I think we know that I madly love retellings of The Phantom of the Opera…and that Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series claims the “Funniest Book” spot on my End of the Year Rankings every year…so what could be more perfect than Maskerade, a Discworld retelling of Phantom?
I was inspired to pull this off my shelf recently after reading I Shall Wear Midnight, with its cameos from Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg. This is my…third? fourth? read of Maskerade, and it stays just as funny on repeated visits. Although my poor paperback now has a crack in the spine–which I kind of enjoy, because it’s cracked on my favorite page! I feel like that’s a cliche that rarely actually happens…
Anyway! Maskerade focuses on Granny and Nanny, who are coming to the unfortunate realization that you just can’t have a coven of only two witches, having recently lost Magrat as their third. The only eligible girl in Lancre is Agnes Nitt–but she recently departed for the bright lights (and strong smells) of the big city of Ankh-Morpork, determined to reinvent herself. Agnes wins a role at the Opera House due to her prodigious voice–but not a starring role, due to her prodigious size. She is befriended by the wonderfully, incredibly idiotic Christine, who can’t sing but looks good in an evening gown. When Christine’s mirror starts talking to her she insists on switching rooms with Agnes, and Agnes finds herself the recipient of music lessons from a mysterious man in a mask.
Meanwhile, the Opera’s new owner is very perturbed to find out that the entire Opera Company accepts the existence of a masked ghost who writes notes and gives directions and, in a recent development, kills people. Granny and Nanny, from the most altruistic motives possible of course, decide that something is a bit off in Agnes’ letters home, and they must depart for the big city to investigate.
And there is mayhem and Death and hilarity and Phantom references and mad little notes with five exclamation points and suspicious cookery and sometimes most of those things all on one page. Continue reading “Witches and Phantoms and Opera, Oh My!”
Cart and Cwidder is about a family of musicians traveling in a cart through Dalemark. And just to clear up the title, a cwidder is a musical instrument (somewhat like a lute, I think). Moril is our main character, the dreamy one of the family who isn’t sure about his talents. The family is on their annual trip through South Dalemark, ruled by oppressive earls, back towards the “free North.” Moril and his siblings find themselves suddenly thrust into the center of a brewing war when their father is killed and they must undertake a vital task he left unfinished. Oh, and that cwidder in the title? Definitely magical. 
Continuing my 
I found myself with a slight crisis recently, short on books and still waiting on holds, wandering the shelves of my tiny local library looking for something to carry me through the week…and was delighted to stumble upon I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett. Discworld is the one series I somehow feel no pressure to finish–it’s too big and too rambling and I just dip in at random whenever I feel so inclined. But the Tiffany Aching subseries as always felt much more self-contained and continuous, so I have been meaning to finish that off.
The first book introduced us to Jack, who considers himself more clever than heroic; May, a girl from our world who suddenly landed in Jack’s land of fairy tales; and Philip, a very proper handsome prince. The second book, Twice Upon a Time, opens with the three of them searching for answers about May’s past, and for a way to defeat the Wicked Queen. Their quest takes them to the Fairy Homeland (which has fallen under a Sleeping Beauty-style curse, thorns and all), into a slightly twisted Neverland, onto Blackbeard’s ship and under the sea, searching for a little mermaid.
The third book, Once Upon the End, brings the Wicked Queen back to the center of the story. There are fewer mashed together fairy tales (though we do get quite a bit of “Jack and the Beanstalk”), with the focus much more on Jack, May and Philip, and some very hard choices they each have to make about if, and how, they’re going to take a stand against the Wicked Queen.
and 
Tales of the Marvelous 