My experience with this book is through the book on CD. I spend an hour and a half at minimum in my car every day going to and from work, and have found books on CD to be a wonderful way to spend the trip. The other Discworld books I have heard have been read by Nigel Planer. This one was narrated by Celia Imrie. Her reading of it is technically fine. She characterized voices well enough, but . . . there is something missing. I don't know if the book simply isn't very funny, or if there is something off with her delivery, but the punchlines just weren't as punchy as those Planer produced. When he reads Pratchett, I laugh. With Imrie, I just got the sense that I was listening to an interesting story; a very different vibe than what I was expecting. If I had no previous exposure to Discworld, and no expectation of what it was to be, I imagine I would have simply called it a wonderful fantasy story and been done with it. As it was, I was expecting something funnier, and it just did not deliver.