Last week, we watched the TV adaptation of Hogfather, which got me to re-read the book. The book is a lot funnier. Pratch­et­t's written de­scrip­tions don't translate very well to the screen.

The Hogfather is the Discworld's equivalent of Santa Claus: a large, jolly fat man who delivers presents to children on the longest night of the year. The Auditors, celestial bu­reau­crats who take a dim view of the messiness of human existence, decide to have the Hogfather killed. Death takes it upon himself to deliver the presents to children instead, while setting his …continue.

In the Seventies and Eighties, Tom Sharpe was a best­selling author in Britain, pumping out a dozen hilarious satires, marked by their savagery. His particular targets were apartheid, the British class system, and political cor­rect­ness. Then he dried up, producing only three books in the last twenty years.

Wilt in Nowhere is his fourth book about Henry Wilt, a lecturer at a third-rate community college, married to the formidable Eva and father of four ghastly quadru­plets. Eva takes the girls to America to stay with her rich uncle in Tennessee. Henry …continue.

About a year ago, I posted a link to some silly cat pictures. I just found the motherlode.

Charlie Asher is the pluperfect Beta Male: nerdy, neurotic, and possessed of too much imag­i­na­tion. But he is not imagining things when people start dropping dead around him, after his wife Rachel dies giving birth to Sophie. Gradually, he comes to realize that he has somehow been appointed a Death Merchant, a sort of Santa's Helper to Death. His role is to facilitate the ascendance of souls.

Over the years, he tries to get on with his life, raising Sophie, running his second-hand store, grieving for Rachel, and collecting …continue.

Rumpole of the Bailey is familiar to us from his later years as an old warhorse, a Fal­staffi­an character living a life of crime (defending criminals), drinking Chateau Thames Embankment at Pommeroy's wine bar, and sparring with re­cal­ci­trant judges, fellow members of his Chambers, and She Who Must Be Obeyed: his long-suffering wife, Hilda. He has often alluded to his first great case, the Penge Bungalow Murders, when alone and without a leader, he suc­cess­ful­ly saved a young man from hanging for a double murder.

At last, Rumpole …continue.

Thraxas is an middle-aged minor sorceror and retired warrior, who is entirely too fond of the bottle, his grub, and the racetrack. He long ago fell from grace at the palace in the city of Turai and now makes ends meet by discreet private in­ves­ti­ga­tions. He is oc­ca­sion­al­ly aided by Makri, a gladiator-turned-barmaid and would-be university student, who happens to be part Orc, part Elf, and half human.

This book was published as two separate novels in Britain, Thraxas and Thraxas and the Warrior Monks. The plots are fairly for­get­table, but …continue.

Pyramid Scheme is another humorous science fiction novel from the authors of Rats, Bats, and Vats and The Rats, The Bats, & The Ugly.

An alien probe, in the shape of a pyramid, lands in Chicago and starts growing rapidly. It captures some of the people in the vicinity and sends them into an alternate universe, where most of them die within hours. A handful survive and start to thrive. The new universe contains the Greek and Egyptian gods and characters from Greek mythology, including the ever-un­trust­wor­thy Odysseus.

The plot is too …continue.

Hitchcock Sewell is an undertaker who finds the murdered body of a waitress on the front door of his funeral parlor, one winter's evening during a wake. Hitch and his weath­er­woman girlfriend, Bonnie, become obsessed with finding out who killed the waitress.

This is a fairly amusing comic mystery, with a semi-plausible but twisted plot. Hitch is a sym­pa­thet­ic character, albeit one who drinks too much and whose eye wanders.

The book that introduces Serge A. Storms, the hy­per­ac­tive serial killer, and his stoner sidekick, Coleman.

The frenzied plot follows a large cast of characters chasing $5 million of drug money down Florida to the Keys. Most of them are Unnice People who will come to well-deserved bad ends.

Dorsey is not in control of his plot. Random flashbacks lay down the backstory for newly introduced characters. The plot jumps about with wild abandon, revving on all cylinders. Somehow it comes together at the end, with some funny moments along the way.

(I read the …continue.

No good deed goes unpunished might be the motto of this sequel to Rats, Bats, and Vats.

In the previous book, a motley assortment of grunts destroyed a hive of the alien invaders. The military es­tab­lish­ment don't really appreciate being shown up as in­com­pe­tent buffoons, and do their best to persecute and prosecute the human leading the grunts, as well as the military in­tel­li­gence major who spotted what they were up to and sent in help.

Our heroes are forced into a con­fronta­tion with …continue.