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    Lords and Ladies: A Discworld Novel
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    Lords and Ladies: A Discworld Novel
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    Lords and Ladies: A Discworld Novel
    Ebook416 pages5 hours

    Lords and Ladies: A Discworld Novel

    By Terry Pratchett

    4.5/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    "Unadulterated fun . . . witty, frequently hilarious. . . Pratchett parodies everything in sight." —San Francisco Chronicle

    From bestselling author Sir Terry Pratchett, the world’s foremost practitioner of satire and send-up, this delightful installment in the Discworld series finds Granny Weatherwax and her tiny coven of witches faced with their biggest challenge yet as an invasion of elves threatens to disrupt Lancres' dreamy Midsummer Night — and throw their world into chaos.

    It's a dreamy Midsummer Night in the Kingdom of Lancre, and music and romance fill the air. But on this night, dreams are especially powerful — strong enough to pull down the wall between realities. Magic and mischief are afoot, threatening to spoil the royal wedding of King Verence and his favorite witch, Magrat Garlick.

    The witches return home to discover that elves have invaded Lancre, particularly nasty creatures. Soon it won't be only champagne that's flowing through the streets . . .

    The Discworld novels can be read in any order, but Lords and Ladies is the fourth book in the Witches series. The Witches collection includes:

    • Equal Rites
    • Wyrd Sisters
    • Witches Abroad
    • Lords and Ladies
    • Maskerade
    • Carpe Jugulum
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateOct 13, 2009
    ISBN9780061807527
    Unavailable
    Lords and Ladies: A Discworld Novel
    Author

    Terry Pratchett

    Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) was the acclaimed creator of the globally revered Discworld series. In all, he authored more than fifty bestselling books, which have sold more than one hundred million copies worldwide. His novels have been widely adapted for stage and screen, and he was the winner of multiple prizes, including the Carnegie Medal. He was awarded a knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to literature in 2009, although he always wryly maintained that his greatest service to literature was to avoid writing any.

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    Reviews for Lords and Ladies

    4.5/5

    88 ratings58 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Another Excellent book by Terry Pratchett! The witches have their hands full with the Lords and Ladies trying to come back through the barrier. Very interesting take on the fair folk. And also wisdom in looking back on ones own life and the paths one has chosen.
    • 4/5
      This is one of the few Terry Pratchett/Discworld novels that I haven't outright loved. It had all the same elements but it seemed a little scattered and for some reason it just didn't connect in the same way. However, the witches are in top form and the kingdom is hilarious. It's an enjoyable read but it wasn't keeping me on the edge of my seat and wanting to just listen a little more. It took me a decent amount of time to get through this one which is unusual for Pratchett books.
    • 4/5
      A glimpse of Granny Weatherwax's pre-granny life! My favorite, Ponder Stibbons, finds himself in Lancre. There was so much to love.

      There’s an uppity girl making trouble in Granny’s backyard. She has no respect for real witchcraft and has made a deal with the devil (well, okay, the elves) for “real power”. But elves, the Lords and Ladies of the title, are not coming to Discworld in humanity’s best interests. How can Granny and Nanny Ogg, and yes, even Magrat and Ponder, stop them? And why does the Archchancellor have a crop circle on his head?

