Abi Collins’s Reviews > Mort > Status Update

‘My father was a bit like that. Is, I mean.'
"I expect he's got glands, though.'
'I imagine he has,' said Mort, shifting uneasily. ‘It's not something I've ever really thought about, glands.'
They stared side by side at the trout. The trout
stared back.
‘I've just upset the entire history of the future,’ said Mort.

‘It was a sight seen by few people, and Mort wasn't one of them, because he lay low over Binky's neck and clung on for his life as they pounded through the night sky ahead of a comet trail of
steam.’

A WHAT? said Death in astonishment, sitting behind his ornate desk and turning his scythe-shaped paperknife over and over in his hands.
'An afternoon off,' repeated Mort. The room suddenly seemed to be oppressively big, with himself very exposed in the middle of a carpet about the size of a field.
BUT WHY? said Death. IT CAN'T BE TO ATTEND YOUR GRANDMOTHER'S FUNERAL, he added. I WOULD KNOW.

‘And he goes around killing people?' said Mort.
He shook his head. 'There's no justice.'
Death sighed. No, he said, handing his drink to a page who was surprised to find he was suddenly holding an empty glass, THERE'S JUST ME.

There were temples, their doors wide open, filling the streets with the sounds of gongs, cymbals and, in the case of some of the more conservative fundamentalist religions, the brief screams of the victims.

Death leaned over the saddle and looked down at
the kingdoms of the world.
I DON'T KNOW ABOUT YOU, he said, BUT I COULD
MURDER A CURRY.

What's your name?'
DEATH.
'Dad—' said Mort urgently.
'Can't say I recognize the firm,' said Lezek.
‘Where are you based exactly?'
FROM THE UTTERMOST DEPTHS OF THE SEA TO THE HEIGHTS WHERE EVEN THE EAGLE MAY NOT GO, said Death.
'That's fair enough,' nodded Lezek.

In short, Mort was one of those people who are more dangerous than a bag full of rattlesnakes.
He was determined to discover the underlying logic behind the universe.
Which was going to be hard, because there wasn't one. The Creator had a lot of remarkably good ideas when he put the world together, but making it understandable hadn't been one of them.

A farmer who neglects to sow ordinary seeds only loses the crop, whereas anyone who forgets to sow seeds of a crop that has already been harvested twelve months before risks disturbing the entire fabric of causality, not to mention acute embarrassment.