Reaper Man (Discworld)

SUMMARY: They say there are only two things you can count on ...But that was before DEATH started pondering the existential. Of course, the last thing anyone needs is a squeamish Grim Reaper and soon his Discworld bosses have sent him off with best wishes and a well-earned gold watch. Now DEATH is having the time of his life, finding greener pastures where he can put his scythe to a whole new use.But like every cutback in an important public service, DEATH's demise soon leads to chaos and unrest -- literally, for those whose time was supposed to be up, like Windle Poons. The oldest geezer in the entire faculty of Unseen University -- home of magic, wizardry, and big dinners -- Windle was looking forward to a wonderful afterlife, not this boring been-there-done-that routine. To get the fresh start he deserves, Windle and the rest of Ankh-Morpork's undead and underemployed set off to find DEATH and save the world for the living (and everybody else, of course). Death is missing - presumed ... er ... gone. Which leads to the kind of chaos you always get when an important public service is withdrawn. Ghosts and poltergeists fill up the Discworld. Dead Rights activist Reg Shoe - 'You Don't Have to Take This Lying Down' - suddenly has more work than he had ever dreamed of. And newly deceased wizard Windle Poons wakes up in his coffin to find that he has come back as a corpse. But it's up to Windle and the members of Ankh-Morpork's rather unfrightening group of undead (*) to save the world for the living. Meanwhile, on a little farm far, far away, a tall, dark stranger is turning out to be really good with a scythe. There's a harvest to be got in. And a different battle to be fought. (*) Arthur Winkings, for example, became a vampire after being bitten by a lawyer. Schleppel the bogeyman would be better at his job if he wasn't agoraphobic and frightened of coming out of the closet. And Mr Ixolite is a banshee with a speech impediment, so instead of standing on the roof and screaming when there's a death in the house he writes 'OooEeeOooEeeOoo' on a piece of paper and pushes it under the door. The Morris dance is common to all inhabited worlds in the multiverse.