One of the more routine Discworld novels, I had high hopes for Soul Music due to the prominence of Death, one of Terry Pratchett's most reliable characters, and its chosen topic of rock music. But while there are some good jokes (and some lame puns), I never really knew what the point of it all was. There's no plot to speak of and the Death content doesn't mesh at all with the rock characters until the very end. While the rock-music stuff works better than the motion-picture stuff of Moving Pictures, I still found it quite unwieldy, and the Discworld's mix of cleverness and frazzled chaos continues to draw mixed results for me. The best Discworld novels are those which focus on character, and Soul Music is not one of these. ( )

I found Pratchett's Soul Music fun and entertaining. It's full of clever music references and jokes, and presents some thought invoking ideas about family, fate, and logic. Even the side stories, which in some of Pratchett's other works I found dull, kept me engaged and invested in how those side stories related to the main plot. ( )

The best part of this outing on Discworld is Susan Sto Helit, who wants to tackle the world with logic but being the granddaughter by adoption of Death get pulled into that role when Death goes off to find forgetfulness. A bard comes to Ankh Morepork and meets the instrument that will catapult him to more prominence than is healthy for him or the space time continuum. We also get Wizards being silly or just wizards, with Librarian not getting near enough pages. Mostly it's all quite silly and not a favorite, but it will do. ( )

Better this time around!

Whenever I read a Discworld book I go to the Pratchett annotations so I can get the references I missed. I got many of the music refs in this one but also missed many of them. ( )

You don't HAVE to know about early rock music in the 1950s to enjoy SOUL MUSIC, but it helps to get the inside jokes. Susan, Death's granddaughter, is an adolescent schoolgirl here. She's quite the character, especially when she has to cope with finding herself in a magical adventure. After all, she's a logical girl who doesn't believe in "nonsense" such as tooth fairies or the Death of Rats. She's also vexed to learn where the birthmark on her cheek comes from and that she's inherited some of Death's powers. Her mother was his adopted daughter and her father was Death's apprentice. The laws of [genetic] inheritance don't work that way! Yet, in her case, they did.

Feel for Mustrum Ridcully, Archchancellor of Unseen University, as his senior wizards, his librarian, and the staff, are all affected by the new 'music with rocks in it'.

If your copy happens to have the cool cover of Death riding a motorcycle, fear not. That cover is no cheat. ( )