Soul Music (2005)
Soul Music is a 2005 discworld (imaginary place) book written by Terry Pratchett.
Death has wandered off to drown a grief he cannot name, which leaves his granddaughter Susan Sto Helit to inherit the scythe and the family business of reaping souls. Meanwhile a young harpist buys a strange guitar in a dusty shop, and Music with Rocks In sweeps Ankh-Morpork, turning respectable musicians into leather-clad legends overnight. Pratchett runs the whole mythology of rock and roll through the Discworld, doomed young star and unstoppable band included. The comedy stays warm and the parody affectionate, but the mortality underneath it is real, and Susan feels every soul she has to collect.
Quick answers
What is Soul Music about?
Death has wandered off to drown a grief he cannot name, which leaves his granddaughter Susan Sto Helit to inherit the scythe and the family business of reaping souls. Meanwhile a young harpist buys a strange guitar in a dusty shop, and Music with Rocks In sweeps Ankh-Morpork, turning respectable musicians into leather-clad legends overnight. Pratchett runs the whole mythology of rock and roll through the Discworld, doomed young star and unstoppable band included. The comedy stays warm and the parody affectionate, but the mortality underneath it is real, and Susan feels every soul she has to collect.
When was Soul Music published?
Soul Music was published in 2005.
Who made Soul Music?
Soul Music was written by Terry Pratchett.
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Soul Music in our writing
- Companion guide: Discworld: The Complete Guide to Terry Pratchett's Flat Planet
A few thoughts on Soul Music
Fans should reach for This Is Spinal Tap, the mockumentary that mythologizes rock excess with the same affection Terry Pratchett brings to Music with Rocks In. The Blues Brothers shares the conviction of a band on a mission from something higher than themselves. Both understand, as Pratchett does, that the joke and the music can be wholly genuine at once.
Stories and albums that live inside actual rock and roll mythology
Soul Music runs Music With Rocks In through the whole birth-of-rock-and-roll myth, ordinary players turning into leather-clad legends overnight. The Blues Brothers and This Is Spinal Tap send up that same mythology on screen, Kpop Demon Hunters gives it a modern idol-pop spin, and Painkiller and In the Court of the Crimson King are the real leather-clad, larger-than-life records the book is quietly in love with.
Whimsical fantasy adventures that are secretly about mortality
Soul Music hands Susan Sto Helit her grandfather's scythe and lets a comic Discworld carry real grief underneath the jokes. Charlotte's Web does the same trick in miniature, a warm children's story that never looks away from death, while Noragami, The Girl Who Drank the Moon, Redwall and Dororo all put whimsical fantasy worlds through real stakes and real loss without losing their sense of adventure.
Fantasy comedies that gently mock their own genre while still loving it
Soul Music spoofs high fantasy and rock mythology in the same breath, laughing at Discworld's own tropes without ever losing affection for them. Shrek does the same to fairy tales, Black Butler and xxxHolic send up gothic and supernatural cliches with a wink, Kimagure Orange Road plays psychic powers for laughs instead of drama, and Minions & Monsters keeps its own genre light and self-aware.