Audiobook Review: The Shephard’s Crown, by Terry Pratchett, read by Stephen Briggs

A SHIVERING OF WORLDS

Deep in the Chalk, something is stirring. ¬The owls and the foxes can sense it, and Tiffany Aching feels it in her boots. An old enemy is gathering strength.

This is a time of endings and beginnings, old friends and new, a blurring of edges and a shifting of power. Now Tiffany stands between the light and the dark, the good and the bad.

As the fairy horde prepares for invasion, Tiffany must summon all the witches to stand with her. To protect the land. Her land.

There will be a reckoning. . .

THE FINAL DISCWORLD NOVEL 

My Review

I waited almost 6 years to read this book, I have it in hardback – from a charity shop – and I’ve been trying to read it for a couple of years, but I couldn’t. I just stare at it. I started reading it, but then I got to the part where Granny Weatherwax died, and I just couldn’t go on.

So last month I used my Audible credit to buy the audio book. I took a few day to download it, and then earlier this week I took a walk to the shop and listened to the first hour. Today I listened to the rest.

This final Discworld book brings together characters and storylines from earlier Witches (including Esk!) and Tiffany Aching books, as well as new characters like Geoffrey the boy who wants to be a witch, to fight against the elves, who once again plan an incursion into the Disc.

I cried! So much! I’m still crying a bit. That’s it. It’s over. No more new Discworld. How do we go on? What happens to Tiffany? What are the names of Verence and Magrat’s children? Who is You the cat? So much I need to know!

I loved the story. Tiffany is all grown up and taking on the mantel of Hag o’ Hags, and has to lead the witches and their allies against their oldest enemy, and it is glorious. Tiffany realising she has to delegate, and that her strength is in her land, were really beautiful. The writing was powerful and the battles were exciting. I liked that as part of the plot we learn what older characters have been up to since they last appeared in the novels and how the world is changing with the trains. The old world is ending, but a new world has been born.

Stephen Briggs has an excellent voice for audiobooks. Very soothing, expressive and he does the accents.