      The discussions of alternate timelines were great, as always, and give me hope when I make a wrong decision in this timeline. I loved to hear about Esme Weatherwax’s younger days. This book felt a little cluttered and the plot was somewhat slower than I have come to expect from Pratchett. But enjoyable nonetheless.
    • 5/5
      Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and Magrat Garlick are back and have to deal with an outbreak of crop circles, possibly caused by elves trying to break through to the real world, while Magrat finds out that King Verence means to marry her and make her queen. I love the Witches and all their story-lines; the characters are so wonderfully wise, silly, and funny that it doesn't matter which story they're in, they'll be great. The final face-off with the bees was very nicely foreshadowed. Wonderful series, which I will be listening/reading for a long time.
    • 4/5
      This is one of Pratchett's Witches book, the previous being Witches Abroad (1989).In this book Magrat Garlick, the youngest of the 3, is to be married to King Verence and must learn how to Queen. Meanwhile the Lancre Morris Dancers are preparing for an entertainment for the wedding party and helped by much intake of alcohol (Scumble) they inadvertently awaken the Elves from within the stone circle. Elves are bad. But they have style and glamour which helps to win over the people of Lancre who don't really believe they're harmful. The witches know otherwise and along with Ridcully the slightly incompetent wizzard, who can't spell wizard properly, must set about convincing people about the true nature of said elves and doing something about them...Utterly silly and typically Pratchett. Good stuff.
    • 4/5
      Slightly better than 3.5* but not as hilarious as the previous books in the Witches subseries. I liked the twist on Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream"
    • 4/5
      Pratchett's version of A Midsummer Night's Dream.Granny and Nanny are beginning to growing on me.
    • 3/5
      grandma weatherwax! fabulous creature!
    • 5/5
      It's hilarious!
    • 3/5
      grandma weatherwax! fabulous creature!
    • 5/5
      I'd been putting this off for a while because I'd read several less-than-enthusiastic reviews, and also found that I didn't enjoy the Witches books as much as some of the other Discword sub-series.When I finally read this book, I adored it. I read straight through it in a single afternoon, and collapsed in uncontrollable laughter several times. I think I missed a lot of the Midsummer Night's Dream references - I've never read the play (note to self: must get around to that one) - but I caught enough to appreciate how cleverly it's done.Pratchett's characters are as well-written as usual, and the book is brimming over with humour and intelligence. I wasn't conscious of pages passing, and I was very surprised when I got to the end to realise the book was very nearly 400 pages: it felt sharp and concise and moved along swiftly.This is now one of my favourite Pratchett books.
    • 4/5
      The storyline is a little more complex than normal and at times a little hard to follow. However, when one does finally get a good understanding of what is happening and what has happened, it seems rather profound. As with all Mr. Pratchett's Discworld novels, the characters are slightly out of the ordinary and the story filled with humor.
    • 4/5
      Granny Weatherwax is up against a young witch who thinks she knows everything, and his meddled with things she shouldn’t. Turns out elves aren’t as nice as she thought. Granny needs the assistance of her coven, but calling almost-Queen Magrat a wet hen wasn’t the most tactful of moves. And she keeps getting distracting glimpses of an alternative universe where her life went in a very different direction.
    • 4/5
      “Lords and Ladies” is a euphemism for elves, for faerie-folk, who are threatening to cause problems in Lancre. I think there might be some A Midsummer Night's Dream references going on which I would have appreciated those more if I had more than vague idea about that particular play. But I was still entertained! The plot went in some unexpected directions, there are some young women who might become witches and Magrat versus the elves was a particular highlight. Magrat woke up.And knew she wasn’t a witch anymore. The feeling just crept over her, as part of the normal stock-taking that any body automatically does in the first seconds of emergence from the pit of dreams: arms: 2, legs: 2, existential dread: 58%, randomized guilt: 94%, witchcraft level: 00.00.
    • 5/5
      Lords and Ladies is the fourteenth Discworld book. Unlike some of the others, you really should read the prior books Wyrd Sisters and Witches Abroad before picking up Lords and Ladies.Lords and Ladies is a very loose parody of A Midsummer’s Night Dream. The witches have arrived back from Genua to a Lancre summer where crop circles are blooming like flowers. Magrat is to be married to King Verence on Midsummer’s Day, and Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg suspect that sadistic elves are trying to break into Lancre. At the same time, some wizards from the Unseen University decide to attend the weddingWith all this going on, it is remarkable how coherent Lords and Ladies is. Everything ties together very well and all merges into a cohesive whole. The plotting and pacing is on point, and the pages easily flip by.What really makes Lords and Ladies stand out to me is the character growth of Magrat and Granny. Early on in the novel, Magrat gets into the inevitable fight with the older witches: she’s tired of them keeping her out of the loop and treating her like an assistant, not a real witch. As a result of the fight, Magrat is determined to give up witching and just be queen instead. But almost instantaneously she’s at a loss for what to do. She drifts through the castle, feeling bored out of her mind by tapestry work.“Magrat was bored. She’d never been bored when she was a witch. Permanently bewildered and overworked yes, but not bored.”Meanwhile, Granny Weatherwax is beginning to feel uncertain for the first time in her life. She’s also makes some mistakes, principally in regard to how she treats Magrat, that have a real effect upon the plot. Granny is often prone to coming off as an unstoppable force, so this goes a long way into making Granny more of a believable character.I also want to say that I love the friendship between Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg. Both of them chose very different paths in life but can’t imagine living differently. Granny never wishes that she’d chosen marriage and children instead – she’s perfectly contented with the life she has.“Other people would probably say: I wasn’t myself. But Granny Weatherwax didn’t have anyone else to be.”I would highly recommend Lords and Ladies, especially for people already familiar with the witches.Originally posted on The Illustrated Page.
    • 3/5
      It started slow and I was beginning to wonder how is it possible that a story with Granny Weatherwax could be like this. Then it picked up a bit and almost until one heart-stopping moment near the end it was just an ok story with occasional brilliant flashes that I have come to expect from a Discworld book.
      As usual, Nanny Ogg was hilarious. Granny's out of the character behaviour got a satisfactory explanation.

