Soul Music (1994)

3 1/2 stars Some really good stuff in this book but not quite up to the level of the first 2 in the Death Series. Really enjoyed Susan and the wizards but I could have done with less of the band they just weren't as interesting. The patrician as usual got in his good bits, I liked that he preferred music written down as to actually listening to it.

Pratchett gets in some great lines like:
"the most famous horn player is, would they remember some felonious monk" I'm sure Thelonious was spinning in grave when that was written.
along with
“I thought they had a one-arm bandit.”
“Yes, but he got arrested.”
I just love horrible jokes! ( )

Sixteen books in, and I may have just found my favourite Discworld novel. I absolutely loved everything about this, especially how Pratchett was pretty much able to distill the first couple of decades of rock music (or, music with rocks in), into this slim novel.

Seriously, Pratchett is an absolute master and, with Discworld as his canvas, he can essentially turn his attention to anything and skewer it with precision and a lot of sardonic eye-winking. ( )

I liked it fine but am feeling hard to please at the moment. A teenager stepping into Death's robes is a great conceit. Death working very hard to get drunk is my favorite bit. The rock n roll wizards are very silly, I liked that Ridcully is unaffected and thus in loco parentis. ( )

So moving on so many levels. What if Death asked "What's the meaning of death?" ( )

Soul Music fell somewhat flat for me.

One one hand a Death story that only barely involves Death--although the parts that do are pretty amusing. It's yet another story of Death stepping down, this time getting temporarily replaced by his granddaughter of sorts, who just doesn't seem that interesting to me.

On the other hand, it's a story of how music with rocks in (rock and roll) came to the disk world. Unfortunately, it just seems to drag on about all of the various rock music puns and poking fun at how people live/dress/behave under the influence of rock music combined with some not so subtle jabs at music managers and the like.

Overall, it's not terrible, but it's also not my favorite Discworld book by a long shot. If I ever reread the series (which is doubtful given how many books there are in the world), I'll probably give this one a pass.
( )