Mort, by Terry Pratchett, was first published by Victor Gollancz Ltd in Great Britain, 1987.

Mort, a young man who seems to be useless at virtually everything, is apprenticed to Death, an anthropomorphic personification, who ushers souls into the next world. A strange combination which is even stranger when it is discovered that Death has both daughter (adopted) and a, umm, servant? However, things don’t quite work out as well as might be hoped. While Death enjoys being able to have time off (gambling, getting drunk, that sort of thing), Mort risks the very fabric of time and space by killing someone, which prevents the death of a princess. It all works out in the end though, with Mort marrying, well, I’ll leave it up to you to find out who he ends up marrying.

As a stand alone book, Mort is probably three and a half stars stars. Within the Discworld series, well, it is still three and a half. It’s one of the better ones. Rating Discworld novels are difficult for me, because I’ve read every one (except the latest) more than once. So far as it goes though, this is one of the Discworld novels that I would, and probably will, read again, and again. Would I own a copy? Umm, if I think about it hard, I might already. But if I don’t, and could get a fifty-cent copy, sure I would pick it up. Otherwise I’ll just keep borrowing it from the nearest library.