This sequel to ‘The Weird Sisters’ features the same characters
as before: Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and their apprentice witch,
Magrat Garlick. This time they go on a trip abroad as the title implies.
There’s another witch at the start of the story who’s a fairy godmother
and just before she passes away, she leaves her job and wand to Magrat,
instructing her to go off to the city Genua. Granny and Nanny insist on
going with her so they all set out and along the way there is a lot of
weird fairy tale things going on that they don’t like very much. They
believe that someone is messing with the land and creating all kinds of
stories and forcing the locals to play parts in them against their will.
They say this must be stopped so that’s what they go do once they get
to Genua and find out who’s doing it. It is very funny all the way
through with numerous fairy tales references. Magrat’s new fairy
godmother wand is only useful for turning things into pumpkins, there’s a
princess named Ella, Little Red Riding Hood shows up as does a road
made out of yellow bricks, and they visit an entire castle of sleeping
people covered with vines. But that’s not all, there’s also a cat that
turns into a person, banana daiquiris, a voodoo witch and two sisters
that totally despise one another. Out of the three in the Discworld
series I’ve read, I’d say this was the best; that may not be saying much
as there are about 40. As with ‘The Weird Sisters’, the plot moves a
bit slow as there is more focus on character conversations, making fun
at situations and at times the narrator decides to go on for a while
about something other than the story. Also as with the other books,
there are no chapters to segment the story and it will change without
notice from one scene to the next. I listened to this one and it was all
the more entertaining hearing the lines than just reading them. This is
really not something I could recommend to everyone, as it’s kind of
weird and has a sense of humor that is not everyone’s cup of tea,
however if you are in the mood for a rather off the wall comedy/fantasy
then this could be for you (audio version is particularly recommended).
[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try
The Witches, by Terry Pratchett, which comes before Witches Abroad in the Disc World series. You may also like the
Fables series by Bill Willingham, also about fairy tales, but different.]
[ official
Witches Abroad page on the official
Terry Pratchett web site ]
Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?
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