The Witch's Vacuum Cleaner and Other Stories
Do you believe in magic? Can you imagine a war between wizards? An exciting journey in an airship or down in a submarine? Would you like to meet the fastest truncheon in the Wild West?
The Witch’s Vacuum Cleaner is the second fabulously funny short-story collection from the late acclaimed storyteller Terry Pratchett. A follow-up to Dragons at Crumbling Castle, this second batch of storytelling gems features stories written when Sir Terry was just seventeen years old and working as a junior reporter. In these pages, new Pratchett fans will find wonder, mayhem, sorcery, and delight—and loyal readers will recognize the seeds of ideas that went on to influence his most beloved tales later in life.
As Neil Gaiman says, “a Terry Pratchett book is a small miracle”—and The Witch’s Vacuum Cleaner proves to be another miracle taking its place alongside Pratchett’s astounding and cherished body of work.
Reviews (176)
Funny!
If you are looking for a light, funny read, this is your book. It was like watching cartoons or Monty Python. Very bad for a bedtime book for me. I found it hard to stop reading, well, actually, listening to this one. 3:00 came too quickly. So, sorry if this sounds more disjointed than my usual reviews. Oh, I listened to the Audible using the whispersynch. Julian Rhind-Tutt (Narrator) is facinating! His voice changes with every character. He tells the story with so much gusto that sometimes I think I missed story for enthusiastic energy. Even still, at the end of each story I had that sigh of fulfillment. The stories themselves are sadly, mostly, male. In fact, the very first one ended with the main character marrying the witch with us hardly knowing a thing about the witch except that she was a witch. I wanted more about her and that parrot. Please forget that you just read the last two sentences if they seem spoilers. After all, the title of the book is The Witch's Vacuum. Seems like there should be a lot more witch and vacuums than men in the form of police or gnomes. But hey, Mr. Pratchett wrote this when he was a teen and the adage says 'write what you know'. Sadly, Mr. Pratchett knew nothing about the other half of society then. Later he did write some fun books that did have fems but mostly they are witches. Is it any wonder how the world is now if this is all anyone has read most of their lives? Still, I have loved Terry Pratchett's writing, so creative! Magick exists, but sadly without fems. Even colors we have never heard of exists. Don't get me started! YET, I love his writing. Fun, fun stories! So take it with a grain of salt that in male authors' worlds, fems hardly exist. We will try to change that with our own writings and making sure they see us as the other humans. After all the whole language system leaves us behind. Even human. We could be called hu. But it is for this teeny-tiny problem that I am giving the book four stars instead of five. If you can get the audio version you are in for the best story telling around--save for girls, fe=iron.
For NON-serious Terry Pratchett fans!
Lots of great stuff here for the devoted pTerry Fan. Mr Swimble and his bad day and the mysterious vacuum cleaner is the title story, and it is funny, phantasmagorical and lighthearted. We also have a great little pirate tale, Fourteen funny (and not so funny) gems from the talented pen of Sir Terry Pratchett. If you loved Dragons at Crumbling Castle, the stories from Terry's early days at the Bucks Free Press, you'll love this. Some are a little dated of course. In a supposedly "modern' story many of today's everyday conveniences are no where to be seen... which might be a Good Thing.... Aimed mostly at the younger audience, full of whimsy and sillyness. Sometimes with a point. Illustrated throughout by the fabulous Mark Beech, the illustrations work very well with this collection. There's also a bit of silliness with the typeface at times. Several are set in the Wild Welsh town of Llandanffwnfafegettupagogo (and yes, i had to cut and paste that one, and i am still not sure I got it right!). "Rincemangle, The Gnome of Even Moor" later became Truckers, and there are other hints of pTerry's mad genius to come sprinkled throughout.
A fun read
Even as a teen, Pratchett''s quirky sense of humor came through. These are all fun to read and I'm sure the grandchildren will enjoy them as well. I'm less enthusiastic about the way they played around with the fonts to emphasize certain words--rather like attaching a laugh track as if the reader couldn't figure out what's important.
Wondeful Tales , But...
The short stories are great and remind me of some of L Frank Baum's. Definitely recommended. However there is a problem with the formating. I suspect that some of the words we're supposed to be in italic but instead the words became much much larger than the normal size text. It could also use a bigger indent for paragraphs. It currently has a one space indent. I recommend getting the book and also sending a note to the publisher.
Half-baked stories and characters ... not the usual Pratchett quality
I have to admit that I was disappointed by most of these stories. I am huge fan of Pratchett's Discworld novels, so I was expecting a bit more than half-baked, poorly developed stories and characters. These stories feel like drafts. There are one or two really good short stories, but I'd consider the majority not worth reading.
quirky collection
A quirky short story collection from the late Sir Terry Pratchett written between 1966-1973 featuring gnomes, wizards, quests, odd things, the unknown Welsh Wild West, and everything in between. Must read.
Awesome little tales from a gifted young author! : )
This is a really cool set of short stories! I don’t know if these are all completely accurate as to his original works, but they are very creative and cute constructs. Very enjoyable.
Early Pratchett Stories Very Well Done!
While these stories are no quite on par with the authors Discworld books it was nevertheless a very enjoyable read. There were numerous instances where I had a good laugh and once at least that I shed a few tears. Overall a very good time was delivered and more than worth the price of admission to what was happening in Mr. Pratchett's head way back when he was just a young man!
Poor formatting takes away from the stories
I love Terry Pratchett's stories and his imagination, even in his earlier years, brings a lot of wit and entertainment to the table. So why the low score on this one? Simply put, extremely poor formatting by the publisher. It was as if this project was slapped together in a hurry, without anyone looking to see whether or not the words were 3, 4, or even 5 times bigger than they should be. In each story there are words that are incredibly huge, font-wise, alongside the normal texted words. This did not allow me to enjoy the stories, but simply pulled me out of them altogether. I suggest the publishers pull the ebook, go back and try this again. So the low star rating is certainly not reflecting Pratchett's wonderful work (I am a fan), but rather the very poor formatting that came with this ebook edition. I am sorry to say I cannot recommend this read to anyone.
Wonderful Adventures
As always, a great read, especially for young readers (including the young at heart). Entertaining stories of sheepboys of the wild west of Wales, the tiny people of Even Moor going against giant difficulties, and the ever-popular weird stories of Blackburry, are part of this collection of wonderful adventures you are sure to enjoy.
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