Along the Ankh with Bow, Rod and Staff with a Knob on the End by Mustrum Ridcully

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Title: Along the Ankh with Bow, Rod and Staff with a Knob on the End

Author: Mustrum Ridcully, Archchancellor of Unseen University 

Publisher: not known 

Source book: Soul Music by Terry Pratchett (Discworld #16)

Mustrum Ridcully is writing his memoirs. He has got as far as the title, and has started with “Not many people realize that the river Ankh has a large and varied piscine population…”. I forsee a wealth of fun fishing facts.

Meanwhile, Susan, teenage Duchess of Sto Hellit, isn’t making the best of her fancy boarding school. She reads Wold’s Logic and Paradox during the Poetry lesson, and Noxeuse’s Divisibility Paradox in History.

And also, Susan’s grandfather (well sort of), Death, has gone walk about. Again. Failing to make any sense of life, he has run away to join the Klatchian Foreign Legion and forget. Much to her surprise Susan is drafted in to help out. 

And on top of everything else, there really is a lot of plot in Soul Music, Music With Rocks In is taking the Disc by storm. The Band plays to vast audiences and sales of guitars are so high that instrument shops are running out, and Blert Wheedown is selling lots of copies of his Guitar Primer. It’s got an index and everything. [Incidentally, did you know that in English English Primer is pronounced ‘prye-mer’ and in American English it is ‘prim-er’?]

There is also mention of a bound volume of drawings by famous Discworld artist Leonard of Quirm. You know the sort of thing: kittens, the way water flows, wives of rich Ankh-Morpork merchants, water-powered machines for bringing down city walls, new types of siege guns and so on. 

And Gardening in Difficult Conditions. Death’s cook, bottle washer and stable cleaner, Albert, has obviously tried to grow plants in Death’s garden, which is sort of outside space and time and everything is black. So it likely doesn’t have very good soil.

Thanks to Serenata Flowers