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    Witches Abroad: A Discworld Novel
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    Witches Abroad: A Discworld Novel
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    Witches Abroad: A Discworld Novel
    Ebook344 pages5 hours

    Witches Abroad: A Discworld Novel

    By Terry Pratchett

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Be careful what you wish for...

    Once upon a time there was a fairy godmother named Desiderata who had a good heart, a wise head, and poor planning skills—which unforunately left the Princess Emberella in the care of her other (not quite so good and wise) godmother when DEATH came for Desiderata. So now it's up to Magrat Garlick, Granny Weatherwax, and Nanny Ogg to hop on broomsticks and make for far-distant Genua to ensure the servant girl doesn't marry the Prince.

    But the road to Genua is bumpy, and along the way the trio of witches encounters the occasional vampire, werewolf, and falling house (well this is a fairy tale, after all). The trouble really begins once these reluctant foster-godmothers arrive in Genua and must outwit their power-hungry counterpart who'll stop at nothing to achieve a proper "happy ending"—even if it means destroying a kingdom.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateOct 13, 2009
    ISBN9780061809729
    Unavailable
    Witches Abroad: 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 Witches Abroad

    4/5

    2,592 ratings76 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I think I'm going to like these witches books. This one follows Granny Weatherwax and Co as they travel to forn parts for Magrat to be a fairy godmother in Genua. Along the way they find out they are part of a story. And they stumble into a bunch of other stories that are being played out. Someone is messing with reality and turning it into a fairy tale. Good thing the witches are on the case. Granny Weatherwax knows how to be pragmatic, even if she doesn't know how to speak that foreign lingo. The whole time they were traveling, all I wanted to do was join them. Even for the night in the vampire - terrorized village. It would be so entertaining. And this book was very entertaining.
    • 5/5
      When Magrat Garlick becomes a fairy godmother, Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg join her on a trip to Genua (Discworld's version of New Orleans) to stop Lilith from turning the whole world into a fairy tale. I tend to enjoy spins on classic fairy tales and Pratchett gives every thinkable tale a new treatment here; Cinderella and vampires and zombies and Oz are all subject to the witches' "headology." As always, Nigel Planer does a great job narrating the audio book.
    • 4/5
      Granny Weatherwax and her two fellow witches go on a working vacation of sorts (leaving a swath of confusion and bemusement behind them) to settle up a fairy godmother who's trying to turn life into a storybook.Pratchett takes up traditional fairy tales and plonks them down in NOLA, essentially. Fun, with the usual strong characters. I have new-found respect for Granny, too.
    • 5/5
      More of my favourite witches! This one's a lot of fun, and shows off a little more of the dark side of Discworld magic. One of my favourites.
    • 4/5
      Ha, this one had me laughing out loud all the time. Granny, Nanny and Magrat go on an adventure to prevent a young woman marrying the prince. Stories have power and like their actors to follow the script. Sometimes stories are feed to become stronger and force people to follow along. Granny has the wisdom, that you can't MAKE people happy, only they can do that for themselves, sometimes you can help them out though.Great book, very funny. Especially the references to the Lord of the Rings.
    • 3/5
      One of the weaker Discworld novels. For a book about the power of story, it ironically has very little in the way of plot. It's really a series of running jokes about Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat in foreign parts.
    • 5/5
      The novels within Terry Pratchett's Discworld series feature different sets of characters. Some, for instance, focus on Commander Vimes and the motley crew that comprises the Night Watch. Others feature the even motlier crew of wizards who comprise the faculty of Unseen University. The figure of DEATH (the grim reaper whose speech is always transcribed in ALL CAPS) shows up in many of the novels; indeed, some focus on him and his unusual profession.And then there are the witches. A friend says that, for her, these are the best novels in the series. I've been more lukewarm in my feelings toward those books.Until I read WITCHES ABROAD. Perhaps I now need to go back and reread the Discworld witch-centered novels that I've previously dismissed.
    • 4/5
      Always worth rereading and a fortunate choice for a trip that involved a two hour delay at the Greyhound station. The theory of narrative inevitability should take its rightful place with other great literary theories while citizens should learn to beware of leaders who seem determined to fit them into stories. It rarely turns out well.
    • 4/5
      Another fun time with Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Og.
    • 3/5
      I didn't know whether to laugh, or to take this book seriously. Seriously! This book follows three witches who are fairy godmothers, yet they can't seem to do anything right. People don't know if they should be afraid of them, or to just humor them. I feel like I need to read this book over and over to understand everything that is going on. Its one of those books that will stay with you for a while.
    • 5/5
      Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat have to make sure Emberella doesn't marry the Prince. This means a journey to Genua (leading to speculation over the possibilities of the commercial broomstick: serving food and telling the passengers what how to crash if the magic fails would be straightforward, but would it be better to fly under the banner Three Witches Airborne, Pan Air or - in Magrat's case - Virgin?), battles with foreign food and languages (Cwuissses dee Grenolly and banananana dakry, anyone?) and funny business with fairy tales.Excellent. Hysterical. Go and read it.
