Mort
by Terry Pratchett · first published 1987
35% recommend65% neutral
Why HN recommends it
A funny, lighthearted fantasy with a satirical edge and small nuggets of wisdom about people. It serves as an entry point into Pratchett's Discworld, especially for its Death storylines.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Death takes on an apprentice who's an individual thinker.
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Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
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Mort, by Pratchett. It is a great introduction to the Discworld and one of my favorite books ever. It is a good read over the holidays and you’ll be thinking about some of the lines in it for years to come.…
on “Ask HN: What was a book that changed your life?” ↗…different person today if I hadn't encountered Discworld at such an early age. They've made me a optimistic cynic. I'd highly recommend anybody interested in starting the Discworld books to start with Mort, and then the rest of the Death series in order (Hogfather in particular).
on “Ask HN: Life Changing Books?” ↗Terry Pratchett's Discworld books, particularly: "Mort" and "Reaper Man"; "Guards! Guards!", "Men at Arms", and "The Night Watch"; "Wyrd Sisters", "Witches Abroad" and "Lords and Ladies"; and "Small Gods" and "Pyramids". The first two are about Death, the…
on “What Would You Recommend to a Bright 14 Year Old?” ↗- Mort, Terry Pratchett The first Pratchett book I've read, and I can't believe I've waited so long to read his work. Humorous in a Douglas Adams sort of way. - Arabian Nights, Haddawy translation This is…
on “Ask HN: Which book are you reading these days?” ↗Discworld Series by Terry Pratchett. I’d start with the DEATH series (Mort is first book in that one) but a lot of folks like the City Watch. (Guards! Guards!). Lighthearted, hilarious, and some real insights into the human condition in a tongue in cheek way. Can’t go wrong,…
on “Ask HN: Best non-business books to read on vacation” ↗I agree. I’m a big fan of the DEATH story arc, but outside of Mort and Reaper Man, Amazing Maurice might be my favorite book in the series. So very well written and felt like Pratchett was at his best.
on “Discworld on Page and Screen, Part 1: Serious Comedy” ↗…have only finished the first eleven, but thus far all of them have been fun and most of them have little nuggets of wisdom that really do invite thought into a deeper theme. Thus far my favorite has been Mort, but I also ended up really liking Sourcery as well. I hadn’t read any Pratchett while he was still alive, I hadn’t even heard of him in fact, but given how prolific he was and the level of cleverness…
on “Death and What Comes Next (2002)” ↗…alive" and they just move on. Reading Pratchett for almost 30 years, it has fueled quite an interested in quantum mechanics in me, he subtly introduces QM teasers in almost every book I read. Particularly Mort. As I dropped out of highschool, I didnt have the luck to properly study physics, but in my 30s, I my existential crisis hit, as they say, a man dies twice, and the stupid half dead cat wouldn't leave…
on “Death and What Comes Next (2002)” ↗…to over 500 genres of music this year -- although I'm not really sure how useful that is because of how every piece of music seems to be categorized into it's own genre). For example, I put in: Mort - Terry Pratchett Mortal Engines - Stanisław Lem My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness - Kabi Nagata And Judith Butler was in the search results. So instead I realised that Mort and Mortal…
on “Show HN: An anti-book recommendation tool, to help you escape your echo chamber” ↗…calculated that the chances of something so patently absurd actually existing are millions to one. But magicians have calculated that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.” Terry Pratchett in Mort
on “Three spacecraft heading to Mars this summer” ↗…calculated that the chances of something so patently absurd actually existing are millions to one. But magicians have calculated that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.” ― Terry Pratchett, Mort
on “I’m A Teapot – HTTP status code 418” ↗…here in South Africa. I was never really a fan (not for any reason apart from my infatuation with Gibson which kept me more in Chiba City than in Discworld) but I went with a friend who got his copy of Mort signed. Sir Pratchett gave a great talk and made a funny (yet by todays standards perfectly hideous) comment about fat goth girls. Just a memory that a total random holds of the man. For what it's worth.
on “Sir Terry Pratchett has died” ↗I also recently read my first Pratchett book after reading some excerpts from around the time he died. Im 5 books in now including having read Mort. On Reaper Man now.
on “Ask HN: Which book are you reading these days?” ↗…Pratchett on the Patrician: "Ankh-Morpork had dallied with many forms of government and had ended up with that form of democracy known as One Man, One Vote. The Patrician was the Man, he had the Vote." (Mort, Terry Pratchett)
on “Turkey Extends Purge to Universities, Asking All Deans to Go” ↗…calculated that the chances of something so patently absurd actually existing are millions to one. But magicians have calculated that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.” ― Terry Pratchett, Mort
on “Fast Software, the Best Software” ↗