Reasons to Love - Nation by Terry Pratchett

I won't say it's my favourite Pratchett book [I don't have a favourite, I love them all], but it is the one that I've read and reread the most times. It has me in it's iron grip. It's not your typical Pratchett book, in that it's set in an alternate history of this Earth rather than a flat world on the back of four elephants on the back of a gigantic space turtle.

It also involves a tiny island that used to be like the British Empire... back in the Ice Age, shipwrecks, souls, the nature of culture and society, and the true meaning of power.

And it starts with the ending of relative worlds. In England, a pandemic that has obliterated vast amounts of people in all levels of society. In the Nation, a tsunami that wipes out the only world that one protagonist -Mau- ever knew.

The tsunami happens to the Nation on the day that Mau was meant to get his man's soul, following his transition into adulthood. He barely survived and returns to his homeland to discover the apocalypse has happened. Everything, and everyone, he has ever known is just... gone. Washed off the face of the island.

Neither officially boy nor man. Without a soul, Mau has to piece everything together. And deal with the other survivor of the wave. Ermintrude, aka Daphne, aka Ghost Girl.

She's the sole survivor of the ship that had sailed the Tsunami into the Nation's forest. It's probably a good thing that the ship wrecked, since there had been a nasty mutiny that threatened everyone aboard. More on that later.

Ermintrude takes some time to realise that she doesn't have to live by British Empire rules. She tries, all the same, and makes a complete mess of it.

Mau and Daphne [her preferred name] meet in the middle, gain an understanding, and with the arrival of other survivors, rebuild. And in that process, there's also the threat of the British Empire doing what the British Empire did best - barging in and taking over.

I love that the Nation term for the Europeans is "trouser men", and that the entire culture of the Nation's islands has its own culture and logic. There's a whole bit about the rules you take with you in your head and it bites DEEP.

I love the solid worldbuilding that makes the history and existence of the Nation seem believable. It's a place that, if it existed, I would love to visit. I would want to see the museum of the Nation that once was. Hear about all the science that the snobs on the other side of the world just... missed... because they were on the other side of the world.

But at least I can still see Blue Jupiter if I know how or I can find someone who knows how to show me. That's a real thing.

I love that Daphne's grandmother is such a force of nature. Much like a tsunami in human shape. I love that the first thing Daphne asks once she finds out about her father's elevation to being king is... whether her grandmother had committed a bunch of serial murders. Given that our audience is used to the grandmother's ways and opinions by then, it's a perfectly rational question. Hell, the narrative even explores how she'd do it.

I love this book to bits, and you can hear Sir Terry Pratchett arguing with his own imminent demise. You can feel him battling with the concept of his own death and the creeping terror of his 'embuggerance'. The result is deeply profound, enrapturing, and well worth the purchase price.

This is also a book that demanded to be written. He was supposed to be writing a Tiffany Aching novel, but this one kind of took over. I know that feeling well [glancing aside at the five GoogDocs of the story that's taken over my life for the third year in a row] too well.

If you haven't experienced Nation then get your hands on it and do so. It might not sing to you and that's okay. But it sure as hell sang to me.