    • 3/5
      Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick go to Genua to interfere with a kitchen maid marrying a prince. The witches have a very British empire distaste for traveling, despite being very adaptable.Baron Samedi seemed a little flat - one whole side of his persona was just left out (virility and debauchery). He's really the spirit of disruption in Mardi Gras (Fat Lunchtime, apparently) so he should have had more part to play in the denouement.
    • 3/5
      no. not really
    • 5/5
      It's another wonderful story from Terry Pratchett, this time involving the three witches, as they use all their ingenuity to overcome an evil relative.
    • 5/5
      Witches Abroad is the twelfth book in the Discworld series, and the second one following the witches from Wyrd Sisters, which you’d probably want to read first to get introduced to the characters.Witches Abroad revolves around fairy tales. Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and Magrat journey to Genua (Discworld New Orleans) to stop a kitchen maid from marrying the prince.I love what this book does with fairy tales, how it mashes them up, many tales at once, all seen from the perspective of already established characters. The best moment has to be when a farmhouse falls on Nanny Ogg.But possibly because of the focus on fairy tales, Witches Abroad has real problems with its pacing. The first half of the book is the three witches traveling to Genua and undergoing various encounters along the way. This is hilarious but slow moving. The plot doesn’t get compact and moving until into the second half when they actually reach Genua.I love the witches trio. They bicker and fight and have an overall wonderful dynamic. Nanny Ogg is funny and convivial, Magrat is young and lacks confidence in herself, and Granny Weatherwax is confident to the point of arrogance and always knows who she is. Granny’s the hero of the book, undoubtedly, and here she has a worthy opponent.“What was supposed to be so special about a full moon? It was only a big circle of light. And the dark of the moon was only darkness. But halfway between the two, when the moon was between the worlds of light and dark, when even the moon lived on the edge…maybe then a witch could believe in the moon.”Something very unusual about Witches Abroad is just how much it is focused around female characters. The trio of witches are the center of the story, their opponent is a fairy godmother who bends stories to her will, and the witch’s main support consists of a voodoo witch who lives in the swamp outside Genua. I read an assertion somewhere that it fails the reverse Bechdel test – having two named male characters who talk to each other about something other than a woman. This isn’t actually true. Witches Abroad passes due to one conversation between a named male character and Death, who uses male pronouns. But the fact that it comes so close to failing shows just how remarkable it is, especially for a fantasy book written by a male author.While Witches Abroad might not be as deep as some of Pratchett’s other works, it still has its moments. In a large part this is because of the contrast between fairy godmothers and witches – fairy godmothers give you what you want, and witches give you what you need. The overarching idea is that you can’t make people’s lives better by forcing them to act as you want.“You can’t go around building a better world for people. Only people can build a better world for people. Otherwise it’s just a cage.”I’d recommend Witches Abroad for people who liked Wyrd Sisters, who love fairy tales, or who want a book focused around excellent female characters.Originally posted on The Illustrated Page.
    • 3/5
      Desiderata, die alte Hexe und gute Fee stirbt, ohne eine Nachfolgerin ausgebildet zu haben. Es trifft unverhofft die junge Hexe Magrat, welche die Aufgabe erbt, die junge Frau Ella in der fernen Stadt Gennua davon abzuhalten, den Prinzen zu heiraten. Dabei soll sie auf keinen Fall auf die Hilfe von Oma Wetterwachs und Nanny Ogg zurückgreifen...Ein typischer Scheibenwelt-Roman, unterhaltsam, stellenweise witzig, aber nicht ganz so peppig, wie ich die anderen beiden in Erinnerung habe.
    • 4/5
      Although there were parts of Equal Rites and Wyrd Sisters that I really enjoyed, they are not my favourite Discworld of the novels and I was unenthusiastic about the witches travelling to foreign parts. Was that going to be funny or tedious? But this isn’t just about Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat going abroad, it’s about them taking on fairy-godmothering and it’s excellent. Exactly the sort of commentary on fairytales that I like.“You can't go around building a better world for people. Only people can build a better world for people. Otherwise it’s just a cage. Besides you don’t build a better world by choppin’ heads off and giving decent girls away to frogs.”
    • 4/5
      Another great episode about the witches. Magrat becomes a fairy godmother and is tasked with NOT letting Emberella be forced to marry the prince. The other two witches stick their warty noses in.
    • 4/5
      One of my favorite Discworld books.
    • 4/5
      An excellent riff on fairy tales. I'm not actually sure what to say about it beyond that. If you've read any of the discworld books, this one won't disappoint you. I listened to the audiobook, and Nigel Planer did an excellent job, though I disliked his Magrat and Ella choices; his voices for them both made them sound dull and stupid. On the other hand, I've also listened to other Pratchett books narrated by Celia Imrie and I really disliked her Granny Weatherwax voice; Planer gets Granny just right - she's the crone without hurting your ear drums. The plays on words are always my favorite part of Pratchett books and Witches Abroad did not disappoint (Emberella = Cinderella). I also loved the we finally saw Granny's magic in a very decisive show; I hope it won't be the only time we see it.
    • 5/5
      Re-reread April 2015.

