Terry Pratchett: A Hat Full Of Sky

Reviewed by DAVID LARSEN

There's a tendency for certain well-educated readers to dismiss Terry Pratchett's success as a lowest common denominator phenomenon. He's hugely popular, he writes fantasy, he's prolific — the literary equivalent of a Big Mac, right?

This is where I'm supposed to name-check Shakespeare, Dickens, Mozart, and every other high-culture genius who ever managed to pull big crowds. But I've been writing cheer-leader reviews of every Pratchett book I could get my hands on for some years now, and my attempts to adjust the attitudes of hardened literary snobs appear doomed.

So I shall dispense with the big name comparisons. Snobs, go your ways. Pratchett fans: you don't need this review. To the curious and those who wonder what a Nac Mac Feegle is: greetings.

Terry Pratchett is not Shakespeare. But where most writers aren't Shakespeare in the same way that an asteroid isn't Jupiter, Pratchett is at least a minor moon. He engages with great themes. He writes beautifully. His puns can have you groaning for months.

And the Nac Mac Feegle? The man himself once described them as "Scottish pixies who've seen Braveheart far too often."

Doubleday, $36.95

* David Larsen is an Auckland reviewer