      The lords and ladies are elves and they want to come back. Since they are murdering monsters, it's no wonder there are those who don't agree with the idea. The whole issue is best described in the following: 'Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
      Elves are marvelous. They cause marvels.
      Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
      Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
      Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
      Elves are terrific. They beget terror.
      The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.
      No one ever said elves are nice.
      Elves are bad.'       The jolt I got from that hart-stopping moment near the end was enough to save this story. I thought Pratchett killed one of my favourite characters.
    • 5/5
      July 9 2007

      ahhh. That's a good un.

      ***

      July 15 2014

      What we have here is: A Midsummer Night's Dream, an impending apocalypse (by elves), a young, rather soppy, witch's efforts to find a place for herself as a Queen of Lancre, the courting of Nanny Ogg, and a romantic backstory for Granny Weatherwax. And jokes.

      Magrat's a bit hard to love. The elder witches don't give her an easy time, and don't have much respect for her methodology. Nor does she get more respect as the soon-to-be-queen, although she does have to wear more unpleasant clothes, and she's limited to doing tapestry, for the most part. She's as practical as Susan, but utterly lacking in Susan's confidence. Ah, well, she finds some iron to stiffen her spine.

      And Greebo makes an appearance.

      Personal copy.
    • 2/5
      I'm just not a huge fan of Discworld. Lots of wit, some of it to my taste, but if there's substance it escapes me - at least in this book. Some of the other entries in the series are more interesting and so I do keep trying to keep up.
    • 4/5
      I've come to the realization, after reading a third of the Discworld novels, that Pratchett would have to shit the bed quite strenuously to produce a bad one.

      That being said, while I got a few chuckles out of this one, and quite enjoyed the story overall, this one didn't seem quite as successful as the last three or four. I can't put my finger on why. Hell, maybe it's just me in a coronavirus funk.

