Customer Reviews

Unseen Academicals

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I've been reading Terry Pratchett's Discworld series in a sort of lackadaisical way, dipping a toe in here and there as I run across the books. Most recently, I picked up Unseen Academicals, from 2009, and managed to hold on to it until the opening of the World Cup, fitting because this is a story about soccer. Sort of. Well, soccer Discworld-style. You see, the Unseen University (whose faculty consists of magicians, natch) has long enjoyed the income from a bequest by a wealthy patron, but they discover that if they do not field a team in a soccer tournament for a period of 20 years, they will lose that money - and the 20 years are almost up! Fortunately, they can draw upon the wisdom of a strange being called Nutt, who appears quite meek yet seems to know everything when called upon, and they will try to recruit University staff member Trev Likely, son of the infamous Dave Likely, who was a star football player and died on the pitch. But Trev is besotten by Juliet, who seems to glimmer wherever she goes; and Juliet's best friend Glenda, the head cook of the Night Kitchen, sees that more is going on than meets the eye, and what's going on definitely needs her managing touch....As always, Discworld humour is very British, and may not be to everyone's taste, but I quite enjoyed reading this, particularly between bouts of watching world-class football! I have a post-retirement goal of reading all of Pratchett's Discworld novels, in order, but it never hurts to get an early start on such an ambitious project!