BOOKS: A Hat Full of Sky

Terry Pratchett's A Hat Full of Sky, the sequel to last year's The Wee Free Men, is "a young readers novel of Discworld". Which, as far as I can tell, simply means, "a novel of Discworld that doesn't use the words 'arse' or 'bastard'". It's not like the usual Discworld novels are horribly profane; anything even remotely dirty is usually disguised with innuendo, anyway.

The young readers Discworld books (three, so far) do suffer slightly from a smaller scope, though. They involve far fewer characters than usual, fewer plot threads, and fewer digressions. Especially these last two books, which both feature Tiffany Aching, a young witch-in-training. They're basically a straight shot through from introduction of problem to solution of said problem. A Hat Full of Sky more so than The Wee Free Men, because Men at least had to take the time to introduce both Tiffany and the Nac Mac Feegle (the Wee Free Men of the title), tiny belligerent fairy creatures which aid Tiffany in her troubles.

In Hat, the enemy is a Hiver, a non-corporeal intelligence which takes over the minds of powerful creatures and people -- like, say, a young witch-in-training. But the book never really succeeds in making the Hiver a credible threat. It's defeated fairly early in the story, with relatively little difficulty. And then the story drags on, and the Hiver has to be defeated again, but in a different way. And then the story drags on after that, with a long wrap-up sequence at the Witch Trials (a competition, not a burning) and beyond, delving a little too tediously into the nature of being a witch, ground which Pratchett has tread many times before.

The book was enjoyable enough (no Discworld book has ever been bad), with several good laughs, and Granny Weatherwax, a great recurring Discworld character, makes an extended appearance. But the book feels like a contract fulfillment more than anything else, padded with rehashed ideas and themes from other Discworld books, including Wee Free Men. It was too soon to revisit Tiffany, although the Nac Mac Feegle were every bit as entertaining as last time out (even without the return of my favorite, Not-as-big-as-medium-sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-wee-Jock-Jock). A lesser but still readable entry in the series.