      Still, for all of that, even a slightly unsuccessful Discworld novel is time well-spent.
    • 4/5
      I can really relate to Magrat.
    • 4/5
      I felt this one took a while to really pick-up and get going, so I am wavering between 3 or 4 stars. Would rate it 7/10. I'm going towards the 4 stars because the themes, clever use or misuse of words (reinterpreted - Discworld. Always Brilliant!) and good character development of the 3 witches and Ridicully. And made me laugh out loud a few times, couldn't help myself.
    • 5/5
      Another great story from the very much missed Terry Pratchett.
      Read this countless times and will do so many more, along with his others.
    • 4/5
      Ridcully gets mad at his other selves because they didn't invite him to their weddings. Magrat marries Verence. Jason Ogg shoes a unicorn.
    • 4/5
      Returning to Lords and Ladies for a re-read after many years is like slipping into a warm bath. One of my favourite novels, one of the first Pratchetts I ever read, about a Shakespeare play I enjoy deeply (except the last act, of course). It's a lightweight tale about fairies trying to take over the Discworld (or at least the bit of it important to Granny Weatherwax), and contains all the gentle comedy you'd expect but little of the biting satire that is Pratchett at his best. I think the witches are his best characters, and this is a fine little adventure. Recommended!
    • 2/5
      I'm afraid this is not up to the standard I have come to expect from Pratchett. It's flaccid, bloated and sparse. As with all Pratchett books it is still oddly a pleasure to read. It follows on from Witches Abroad and you'd probably be well advised to read that first, if not Equal Rites and Wyrd Sisters too. It has a similar conceit of Stories, which is wearing a little thin for me this time around. Even Witches Abroad traded on it's characterisation rather than its theme but here much of the strength of that is lost as the witches split up, Magrat undergoes a transformation and Weatherwax is offstage for much of the happenings. In fact, a lot of the interesting bits are offstage in this book
    • 5/5
      I said to Brian the other week 'oh, Small Gods, that's my favourite Pratchett!' and he said 'oh, I thought you said it was Lords and Ladies', and I said 'oh, that's wrong'. But reconsidering, it was probably right after all.What do I love about this book, which I think is a strong contender for my favourite book by my favourite author? Well, it's an engaging, page turning story, how Lancre defends itself about the attack of the elves. And it's funny, and parody, like all Pratchett. But really......it's about the themes, themes that resonate and ring true and comfort and help. The main one Granny Weatherwax's story, worrying she is near to death, and looking at all she has sacrificed and never had. The Queen's barb of 'I could show you Grandmother Weatherwax'. And the comfort of the trousers of time, the thousands of Granny Weatherwaxes, some of them happy, and this one happy too. Also the burning call that 'the price of being the best is always having to be the best'. Also, Magrat, being squeezed into boxes, but in the boxes finding a story that not all Queens are wimples and embroidery, married in her chainmail and tatted muddy silk, having realized the strength in her core...Love this book, and love coming back to it. You can't cross the same river twice... Yes you can, there's a bridge. And this book is one of the bridges.
    • 5/5
      The Lancre coven return home in time for Magrat Garlick's wedding, which is a surprise to her, and to find certain "Lords and Ladies" wanting to crash the event. Terry Pratchett returns to Discworld as the witches face off with faeries trying to make their way back into reality as Magrat tries to figure out how to be a Queen after finding her career as witch not going well while Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg just continue on with their witchy ways.Having found the previous two witches books (Wyrd Sisters and Witches Abroad) not particularly to my liking compared to other Discworld installments, I was a bit hesitant when starting this book however that changed as Pratchett's story unfolded. Following not only the perspectives of the three witches but also Magrat's betrothed King Verence, two of Nanny's sons Jason and Shawn, and numerous wizards from the Unseen University. The use of magical quantum mechanics is better explained than "mirror magic" in Witches Abroad and feels like it is worked into the plot easier throughout the book. The main antagonist once against has a history with Granny, but this time the Faerie Queen and her minions just come off as more real than other antagonists the witches have faced. But the biggest thing that made this book better than the previous witches books was the character development of Magrat, who instead of seemingly remaining flat came into her own as the Fair Folk attached Lancre to be a real Queen.The humor and engaging story of "Lords and Ladies" makes this one of the best Discworld books that I've read and major improvement over both Wyrd Sisters and Witches Abroad. If future Witches books by Pratchett are up to the standards of "Lords and Ladies" then I can't wait to read them.
    • 5/5
      This re-telling of A Midsummer Night's Dream (yes, the bard's play) is clever Terry Pratchett work through and through. The book even feels like it has Shakespeare's 5 act structure. Every detail at the beginning of the story is a setup to a plot point later in the book, very nicely done; for that, this book earned 5 stars from me.There are a few speeches by the character of Granny Weatherwax that definitely feel like The Voice of Terry Pratchett, so I found myself trying to apply those words to England, and the planet Earth in general, to determine what his message was. Maybe I was reading too much into it. Maybe I was applying our year 2020 debates on climate change, criticisms of the Green Revolution, COVID-19 pandemic conditions and responses, and popular isolationist politics to the text when it wasn't really there (I think this book was first published in 1992). Again, that's clever Terry Pratchett work -- you can make what you want out of it. At the very least, there is creative satire, excellent puns, laugh-out-loud wordplay, and raunchy allusions.I did find that the Granny Weatherwax speeches slowed down the action at the tense climax of the story. I like to believe Pratchett did that intentionally to highlight those speeches as the real coreof the story.~bint
    • 5/5
      Pratchett has an unbelievable knack for taking an idea that has been around for centuries, stretching it out with a rolling-pin and kneading it into something majestic and full of such originality you wonder how any could have missed it beforehand.

      Those Witches are at it again. Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg are back from travels to fight against the Lords and Ladies--Elegant folk, fair, beautiful... glamourous.
      In terms of humour, it's up there with the best of the funny Discworld novels. There are footnotes galore and you really can't get by without wiping laughter tears from your eyes at the sublime and the just plain silly. (22/8/11)
    • 5/5
      This is another excellent Discworld novel and perhaps Pratchett's best effort at character development. By the end of the book, you feel like you've really gotten to know Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, Mustrum Ridcully, Magrat Garlick, the Ogg brothers, and various others. Well done, Sir Terry!In this book, one of the Witches series, Magrat has quit her witching ways and is about to marry the King and become Queen of Lancre. Except she finds that it's boring being a queen and she misses being a witch. Meanwhile, these young witch wannabees are doing things they shouldn't be doing and open up a door to this world from another in which evil elves -- not the cute ones we envision -- appear to wreak havoc and even kill. The elves' queen is determined to take over and it's everything Granny and Nanny can do to stop her. Along the way, there's actually romance for the older witches (and a wizard and dwarf), a lot of phallic jokes, standard Pratchett humor, a funny scene when meek Magrat goes off and takes on the elves herself with a crossbow and sword. Even though this is one of the Witch series books, I think it could probably stand on its own, although I also think it would help to have read several others so that you're already familiar with some of the characters, such as Unseen University's Librarian, who's in Lancre with some other wizards for the wedding. This is actually kind of a dark book for Pratchett, humor withstanding, and free will is a topic that's explored here. I can find no fault with this book and I definitely recommend it.