere... :doh:

 

[Sister Jennifer]

Re: The Shepherd's Crown **Spoilers Allowed**

I'm not gonna read any comments other than a quick squiz at this page but I have started The Shepherd's Crown. I should wait til I finish before commenting but I can't hold this in.

. Christmas morning I opened a book-shaped present.
. Yay(ish), The Shepherd's Crown.
. Studied the cover, Tiffany, Feegles, You, Bees. All tickety-boo.
. Looked at the back cover, saw 'The Final Discworld Novel', got a lump in my throat.
. Had a look at the 'Books By Terry Pratchett' list, reminisced as I usually do.
. Read the dedication, lump in throat turns to tears.
. Broke my promise to myself that I would start the book when I had a couple of days spare to read it.
. Read to page 41, realised everyone was staring at the crying lunatic at the kitchen table, Christmas festivities continue.

For Esmerelda Weatherwax - mind how you go.
There's no words.

 

[Tonyblack]

Re: The Shepherd's Crown **Spoilers Allowed**

I feel your pain.

 

[raisindot]

Re: The Shepherd's Crown **Spoilers Allowed**

After Sister Jennifer's post, I had to go back and read Granny's death scene again. Still as painful as ever.

And then it occurred to me: Witches know when they're going to die, but not necessarily how. Could it be that Granny Weatherwax actually chose her time and manner of death? Not in the sense of suicide, but in the sense of using her powers to "change" her own life story to conclude on her own terms? She probably knew that the elves were coming back, while also knowing that the role of the "lead witch" was becoming obsolete. She also knew that Tiffany would not want to keep the "lead witch" role forever, but she intentionally set up the scenario (giving TIffany the cottage) to put Tiffany through a final "trial" where Tiffany would realize, in the end, that to combat a threat like the elves all witches--even those who were natural antagonists--would have to work together, instead of relying on a "lead witch' to solve it. Tiffany established this new order herself, and the outcome was exactly what Granny intended. But this would not have been possible had Granny remained alive, so Granny intentionally removed herself from the world to allow Tiffany to establish this new order for a new Discworld on her own. Or maybe with a little help from You.

 

[Tonyblack]

Re: The Shepherd's Crown **Spoilers Allowed**

If I knew the precise moment of my death, I think I'd make sure I was indoors sitting comfortably with some nice music and something nice to drink. Going out on such a day is just asking for trouble.

 

[Penfold]

Re: The Shepherd's Crown **Spoilers Allowed**

If I knew the precise moment of my death, I think I'd make sure I was indoors sitting comfortably with some nice music and something nice to drink. Going out on such a day is just asking for trouble.

I think I would just wander out to somewhere nice in the countryside and sit down overlooking some of my favourite scenery. Of course, that might well ruin somebody else's walk for them.

 

[Catch-up]

Re: The Shepherd's Crown **Spoilers Allowed**

Okay. Took me months to get up the courage to start it. Took me awhile to get through it, for various reasons. I've just finished tonight. I'm too emotional to comment though.

 

[RathDarkblade]

I don't understand why there seems to have been so much hatred for "The Shepherd's Crown" - i.e. people putting it on their lists of "The Worst 5 Books" and so on. I liked it!

On the one hand,

Spoiler

we lose one of the pivotal witches in chapter 2.

Having said that, it sets up the plot of the rest of the book, when

Spoiler

Tiffany tries to step into the breach, and finally Geoffrey does so. Not only that, but in the final denouement, he gets to stand up to his bully dad.

So, a big hooray for Geoffrey! I never much liked bullies.

Spoiler

The internal squabbles between the elves

are also interesting, and

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the death of Nightshade

is too. Having said that,

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the first appearance of the King of the Elves

is pretty awesome, but his second appearance is a little puzzling (where did he come from, unless he can teleport?!) and his final conversation with Tiffany is bit of a letdown. The

Spoiler

battle scenes feel a little like "Lords and Ladies",

but with Feegles and

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Geoffrey's old men

involved - but they are still pretty good.

Come to think of it, the overall plot -

Spoiler

an elf invasion

- feels a lot like LL, but

Spoiler

with Granny replaced by Tiffany, Geoffrey, the old men and the Feegles.

While it's a little disappointing, I think it is natural. Times change and Discworld changes with them.