      I bought this Roc hardcover edition to replace my tattered and then lost paperback. It's a story of good and evil, a parody of almost every fairytale we remember, plus an account of what happens when an unstoppable object (Granny Weatherwax) meets an immovable object (her sister, Lily).
    • 4/5
      "Alle Weisheitssuchenden haben eine merkwürdige Gemeinsamkeit: Ganz gleich, wo sie auch wohnen mögen, sie suchen die Weisheit immer in der fernsten Ferne. Denn die Weisheit ist eines der wenigen Dinge, die zunehmender Entfernung größer aussehen." - Es ist nicht die Weisheit, die die Hexen Oma Wetterwachs, Nanny Ogg und Magrat Knoblauch suchen, die drei suchen vielmehr, ein Märchen zu verhindern. Dazu fliegen sie in die ferne Stadt Gennua, erleben unterwegs zusammen mit dem Kater Greebo jede Menge Abenteuer und stürzen sich sodann in die Wirrnisse des "Fetten Mittag", um die Prinzessin Ella davor zu bewahren, einen Frosch-Prinzen küssen zu müssen. Dass in der Stadt die eigentlich gute Fee Lily dank ihrer Spiegelmagie das Sagen hat, macht die Sache nicht gerade einfacher. Doch am Schluss löst sich alles in Wohlgefallen auf - mehr oder weniger. Und weil jedes Märchen ein Ende hat bleibt auf der Heimreise auch noch Zeit, den Elefanten einen Besuch abzustatten.
    • 4/5
      ''Genua had once controlled the river mouth and taxed its traffic in a way that couldn't be called piracy because it was done by the city government.''Ah yes, the witches. Always an interesting experience. In this book, Magrat inherits a fairy godmother's wand is has to head off to "foreign parts" to prevent a girl from marrying a prince. And of course Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg decide that they have to go with her. And get mad about how different everything is and that witches don't get the same kind of respect and therefore can't get away with the same kind of bullying they do back home. I loved all the warped fairy tale references in this book. I didn't, however, like Granny Weatherwax. Her sense of entitlement and inflated self-worth are really rather irritating. I felt sorry for Magrat, who was just desperately trying to do her best and figure out how her wand works, but the older witches (especially Granny Weatherwax ) were so unkind to her about it.I definitely think that this was a book where I preferred the ideas and the plot to the characters for the most part. I know that Pratchett probably didn't go in with any bad intentions, but parts have just aged poorly. Still a fun read though.
    • 3/5
      I have a love/hate r'ship with the Discworld books. I
      I enjoy every encounter I have with Rincewind, the Luggage, and the Librarian.
      Carrot is mildly interesting
      Bits of concepts throughout the series are clever.
      Pretty much the rest of the characters, and books, annoy and/or frustrate me.
    • 5/5
      Oh. My. God.

      I couldn't begin to tell you how often I laughed out loud at this one. Pratchett's wit just seems to get sharper and sharper with each volume.
    • 5/5
      An old witch dies and passes her wand to Magrat, and some instructions that mean the three Discworld witches must travel abroad. An amusing story of foreign travel and fairy tales, with a lot of laugh-aloud humour, as well as some deeper forays into the myths behind children's stories. Very enjoyable.
    • 4/5
      Granny's sister is a Fairy Godmother. Magrat is The Other One.
    • 2/5
      Pratchett's witch stories rarely work for me.
    • 5/5
      A fairy godmother dies, leaving her wand to Magrat Garlick, with strict instructions to tell Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg not to come along for a trip to save her goddaughter from having to marry the prince like the evil godmother wants her to.This is the third book in the Witches miniseries, and the 12th in the complete Discworld series. I am usually a "must read it in order" stickler, but Discworld is one that I approach at random. The Witches is one of my favorites, though, and this one was no exception. Pratchett includes references to several fairy tales and classic fantasy tales from the Lord of the Rings to Narnia and probably a few that I missed. But because this is also a hilarious travel story in its own right - and who wouldn't want to see the nutty witches in foreign parts wreaking havoc? - it didn't really matter if I "got" it or not. Pure (well, okay, fairly impure because Nanny Ogg's along) fun.
    • 5/5
      This is the 3rd witches novel. You can read it by itself but it continues with the ideas of story and fairy tale begun in Wyrd Sisters. So here you've got the Quest, the Evil Twin etc, and of course the Three Witches. And it's there that the beauty of this little book lies, in the superbly drawn characters of the witches. Three more exact and well pictured people have rarely been drawn elsewhere in literature.