Hogfather by Terry Pratchett is the 20th Discworld novel and the 4th in the Death series. The Hogfather is the Santa Clause equivalent in the Discworld universe. The Auditors of Reality hire assassins to kill the Hogsfather. The assassin, Teatime, assembles a team, and they kill the Hogfather. With the Hogfather dead — Death and Albert take on the job of the Hogfather. Death can’t directly fix things, so Susian sets out to save the Hogfather and fix everything.
Hogfather is hilarious, satirical, dark, and flawlessly conveys a wide range of emotional depth. It’s highly imaginative and descriptive. The premise and execution were excellent. I loved the pacing and felt it allowed for good character development and connection with characters. This novel improved on one of my biggest complaints with the other books in the series, as Death is a big part of this and gets a lot of focus. All these culminate to create one of the best holiday stories ever written.
I give this book five stars; I highly recommend reading this during the holidays. There’s a TV mini-series adaptation. The school library has the novel if anyone is interested.
