The fourth book in the Discworld series, and the first featuring DEATH (Who is also my personal favorite character).

Death takes on an apprentice in a young boy named, appropriately enough, Mort, and begins to train him in the biz of escorting the notably and terminally less fortunate off in whatever direction their final destination might be.

On one of his first nights on the job alone, however, Mort has a crush on royalty about to get snuffed by a power hungry relative. He saves the girl, but only in an ever shrinking bubble of reality, causing a nice rift in realities.

Meanwhile, oblivious to the blundering of his new apprentice, a depressed and bored Death decides to take a vacation and try some new things.

This is one of my more cherished Discworld books, mainly because of it really fleshing out the Death character for the first time, and taking the old tired plot of "death takes a holiday" and breathing new comic life into it.

Published by HarperTorch
Copyright 1987, Terry Pratchett
ISBN: 0-06-102068-0