Mort (1987)
Mort is a 1987 death book written by Terry Pratchett.
Death needs a day off. The Discworld's hooded, scythe-carrying collector of souls takes on Mort, an awkward farm boy with elbows like a bundle of coathangers, and starts teaching him the family trade. There is a horse called Binky, an adopted daughter named Ysabell, and a manservant, Albert, who does the cooking. Left to make the rounds alone, Mort lets sympathy get the better of duty, and the ledger of who-lives-and-who-dies stops balancing. Pratchett's fourth Discworld book gives its most beloved character a full stage for the first time.
Quick answers
What is Mort about?
Death needs a day off. The Discworld's hooded, scythe-carrying collector of souls takes on Mort, an awkward farm boy with elbows like a bundle of coathangers, and starts teaching him the family trade. There is a horse called Binky, an adopted daughter named Ysabell, and a manservant, Albert, who does the cooking. Left to make the rounds alone, Mort lets sympathy get the better of duty, and the ledger of who-lives-and-who-dies stops balancing. Pratchett's fourth Discworld book gives its most beloved character a full stage for the first time.
When was Mort published?
Mort was published in 1987.
Who made Mort?
Mort was written by Terry Pratchett.
Similar books
Explore Mort guides
Mort in our writing
- Companion guide: Discworld: The Complete Guide to Terry Pratchett's Flat Planet
- Companion guide: Heaven, Hell & the Afterlife
A few thoughts on Mort
Neil Gaiman's Sandman gives Death a kinder face too, drawn as a cheerful goth rather than a grim skeleton, and the adventure game Grim Fandango sends its own reaper on a soulful road trip through the land of the dead. Both share this book's warmth about mortality.
The afterlife imagined as someone's actual day job
Mort hands the scythe to an awkward farm boy and turns Death into a boss with a payroll problem, not an abstraction. Grim Fandango's Land of the Dead runs on travel agents and bureaucracy in the same deadpan spirit, The Sandman gives Death a working shift and a personality, and Phoenix and Galaxy Express 999 both treat mortality as something you can bargain with, train for, or outrun for a while.