Another thing that I think we've seen before is the fact that a

Spoiler

central character (Geoffrey) is bullied, goes away, learns a lot, and comes back to stand up to the bullies and defeats them.

This is a central theme throughout Discworld books - it happens in "The Truth"

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(William de Worde vs. his father)

, "Night Watch"

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(Carcer vs. everybody!)

, and even as long ago as "The Light Fantastic"

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(Rincewind vs. Trymon - I remember Trymon was a higher-level wizard who bullied Rincewind when Rincewind was a student).

While it feels like we've seen it all before, TP makes the theme interesting again.

There are also little shout-outs to previous books (particularly

Spoiler

Raising Steam

), previous Tiffany books, and various real-life quotes (e.g. Churchill, Shakespeare, and even Maggie Thatcher - who I dislike personally, but the quote was appropriate). Plus, we finally see that

Spoiler

Mrs Earwig is not TOTALLY useless.

With

Spoiler

the death of Granny Weatherwax, and the rise of the steam engine rushing across Lancre, the Shires, and the Chalk,

we can see that the book is also

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a farewell to Lancre's and the Chalk's rural past and the beginning of a more technologically expert age.

On the downside, it's clear to see that

Spoiler

Pterry passed away before he could go over this last book and polish it.

It is a pity, because it makes it a little uneven - but it's not really as terrible as some people seem to think!

So to sum up... not the best Tiffany-and-Feegles book I've read - the best is a toss-up between "The Wee Free Men" and "I Shall Wear Darkness". On the other hand, I don't understand why so many people seem to hate it, because it's not really that bad! Give it a try, and I'm sure you'll like it.

 

[Tonyblack]

Re: REVIEW: "The Shepherd's Crown" (NO Spoilers, unless mark

I disagree that so many people have disliked this book. There are plenty of people on this site who thought it was marvellous. Bear in mind that a lot of people may only have read it the one time. Also bear in mind that there are a lot of emotions tied up in this book. Knowing that was going to be the last ever Discworld book had the effect that it had a lot of expectations that some people may have thought it didn't reach. For others the "but what happens next?" factor came as a disappointment. It is what it is. It's the last book by a man who was struggling with everyday tasks. Someone who hasn't even been able to type for several years. He has obviously made an effort to close some of the threads in his books and, it seems to me, to have been a way of saying "Goodbye" to his readers. Don't read too much into negative comments - it's just too early for some.

 

[DickSimnel]

Re: REVIEW: "The Shepherd's Crown" (NO Spoilers, unless mark

I agree, Tony. Although it cannot be classed as his best work, undoubtedly due to his deteriorating condition, it's coherent and properly shaped. The loss of a major character is a bold step but one that was needed in this plot-line for other characters to expand to fill the large space available. It's all handled with delicacy and black humour, just as you'd expect both from the characters and the author. I have no doubt that we saw death (and DEATH!) through Terry's own eyes in that scene.

We can be glad that Terry's illness did not mean that his storytelling was seriously affected and that he died in harness doing what he loved. I think some authors go on too long after their prime and their output can become repetitive, discontinuous with preceding stories or feeble - sometimes all three - but I don't think Terry had reached anywhere near that stage. For me the most disappointing part of Shepherd's Crown is the introduction of new, strong characters and the development of others with the clear inference of more to come that we'll never see.

 

[raisindot]

Re: REVIEW: "The Shepherd's Crown" (NO Spoilers, unless mark

The "spoilers" thread about the book is probably a better place to discuss the details, but I dislike the book for many of the reasons Rath quoted above plus many more. I separate my "love" of Pterry the author and sadness at his passing from what should be objective criticism of a published work. You have to do that. In an analogy, that the fact one of my favorite artists, David Bowie, just passed doesn't mean that I'm going to soft-pedal my evaluation of Blackstar, his last album (literally released days before he died) because it was the last work of a dying man. I don't think Pterry would have wanted his readers to evaluate the literary merits of The Shepherd's Crown through a lens of sadness, either. No author would.

From that viewpoint, The Shepherd's Crown while having a few sections that are done beautifully, falls apart terribly after the first "huge event" into a mishosh of recycled plotlines from other witches (and Tiffany) books. I've read it twice and the flaws seem far more glaring the second go-around. I've said this before, but I do believe that large sections of this book were written--or rewritten--by others. There are sentences and whole paragraphs containing language and stylistic flourishes that Pterry himself never used in any of his books. I think The Shepherd's Crown was Pterry's Unfinished Symphony--which ended up being "finished" by people who had less than a fraction of his talent.

