Reaper Man

Terry Pratchett's Reaper Man is set on the Discworld, a flat world carried through space on the backs of four elephants standing on a giant turtle.

The Auditors of Reality, formless beings who maintain the universe's fundamental forces, determine that Death has developed a personality, an inefficiency they refuse to tolerate. With the approval of Azrael, the Death of Universes, they force Death into retirement by giving him a small golden timer containing the finite sands of his own life. Death tells Albert, his longtime servant who chose Death's service rather than face mortality, that a new Death will arise from the beliefs of the living. Death mounts his horse, Binky, and departs.

At Unseen University, the Discworld's institution of magic, 130-year-old Windle Poons knows he is about to die. Wizards who die of natural causes receive a premonition, and the University holds a Going-Away party in his honor, with a table set for Death, who customarily appears to escort a wizard's soul onward. Windle dies mid-sentence, but Death never comes. Archchancellor Mustrum Ridcully, the head of the University, notes the irregularity with concern.

Windle's spirit finds nothing waiting in the darkness. With nowhere else to go, he forces his way back into his body. Being undead grants him mental clarity and physical strength, but he must consciously operate every bodily system like a pilot at a bewildering control panel. He crashes into the Great Hall during dinner and announces his return. The horrified wizards try garlic, sacred objects, daylight, and burial at a crossroads. Nothing works. Underground, Windle finds a card advertising the "Fresh Start Club" for the dead and digs himself out.

Death arrives at a small farm in the Ramtop Mountains, where a notice reads "Man Wanted." He presents himself to Miss Flitworth, a sharp-tongued old woman, and assembles the alias "Bill Door" from objects around him. She hires him at sixpence a week. He cuts hay one blade of grass at a time, yet finishes faster than any ordinary reaper. Bill Door experiences mortal life for the first time: sleep, dreams, and the terrifying awareness of time passing. At the village pub, he plays games badly on purpose, earning the nickname "Good Old Bill." Miss Flitworth tells him about her fiancé Rufus, killed in an avalanche the day before their wedding, and how she chose not to waste away with grief.

In Ankh-Morpork, the Discworld's major city, Death's absence causes chaos. Without Death to carry life force away, it accumulates. Screws unscrew themselves. Furniture flies. Thousands of glass snow-globes appear in cellars, each containing a miniature city landmark. The wizards perform the Rite of AshKente, a summoning ritual, hoping to contact Death, but an empty gray robe identifies itself as an Auditor and announces that Death has been retired.

Windle attends the Fresh Start Club, run by Reg Shoe, an idealistic zombie who campaigns for "Dead Rights." Members include Lupine, a wolf who becomes a wolfman at full moon; Schleppel, an agoraphobic bogeyman; and Ixolite, a banshee with a speech impediment who writes notes instead of wailing.

When the village inn catches fire with a small child named Sal trapped inside, Bill Door insists they must not interfere with fate. Miss Flitworth slaps him and orders him off her farm. Bill Door realizes cosmic principles mean nothing to him anymore. He walks into the inferno, gives Sal some of his own remaining time from the golden timer, and carries her out. Afterward, the Death of Rats appears in the barn: a tiny skeletal figure in a black robe, the first of many species-specific Deaths emerging in the unified Death's absence.

Windle visits Mrs. Evadne Cake, a genuinely talented medium whose spirit guide, One-Man-Bucket, is a ghost from Howondaland. One-Man-Bucket reports that the spirit world is overcrowded because nothing is dying properly. Windle connects the snow-globes, the mysterious wire trolleys moving autonomously through the streets, and the excess life force. He deduces that the globes are eggs, the trolleys a mobile larval stage, and together they form a parasitic organism that preys on cities.

Miss Flitworth discovers Bill Door's true identity when she touches the bone of his arm, but she accepts the truth. Bill Door receives a note from Ixolite signaling his impending death at midnight. He sharpens his scythe through the night, progressing from grindstone through increasingly fine materials to Miss Flitworth's unworn wedding silk, then cobweb, then the edge of dawn light itself. He takes the blade to Ned Simnel, the village blacksmith, and asks him to destroy it. Simnel agrees but hides the weapon instead, unable to melt down such a masterwork.

The trolleys swarm out of Ankh-Morpork and pile into a massive structure that develops into a glowing building with moving stairs of living tissue and corridors resembling empty shops. Non-music from the structure attracts humans but repels the undead. Windle leads the Fresh Starters inside and finds the senior wizards standing motionless under mind control. Arthur Winkings, a club member who inherited a vampiric title, tears a controlling disc from the ceiling in bat form, and the structure begins to collapse. Windle stays behind to fight the central organism while the others escape with the wizards.

As midnight strikes, the new Death arrives on a skeletal horse, wearing a golden crown over formless smoke where a face should be. Bill Door's timer runs out and his spirit separates from the physical world. His ghostly hands cannot grasp the sharpened scythe Simnel failed to destroy. Miss Flitworth intervenes, giving Bill Door her own remaining life force. Empowered by borrowed time, he seizes an ordinary harvest scythe, and rage gives it an edge beyond sharpness. He cuts through the new Death, declaring: "No crown. Only the harvest."

Death reabsorbs the lesser species-Deaths that arose during his absence, though the Death of Rats evades him. He rides to Azrael's domain at the center of all dimensions. The Auditors accuse him of meddling, but Death argues that without care, there is nothing but blind oblivion: "Lord, what can the harvest hope for, if not for the care of the Reaper Man?" Azrael says yes, granting Death renewed existence. The Auditors are destroyed.

Inside the collapsing structure, Schleppel the bogeyman abandons his door, reveals his full enormous size, and tears through the organism to free Windle. The Dean, one of the University's senior wizards, detonates three combat spells, and the parasitic structure is annihilated.

Death takes Miss Flitworth to the harvest dance, and they dance all night. At dawn, he reveals she died of shock when he first appeared at her door; she has been a spirit since that moment, now appearing young again. He rides with her to a frozen mountain pass, reaches into the snow of the old avalanche, and brings out Rufus. He tells them they go together, wherever they go.

Windle arranges for Lupine to be taken in by Mrs. Cake, knowing that Lupine and Mrs. Cake's daughter Ludmilla, who transforms into a wolfwoman at full moon, will find happiness together. At dawn on the Brass Bridge, Death appears beside Windle. Windle explains why being needed matters: "Because we're all in this together." Death tells him, "That was your life," and Windle Poons dies at last, with great relief and general optimism.

In his dark domain, Death creates golden fields of corn, a memorial to the harvest and to Bill Door. He allows the Death of Rats to remain as a semi-independent companion, remembering Azrael's loneliness. In a Ramtop village, dancers perform the dark autumn Morris dance with silent bells among leafless trees: "You've got to dance both. Otherwise you can't dance either."