The Shepherd's Crown - Terry Pratchett
SPOILERS!
Granny Weatherwax is dead. (Godsdammit, why don't you just stomp all over my heart and have done with it.) And Tiffany Aching, hag of the hills, must step into her place, as the wall between worlds grows thin and the terrible, sharp creatures known as elves threaten to invade the Chalk.
The Shepherd's Crown is...sad. Pratchett's last book, it's mercifully better than I Shall Wear Midnight, perhaps a couple of hairs better than Raising Steam, but still less than even The Colour of Magic. Once again, his once-sparkling dialogue is wooden, his Discworld is ever less interesting as the forces of industrialisation eat it up, his philosophy unsubtle and ranting.
And yet. Something still remains: the ghost, perhaps, of a might-have-been; a spark of a story that will never, now, grow into the fire of something really wonderful.
It is a good ending for Tiffany, at least, if endings are ever good. But it's not a good ending for Discworld.