I realize that I'm in the minority here, but I'm not alone. At 6%, The Shepherd's Crown has one of the highest percentage of "one and two-star" reader ratings on Amazon of any DW book Obviously, this is very lower compared to, say, Dan Brown, but limited to the DW pantheon it's pretty high. Especially considering that the vast majority of DW books have less than 1-2% negative ratings. The only DW books I've seen that have higher negative ratings are (in order), Monstrous Regiment, Eric, Snuff, Raising Steam, Maskerade, and The Colour of Magic.

 

[Tonyblack]

Re: The Shepherd's Crown - No Spoilers in this thread please

Please note - I have Merged RathDarkblade's topic with this one. If you need to discuss something that may contain spoilers, it makes sense to do so here, where spoilers are allowed.

 

[raisindot]

Re: The Shepherd's Crown - No Spoilers in this thread please

Good idea, Tony. But you might want to change the topic title... Spoilers no spoilers, that is the question.

 

[Catch-up]

Okay, I've had enough time to gather my thoughts. I sobbed through the first 3 chapters pretty much. I thought they were written beautifully. The rest of the book was more like reading the framework of a DW novel. Still enjoyed it, but I didn't feel like it pulled me in as deeply as other DW books have. Sobbed again in the last chapter and reading Rob's afterward.

I've only read it once. I'll need some time before I re-read it. I'm feeling ready to read some of the earlier books again. Haven't done that in a very long time!

 

[Rippers]

I found The Shepherd's Crown to be really complicated for me. I agree with raisindot when they said it feels like a somewhat unfinished book. The ideas in it were glorious, and there was a really great story in there trying to be told, but for me the execution of it wasn't as slick or as sparkling as Discworld used to be.

Having said that, the death of Granny was very moving, although that might have been because I was projecting Pterry's own passing onto the event.

 

[Penfold]

I suspect that Granny's section was written and polished way in advance of the rest of the book, as Terry anticipated his own ending. I also suspect that Jacqueline Simpson was correct in her assertion that the ending was re-written by the publishers rather than Terry himself.

 

[Antiq]

I finally read it. I had been putting it off, for obvious reasons.
Ok, it's definitely not as polished up and as it would have been, lacking the usual re-writes, that seemed obvious to me. It had a kind of staccato rhythm to and quite a bit of repetition that I'm sure would have been cleaned up, for example, telling us too many times that Feegles didn't like elves. I felt the beginning didn't quite have the grace and lyricism that I'm sure Terry would have given such a significant event. Some characters seemed very underdeveloped, like Geoffrey.
It's Sir terry's world, his people, his stamp, but under-cooked.
I know this is only because he didn't get to work on it as much as he would have wished, so none of that bothers me, I can't not love it, but in a sad way.

It's a book of endings, and beginnings that we have to sit on the cosmic shore and wave goodbye to as the great A'Tuin sails of into it's unknown future. It broke my heart and I'm grieving all over again.

 

[phalarope]

we have to sit on the cosmic shore and wave goodbye to as the great A'Tuin sails of into it's unknown future.

Oh crap, the onion fairy has struck again!

 

[RathDarkblade]

All right, I'm confused but I'll bite. What is the onion fairy?

 

[Tonyblack]

All right, I'm confused but I'll bite. What is the onion fairy?

Ok Rath - here's a thought exercise. What are onions said to do to humans? And think of the events in The Hogfather, where creatures were produced out of thin air because they had the potential to exist. Now bear that in mind and consider that this book, The Shepherd's Crown, was Terry Pratchett's last ever book. It is beautifully written in parts and somewhat sketchy in others. We lost a major and much loved character as well as the author, who was also much loved. In a way the book is a testament to how Terry crafted his books. He didn't just write them and send them to be published. He sketched the story and then went over it again and again, polishing the story and fleshing out the characters. That is very clear to see in this book and makes it, for those of us who miss Terry Pratchett, a difficult book to read - a sad book to read.

Now put together the tragic circumstances of this book and its writer and don't forget the effect onions can have on people, bearing in mind what I said about the Hogfather and see if you can work out the significance of "The Onion Fairy".