The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett (a Discworld novel)

This was the first book I read on my Kindle.  That’s right, you heard that… my KINDLE.

Oh, how long I’ve dreamed of owning an e-Ink based device… 10 years since I first heard of the technology.  I imagined then it would be the end of paper.

Maybe that hasn’t happened yet… but it’s awesome.  Truly awesome.  Such readability! Such a nice case with built in light powered by the Kindle itself!

My excitement was overwhelming and only tempered by the fact that not a single one of my Amazon Fiction Wish List books were available for the Kindle.  I cast about for something… anything… to download and read.

Terry Pratchett!  He had some Discworld books I hadn’t read yet!  Quick!  Search!  The Wee Free Men!  Haven’t read that one!  Purchase!  Done!  Right there on my sofa!

What I came to realize was that The Wee Free Men is a book for young readers, apparently.  Not that I could really tell from reading it.  My best guess is that the difference between a Terry Pratchett young reader book and a Terry Pratchett regular book is there’s less sex, and the protagonist is a 12 year old girl.  Also, DEATH did not make an appearance.

So, it was okay.  Not my favorite Discworld novel by far, but readable.

I have to imagine Pratchett was a bit tweaked when his frying-pan wielding protagonist showed up in the movie Tangled.  But then perhaps C.S. Lewis was tweaked in the afterworld when the sweet-bearing, child-stealing White Witch showed up in The Wee Free Men.

At any rate, I’m now reading Dickens’ Nicholas Nickleby (downloaded for free from gutenberg.org) as a title more befitting this wondrous e-Ink techology.