I have to admit, it took me longer than usual to get into this book. It took nearly the whole first half—which is really unusual for me with a Discworld book. I think it’s because I was expecting this to be the witches as I knew them, and yet for the majority of the first half of the book, Granny Weatherwax was off doing something on her own. And so the character dynamic wasn’t quite the same, and it took me half of the book to adjust. Once I did, though? I was all in.

The whole second half of Carpe Jugulum was as enjoyable as I had expected from a Discworld book. I enjoyed the interplay between Granny and Mightily Oats and found it amusing to see how Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg both had different takes on Oats. It was also amusing to see the Nac Mac Feegles in this book, even if I could understand them even less than usual. ( )

Discworld 23

Here’s the second Discworld book to make me cry.

Read Discworld, they said. It will be fun, they said. What everyone forgot to mention is that after the first few books it starts wrecking your heart.

This is probably the darkest book I read in the series so far. A family of vampires is invited to Lancre and takes over the kingdom, but these vampires are not the classic type. They adapted and trained themselves so the tricks to defeat vampires that everyone knows don’t work on them anymore. This is the first time I felt like there were real STAKES. Granny Weatherwax is battling with the darkness inside her that was hinted at in past books and she is absent for at least 100 pages. Even though she is not physically present every character keeps mentioning that they need her and wondering where she is, which makes the situation seem even worse. There is also a priest struggling with his faith and Agnes trying to deal with her insecurities.

I love handsome, charming, manipulative villains and this book gave me Vlad de Magpyr. I love even more that Agnes has zero tolerance for him. The Magpyr family are my current favourite Discworld villains, along with Mister Teatime in “Hogfather”. I really love the bits I saw of their family drama and the interactions between Agnes and Vlad are the best.

The dynamic between the four witches is fantastic! I could really feel the bond and friendship between them. They know each other so well at this point that at times they communicate without words. However, the stars of this book really are Agnes Nitt and Esmerelda Weatherwax. I am really glad I got to see more of Agnes because she is amazing and she went through so much growth in this book.

I really enjoy the scenes with Mightily Oats as he questions what he was thought about his own religion, but also witches and vampires. The scenes with him helping Granny really warm my heart and this is another one of my favourite dynamics. There are so many in this book!

Another one of my favourite dynamics is Granny Weatherwax and Death. These are my two favourite Discworld characters and the mutual respect they have for each other is fantastic to witness. In this book Death follows Granny more than once, giving an even more dark and creepy atmosphere to this book than it already had.

I like every character except for the Nac Mac Feegle, but at least their scenes are really short. I also don’t love the initial scenes with the falconer, but those are also really short. Those things don’t make me lose my love for this book because the good parts are so much stronger.

I am really glad that I finally gave a Discworld witches book 5 stars because I love the witches as characters, but the books with them always seem to include some scenes I don’t love. This one has them too, but they didn’t bother me enough to rate it lower given that I absolutely loved most of this story. ( )

owned

Loksins kynnir Pratchett til sögunnar vondu gæjana sem bit er í. Þetta er fyrsta sagan sem fjallar um vampýrur og hér eru þær alfarið illar og nær óyfirstíganleg ógn. Það versta er að þær fengu heimboð í skírn og þar með eru þær ekki bundnar af landamærum ríkis síns og hyggja á landvinninga. Nornirnar reyna að standa gegn þeim en uppgötva fljótt að þessar vampýrur hafa lagt mikið á sig að yfirvinna alla þekkta veikleika svo að þær virðast ósigranlegar. ( )