Reaper Man is a fantasy novel written by Terry Pratchett who is an English author. He writes mostly comical fantasy novels. He is best known of the Discworld series (about 40 book) and the novel Reaper Man is the eleventh book in the Discworld series. It was published in 1991.

Book begins when Death has retired. Or, rather, has been retired. Reason WHY is that he has become too much of a character. He has gotten his own hourglass, his own time and at the end of it he will die. But Death seems to be happy, he finally has his own time and now he is going to waste it.

Death starts working at the old ladys farm. Same time all over the discworld, everyone and everything suddently stops dying. Book follows charecter named Windle Poons, an old wizard who was meant to die but that seems to be a bit hard when the Death isn’t around. He tries to find out the way to die as the same time the whole town of Ankh-Morpork is in chaos.

Book is rather less satisfying than other Pratchetts works, but is largely rescued by Windle Poons. I never much cared for him before he died, but the zombie Windle Poons is hilarious and can carry the entire book while rest of the charecter, except the Death, are easy to forget and impersonal. Death has very philosophical part in the book. Novel has the great Pratchett property that, even if the plot doesn’t always work, there will be some great lines or discovered references that will put a smile on your face.

Language of the book was quite hard to me read. I needed dictionary many time. Propably hardest was to understand the words that Pratchett had made by himself by twisting english and the sentences were also very long: “Studies have shown that an ant can carry one hundred times its own weight, but there is no known limit to the lifting power of the average tiny eighty-year-old Spanish peasant grandmother.” It was very nice that Pratchett had highlighted Deaths speech: “Picture a tall, dark figure, surrounded by cornfields…
NO, YOU CAN’T RIDE A CAT. WHO EVER HEARD OF THE DEATH OF RATS RIDING A CAT? THE DEATH OF RATS WOULD RIDE SOME KIND OF DOG.
Picture more fields, a great horizon-spanning network of fields, rolling in gentle waves…
DON’T ASK ME I DON’T KNOW. SOME KIND OF TERRIER, MAYBE.
…fields of corn, alive, whispering in the breeze…
RIGHT, AND THE DEATH OF FLEAS CAN RIDE IT TOO. THAT WAY YOU KILL TWO BIRDS WITH ONE STONE.
…awaiting the clockwork of the seasons.
METAPHORICALLY.” Thanks to that it was a bit easier to stay focused on the text and not to wonder WHO said WHAT.

I would recommend this book to all who likes crazy humor, funny charecters and discworld series. Yet this isn’t maybe the book to start if you have not ever before read Trerry Pratchets Discworld production.