With the way this year started out, I figured some light, heart and wisdom would go a long way. It has taken me this long to go back to Sir Terry Pratchett’s books after his death, but I was feeling melancholy and in need of a lift.
Witches Abroad is a fish out of water/fairytale nod that features Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and Magrat Garlick (who shall always be known as Magrat the wet hen). The titular witches do indeed travel abroad, and I absolutely would read just a travelogue of their going there and back again , or sit down to a coffee book of Nanny’s postcards home. But there is a story that has to happen, a city to rescue, a Good Witch to be put to rest.
I don’t really like the way the setting for the grand finale, Genua (loosely New Orleans) is done. It seems….superficial, and ill-served. Yes, the book relies on the reader to pick up and be able to fill in references, and I’m aware it’s not the real New Orleans, but an amalgam- to me it stuck out. There are times when Terry Pratchett’s setting come alive as a character in and of themselves (Ankh-Morpork, the Chalk), this is not one of those times. It’s a minor quibble, however, in a story that has a lot going on.
Funny, philosophical, the good guys ‘win’, the bad guys are suitably punished, with a cast of rollicking extras, it’s a good distraction on a freezing cold, down kind of day.
I’m surprised you got a New Orleans feel from Genua, I always associated it with a French or Spanish city during Carnival. Actually, I always rather thought it was a mixture of whatever foreign cities he needed it to be, and that was why it was not as detailed in tone and feel as his other settings. When they talked about the flower-clock, I always thought of Holland, and in the books mentioning the Clacks, I always thought it was analogous to a place in France or Italy.