Review of Nation by Terry Pratchett

There are really three beginnings to Nation, the latest book by Terry Pratchett (well, four, if you count the prologue, How Imo Made the World). It’s a little hard at first to sort out what’s going on, but I was well on the way to being hooked when I read the second (or third) part which begins, “At the other end of the world the sea burned, the wind howled, and roaring night covered the face of the deep...” and ends with, “Captain Roberts went to Heaven, which wasn’t everything that he’d expected, and as the receding water gently marooned the wreck of the Sweet Judy on the forest floor, only one soul was left alive. Or possibly two, if you like parrots.” I was completely hooked when I got to the third (fourth?) part, which begins with the line, “On the day the world ended Mau was on his way home.” I listened to this book on audio, and if you have the opportunity, I highly recommend that you do the same. The reader, Stephen Briggs, has a wonderful tongue-in-cheek way of doing the different voices, and his comic sense of timing really adds to the laugh-out-loud quality of the book. The story is basically about the meeting of two worlds, through Daphne (formerly Ermintrude), who is the lone survivor (besides the parrot) of the wreck of the British ship Sweet Judy on the island called Nation, and Mau, who was on his way back to his home on Nation when the tsunami that caused all of the trouble hit. Mau was off on the Boys’ Island, where he left his boy’s soul and paddled back to Nation, where he should have been met by all the islanders, and then, after “the thing with the sharp knife, where you didn’t scream…” he would become a man and have a man’s soul. But because the tsunami killed everyone on Nation, he was left with no soul, which later was the source of the nickname he was given by the priest --Demon Boy. Both Mau and Daphne hear the voices of their ancestors in their heads, and they both question their religious and cultural upbringings. The conclusion brings everything together nicely, with a bit of a view into the future (which is still the past to us). Review by Stacy Church