The Wee Free Men
by Terry Pratchett, Paul Kidby · first published 1994
50% recommend50% neutral
A riotous, wise, and gripping junior Discworld novel from the Carnegie Medal-winning author and acknowledged master of comic fantasy.Nine-year-old Tiffany Aching thinks her Granny Aching - a wise shepherd - might have been a witch, but now Granny Aching is dead and it's up to Tiffany to work it all out when strange things begin happening: a fairy-tale monster in the stream, a headless horseman and, strangest of all, the tiny blue men in kilts, the Wee Free Men, who have come looking for the new 'hag'. These are the Nac Mac Feegles, the pictsies, who like nothing better than thievin', fightin'
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…from my Amazon review) Rapture of the Nerds by Charles Stross -- pretty funny, even if it made a transhuman superintelligent supercivilization look kind of... dumb. Currently re-reading for fun: The Wee Free Men and I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett -- It's Discworld. Go read them. NOW. And read A Hat Full of Sky in the middle. Then there's been a lot of textbooks I've been reading, which I won't list.…
on “Ask HN: What is HN reading?” ↗Diane Stanley And, Terry Pratchett: Wee Free Men Of course all the rest of Terry Pratchett is there to grow into.
on “Show HN: Bookvine.io – Help find age appropriate books for kids aged 6 to 14” ↗…Monte Cristo”, one of my favorites. It’s a classic the general story being jailbreak/revenge. A little slow paced at times but the writing is fantastic. If you enjoy fantasy novels I would recommend ”The Wee Free Men” by Terry Pratchett, it’s outstanding.
on “Ask HN: What are the best books you've ever read?” ↗+1 for Mort. It is fantastic. And it is about death, so it's highly, should I dare say, appropriate for the occasion. The Wee Free Men and Dodger are also nice to read. They focus a bit less on humour, being geared a little more towards children. Don't expect to laugh all the time. But the settings of these stories are magical.
on “Sir Terry Pratchett has died” ↗…“…and follow your star…” Miss Tick went on. “Yes?” “…you’ll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren’t so lazy. Good-bye.” -- Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men
on “If Money Was No Object” ↗…yourself. . .and believe in your dreams. . .and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.” ― Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men Hard work lets you capitalize on small opportunities. Without it you'd need a 3-sigma occurrence to benefit. Of course, those are the types you hear about, because they make great stories.
on “Hard work wins in business (a.k.a. it ain't just about luck)” ↗…originally contained a long vowel, e.g. deer, sheep, fish. Turns out, horse was also in this group but after a sound change its vowel shortened, hence the -s plural now. I learnt that by reading The Wee Free Men by PTerry: "Aye, it's no' that good for the ship, havin' tae drink oout o' that pond after we've been bathing. It's terrible, hearin' a ship try tae spit." (When in doubt, assume the more "dialectal"…
on “Pronunciation errors that made the English language” ↗> I think an under appreciated subset of Discworld is the Tiffany Aching series. Yeah, the author indicates he skipped them, probably because of the YA moniker, but honestly, _maybe_ Wee Free Men exempted, they're equally as mature as any other discworld books, with really the only YA thing about them being their underage protagonist.
on “Discworld Rules” ↗