Book #26: Soul Music by Terry Pratchett
Number of pages: 378
Rock and roll gets the Discworld treatment in a book with a cover that appears to have been inspired by Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell.
At the start of the book, we are introduced by Susan, who is attending school when she is visited by the Death of Rats and a raven called Quoth (in a parody of Edgar Allen Poe, he refuses to say a particular word beginning with "n"). She is later taken to Death's domain where the manservant Albert explains that she is Death's grand-daughter, and that she was raised here when she was young.
However, Death has gone missing - in fact he's joined the Klatchian Foreign Legion - and soon Susan finds herself taking over her grandfather's duties, until she finds out that a young musician called Imp (who has just changed his name to Buddy) is due to die soon.
Imp has just formed a band with some other characters, having discovered a craze known as "music with rocks in it", which the whole of Discworld is becoming obsessed with. However, it seems that something wants to keep Imp/Buddy alive, and not just Susan, who feels sorry for him. It soon becomes apparent that the "music with rocks in" is something that's alive, and that it is in control of the singers.
On the surface, the whole concept of Susan taking over from Death sounds like a rewrite of the fourth novel, Mort, and it does feel like the handling of rock and roll is similar to the portrayal of movies in Moving Pictures; however, I really enjoyed this book, mostly because of the large number of references that the book is filled with. Various well-known songs are quoted (sort of) throughout, and characters have names that pay homage to famous rockers like Buddy Holly, Cliff Richard and Noddy Holder. I did wonder if the band featuring in this book was loosely based on The Beatles, although I might be reading too much into that. One of my favourite references was a sequence where the Dean of University starts acting like James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause.
The book felt a bit weird at times, firstly since, although Death is on the cover, he isn't especially predominant within the storyline, and a lot of the recurring characters show up frequently, including the wizards, the librarian and some of the City Watch members, but overall I found it very enjoyable.
Next book: The Oxford Book of Exploration (Robin Hanbury-Tenison)