Soul Music

Discworld, Book 16

By: Terry Pratchett

Narrated by: Sian Clifford, Peter Serafinowicz, Bill Nighy

Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins

Publisher's summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

The audiobook of Soul Music is narrated by the BAFTA award-winning actor Sian Clifford (Fleabag; Vanity Fair; Quiz). BAFTA and Golden Globe award-winning actor Bill Nighy (Love Actually; Pirates of the Caribbean; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) reads the footnotes, and Peter Serafinowicz (Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace; Shaun of the Dead) stars as the voice of Death. Featuring a new theme tune composed by James Hannigan.

'This didn't feel like magic. It felt a lot older than that. It felt like music.'

Being sixteen is always difficult, but it's even more so when there's a Death in the family. Susan hasn't exactly had a normal upbringing, with a skeletal grandfather who rides a white horse and wields a scythe.

When Death decides he needs a well-earned break, he leaves Susan to take over the family business. The only problem is, everyone mistakes her for the Tooth Fairy…

Well, not the only problem. There's a new, addictive music in Discworld. It's lawless. It changes people. It's got a beat and you can dance to it.

It's called Music With Rocks In. And it won't fade away…

The Discworld novels can be listened to in any order, but Soul Music is the third book in the Death series.

The first book in the Discworld series—The Colour of Magic—was published in 1983. Some elements of the Discworld universe may reflect this.

©1994 Terry and Lyn Pratchet (P)2022 Penguin Audio

This is a Pratchett Classic

The story and setting are amazing as you would expect, and I do enjoy the new narrator but there are parts where her voice just hits a nerve. Still well worth it though.

Love Discworld

The Discworld stories with Death and Susan are always my favorite! No one can get being human more wrong than death.

Great story, marred by poor narration.

The story is everything you'd expect from a Terry Pratchett / Discworld book: endlessly clever, imaginative, insightful, and satirical.

Peter Serafinowicz is great as Death. While Stephen Briggs' audiobook version of Death will always be my favorite, Serafinowicz does a fine job and really understands the comic timing well. Bill Nighy's vocalization of Pratchett's footnotes is a bit low-energy, but not distractingly so (the chimes that bookend these parts are a different matter).

The overall experience is most ruined by Sian Clifford's narration. I don't actually think that she is an unskilled voice actor at all, but this book spreads her much too thin, and it becomes a bit of a mess. She is forced to use too many nasally or whispery voices to fill out the cast, and it becomes extremely grating. The parts where the band argues with each other are, at times, unlistenable.

If the source material weren't so good, I don't think I'd ever have finished it.

it's got soul

another one of Terry pratchett's fantastic works. with the introduction of Susan the granddaughter of death and the birth of the world through music with rocks in it

loved this adaptation

Don't know what the other reviewers are talking about, the narration was excellent.
one of my favorite of Pratchett's works, he always manages to blend comedy and deep insight perfectly.

I liked the narration

Gotta love a character that contemplates her “Susan-ness” who decides her parents named her Susan to keep her from becoming “Death.”

music with rocks in lives on!!

loved it! the narrator was amazing and I feel like she must have listened to the Steven Briggs recordings cause she got Ridcully just right. keep em coming and ignore all those who are trying to gatekeep the Discworld audio world

Long live the music with rocks in!

Amazing performance for one of the funnest and best written takes on the birth of rock’n’roll. The genius of Terry Pratchett will live forever.

A fantastic book

There were a lot of good elements to this. I loved the story, I’m only slightly disappointed that it ended so abruptly imo

Great Story

All three aspects were very enjoyable. She’s a good reader and her separation between the characters was very good.