Nation by Terry Pratchett

“One person is nothing. Two people are a nation.”

The Wave comes while Mau is returning to his home. He should have come home to his family and friends; he should have become a man. Instead, there is no one, after the wave. Mau is no longer a boy; he left his boy soul on the Boy’s Island. And there is no one left in the Nation to give him his man soul. Mau is alone.

Ermintrude’s journey back to her father aboard the Sweet Judy stops abruptly during the terrible storm at sea. A great wave lifts the vessel and sends it crashing into the forest of an island. Ermintrude is lucky to survive, but no one else aboard does. Except for a parrot which knows some very filthy language indeed.

Mau begins to wonder if the gods have abandoned the Nation, or even existed at all, when he meets the ghost girl, Ermintrude. And soon the two of them together must help the survivors from other nearby islands who are drawn to the fire that Mau keeps burning on the beach. But what if the fire draws the violent Raiders too?

Nation is Terry Pratchett’s most recent novel, and explores ideas of survival and belief with the wit and humor readers of his other books have come to expect.

Jason