Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett (1998)
11/06/2019
Who doesn’t love a good cravat? A silk waistcoat embroidered with peacocks? The widow’s peak, the glint of the fang? The thing about vampires is they’ve got style. Everyone knows that about vampires, who knows anything about vampires. The only problem is that by now maybe vampires know this, too.
Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series is home to vampires, witches, wizards, golems, goblins, elves, and a race of Scots-adjacent ‘pictsies’ known as the Nac mac Feegle. In a world that is disc-shaped, riding on the back of four elephants, themselves positioned on the back of the great turtle A’ Tuin as it travels through space, this is hardly surprising.
There are forty-one books in the Discworld series, their setting ranging from city of Ankh Morpork to the more rural settings of the Ramtop Mountains and the leas of the Chalk. In such a vast fantasy world, it often seems difficult to make inroads, especially if unfamiliar with the series. But, as the title of Pratchett’s book reminds us, maybe it is best to simply carpe jugulum. Go for the throat.
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