Of the Discworld books I have read so far, Reaper Man was the most like marmite: not a dark, salty, viscous sludge, but full of bits I either loved or hated, with little in between. Death is perhaps my favourite character in the series, and the book started off really well, with some of Pratchett at his absolute best; a wonderful combination of irreverently humorous, but also deeply philosophical. Death has been censured by the Supreme Being as having become too involved, and has been retired to life as a mortal; something he has long craved, but has absolutely no idea what it is like. The small moments of disconnection between the immortal harvester of souls, and the simple village folk he suddenly finds himself living amongst are wonderfully illustrated. Never before have I found myself laughing so thoroughly at deep meditations on the nature of mortality, and our various attitudes towards it; a truly unique experience.
Unfortunately, Reaper Man fell victim to what is perhaps Pratchett's greatest failing: a tendency to abandon brilliant ideas before they are fully realised, and fall back to writing about the Wizards of Unseen University. What started a few chapters in as a side plot following Windle Poons and the other wizards, slowly grew in length to dominate the book and poor old death, despite having the novel named after him, was pushed aside to play only a minor, supporting role. From starting out as a beautifully subtle (but somewhat warped) observation on human character, the book slowly descended into chaos, and ended with the wizards running around at random, pretending to be action heroes.
The short sections that returned to following Death were wonderful - even if the subtle conversations and vignettes of life gradually did give way to over-the-top melodrama - the main chunk of the book increasingly boring and repetitive.
Reaper Man could have been an excellent novella, but the additional padding added with the drawn out wizards subplot detracted from it, rather than enhanced. Pratchett's writing in the gentler moments of the book was his best yet, and showed a full length novel following Death would have been wonderful, but, alas, it was not to be.
