The Witch's Vacuum Cleaner and Other Stories

By: Terry Pratchett

Narrated by: Julian Rhind-Tutt

New York Times Bestseller

Do you believe in magic? Can you imagine a war between wizards? An exciting journey in an airship or down in a submarine? Would you like to meet the fastest truncheon in the Wild West?

The Witch’s Vacuum Cleaner is the second fabulously funny short-story collection from the late acclaimed storyteller Sir Terry Pratchett, author of the beloved and bestselling Discworld fantasy series. A follow-up to Dragons at Crumbling Castle, this second batch of storytelling gems features stories written when Sir Terry was just seventeen years old and working as a junior reporter. In these pages, new Pratchett fans will find wonder, mayhem, sorcery, and delight—and loyal readers will recognize the seeds of ideas that went on to influence his most beloved tales later in life.

As Neil Gaiman says, “a Terry Pratchett book is a small miracle”—and The Witch’s Vacuum Cleaner proves to be another miracle taking its place alongside Pratchett’s astounding and cherished body of work.

Classic Terry Pratchett Goodness

An easy and amusing listen, it’s a compilation of short stories drenching in Pratchett’s signature humor and imagination. All the stories pack a punch in one way or another. If you are a Pratchett fan, these are definitely worth a listen. It is also curious to hear his earlier works, even if they were refinished for this publication.

Funny!

If you are looking for a light, funny read, this is your book. It was like watching cartoons or Monty Python. Very bad for a bedtime book for me. I found it hard to stop reading, well, actually, listening to this one. 3:00 came too quickly. So, sorry if this sounds more disjointed than my usual reviews.

Oh, I listened to the Audible using the whispersynch. Julian Rhind-Tutt (Narrator) is facinating! His voice changes with every character. He tells the story with so much gusto that sometimes I think I missed story for enthusiastic energy. Even still, at the end of each story I had that sigh of fulfillment.

The stories themselves are sadly, mostly, male. In fact, the very first one ended with the main character marrying the witch with us hardly knowing a thing about the witch except that she was a witch. I wanted more about her and that parrot. Please forget that you just read the last two sentences if they seem spoilers. After all, the title of the book is The Witch's Vacuum. Seems like there should be a lot more witch and vacuums than men in the form of police or gnomes. But hey, Mr. Pratchett wrote this when he was a teen and the adage says 'write what you know'. Sadly, Mr. Pratchett knew nothing about the other half of society then. Later he did write some fun books that did have fems but mostly they are witches. Is it any wonder how the world is now if this is all anyone has read most of their lives?

Still, I have loved Terry Pratchett's writing, so creative! Magick exists, but sadly without fems. Even colors we have never heard of exists. Don't get me started! YET, I love his writing. Fun, fun stories!

So take it with a grain of salt that in male authors' worlds, fems hardly exist. We will try to change that with our own writings and making sure they see us as the other humans. After all the whole language system leaves us behind. Even human. We could be called hu.

But it is for this teeny-tiny problem that I am giving the book four stars instead of five. If you can get the audio version you are in for the best story telling around--save for girls, fe=iron.

love all these stories!!!

completely enjoyed all the short stories. Great for time away from the world. the reader did a great job. Sir Terry never fails to bring thought and fun to the world.

Previous Pratchett

Variety of selected stories from Terry Pratchett early writing for his local newspaper of fantastical (g)Nomes, witches, and other adventurers.

Early Pratchett is good but he did get better

These are fun stories and you can see inspiration and some of the humor he really developed later in life. Don't expect the quality of even The Color of Magic and definitely not Going Postal. But I'm still happy I had a chance to listen to them and get a picture of how one of the literary masters of our time developed his craft.