A Hat Full of Sky is the second of three (soon to be four) novels set in the Discworld universe featuring Tiffany Aching (a witch-in-training) and the Nac Mac Feegles (little blue "pictsies"). The books are allegedly aimed at children (Tiffany is nine in the first book and eleven in this one), but they work fine as fun, funny, clever books for grown-ups too. I enjoyed the first book (The Wee Free Men), but I thought this one was much better. In fact I think I would have to name it my favourite Pratchett book to date. The Nac Mac Feegles are a brilliant creation, but they are very much a one-joke idea (tiny scotsmen who are into fighting, drinking, and stealing) and I wasn't sure that that one joke would stretch to a second book. In fact it does, brilliantly, although this is helped by a shift of emphasis: if The Wee Free Men is about the Nac Mac Feegles, then A Hat Full of Sky is very much about Tiffany Aching.
The book is crammed full of Pratchett's usual zingers ("She strode across the moors as if distance was a personal insult") and clever inversions:
"It turned out that when Miss level had asked Tiffany if she was scared of heights, it had been the wrong question. Tiffany was not afraid of heights at all. She could walk past tall trees without batting an eyelid. Looking up at huge towering mountains didn't bother her a bit. What she was afraid of, although she hadn't realized it up until this point, was depths."
As usual Pratchett has created hillarious images, such as the wannabe witch who hasn't learned the knack of making her broomstick turn, and has to fly everywhere in straight lines just above the ground, stopping and getting off to wrench the broomstick around whenever she needs to change direction. And he has created a very clever, very creepy, and genuinely complex monster in the hiver.
But what really interested me about the book was the question threaded through the whole story as to what a witch actually is. Real witches look down on the wannabes who wear dark clothing and silver medallions and who wave wands around. And the very worst faux pax a witch can make is to cackle. And yet witches openly fly on broomsticks and wear pointy hats (although putting stars on them is considered gauche), and are not beyond using magic to ensure the receive the respect they feel is due to them. Tiffany comes to realize that real witches are women who selflessly and humbly help the people of the Discworld, mostly by mundane means and by force of their mana, and only occasionally by what we would call magic. In fact Tiffany finds it difficult to get a handle on what magic actually is. Her teachers seem to see magic in everyday things, and react to questions on the matter in a manner which reminded me of the confusion that Tolkien's elves evidence when trying to understand what the Hobbits mean by magic.
A Hat Full of Sky is by Terry Pratchett. It is part of the Discworld series.
