The Shepard's Crown (NO SPOILERS PLEASE)

[AnnihilatedBeerGuttedCats]

Huge Massive fan, and have been, since been a teenager in the dim and distant past.

I have the book.

Here's the silly part, I didn't want to buy it because I didn't want this to be the last time I was buying a new TP book.

But I have a long haul flight next week, and a friend bought it for me, thinking she was doing a nice thing (she isn't a fan, but I forgive her), but now I have it I don't want to read it, again I don't want this to be the last time I read a new Terry Pratchett book.

I'm a sad old git aren't I

[PervyMuskrat]

I've read it, I'm crying (usually I'm a stoic, hard as nails type) and I would advise not to read on a flight. The plot line and the last ever combination is a very soggy thing

[Fanjango]

I have it. Read one third so far. Onion fairy is on the house. But I have to read it. It's been a fine journey, I have to be there at the end.

[BatmanLovesMenInEyeliner]

I've read it, and cried at exactly the same points as Pervy.

It feels like Discworld is preserved in amber now, never able to move forwards

[ThumbWitchesAbroad]

I don't have it yet. I will buy it but haven't got to it yet. But I know how you feel - the last ever book he wrote - so sad.

Take something else on your flight, a previous book, maybe.

[CMOTDibbler]

I've read it, and I cried. So bloody poignant, and almost like he knew it would be the last.

[ThumbWitchesAbroad]

OK, it's now ordered. But it's going to my Dad's address in the UK so I won't see it for a bit, unless he has a complete personality transplant and decides to post it to me immediately

[MyCatIsABiggerBastardThanYours]

Am half way through. It's one of his best. So very good. I've cried!

[GrannyAch1ng]

Finished it, took my time and oh waily, waily, waily...

[Fluffy24]

My advice would be not to read it, I debated whether to read it and have started but if I'm being totally honest wish I hadn't.

[PerspicaciaTick]

My parents have given me a STP hardback for Xmas for all my adult life. I can't buy TSC and break the tradition, I'm not sure I will not cry if I unwrap it at Christmas (end of an era, still sad about STP, ageing parents, ageing self). But months of people talking about it and posting pictures and hints...it is going to be hard

[MyCatIsABiggerBastardThanYours]

Finished it last night. Waily waily waily indeed.

So bloody sad that he has gone.

[ThumbWitchesAbroad]

Why's that Fluffy?

[ThumbWitchesAbroad]

Perspicacia - since my Dad won't post mine (99% certainty) I won't see it until next Easter, if that's any consolation?

[HoneyDragon]

I have it.... I can't bring myself to read it

[PerspicaciaTick]

Thumb, I promise not to let slip any spoilers between Christmas and Easter.

[ThumbWitchesAbroad]

You're lovely, Perspicacia, thank you! I'll just have to avoid any discussion threads on it.

[TheLibraryIsOpen]

I have just started it and read the first two chapters but I feel so sad that this will be the last one. I thought I was being silly but it is nice to know other people feel the same. i have talked to friends about it but they just don't get it :(

[Hornydilemma]

Finished it last night, cried at the beginning, and at the end. Last STP ever, so glad it was a Tiffany one!

[VikingLady]

I have it. It's on the side, staring at me. I can't bring myself to read it either. I always had a little ritual for a new TP book: a glass or two of wine, big bar of chocolate and several hours peace and quiet to read in one sitting. No interruptions on pain of death!

But DD is ill, DS is tiny and needs me constantly, and I can't face it being sad.

[Fluffy24]

I just think I'd have preferred to remember him by some of his other work, I found the Shepherd's Crown incredibly sad on all sorts of levels.

The overwhelming majority of reviews I've seen by fans would suggest the opposite so it's obviously just me!

[DamsonInDistress]

I've read it and baked within the first 40 pages. If you think closely on the cover all the clues are there. I think you can tell he was increasingly ill during the writing and the afterword from his friend confirms that. There are some scenes that are far better written than others, with their own consistent, identifiable voice, and others that are just not quite so perfect. It's a good book but not his best and it is an ending in every single way. I was tempted to stop after the first big plot point and to be honest I wish I had. The later two thirds of the book are under developed and if it had been written five, ten years ago I think the narrative would have been much stronger. But as a book it's about so much more than the words written inside it. It's the end of a career, the end of a lifetime, for a man who did not deserve to be robbed of his amazing talent.

[DamsonInDistress]

Not just you Fluffy. It's terribly, terribly sad.

[DamsonInDistress]

Balled, not baked, sigh. Though PTerry would have appreciated the slip I'm sure!

[GrannyAch1ng]

DamsonInDistress & Fluffy I know exactly what you mean and I found an interview with Neil Gaiman that is illuminating but should absolutely not be read if you haven't read the book because it's spoiler heavy. I can't find a readable version at the mo as it was in The Times and I don't have a subscription (can't recall how I saw it in the first place).

I also bear in mind something Douglas Adams said about PG Wodehouse in his introduction to Sunset at Blandings, I can't find my copy at the moment but the upshot was that it wasn't Wodehouse's best work, but since he was what could only be described as 93 when he wrote it he could be forgiven for having his best work behind him, plus he died before it was finished. Douglas described some of the text as "place holders" that would have been polished and improved if Wodehouse had had the chance.

I think this applies here and I'm glad to have the book, but horribly sad at the same time.

[pointythings]

I got it last week and have let DH have it first - it will be the last book I read aloud to my DDs (now 12 and 14) and that feels fitting somehow.

I'm sad that there will be no more TP books, but glad that there are so many of them and that the Discworld will continue to be discovered by people. It's an immortal body of literature.