★★★★☆ The Sea and Little Fishes, by Terry Pratchett
Granny terrorizes Lancre by being nice
The Sea and Little Fishes
Terry Pratchett
Granny terrorizes Lancre by being nice
The Sea and Little Fishes (which Goodreads lists as #22.5 in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series) is a novelette (14,000 words) that first appeared in the collection Legends 3. You can read it for free here1. (Actually, to be completely honest, you probably can't read it there, since what with the text color and background the page is essentially illegible. I used the free dotepub extension to convert it to an ePub file, which I read on my kindle.)
There is, it turns out, an annual witch's competition in the Ramtops. Granny Weatherwax wins it every year, because, duh..., of course she does. Lettice Earwig suggests that anyone who wins three times ought to bow out, in order to give others a chance. It is suggested to Granny that bowing out would be the "nice" thing to do.
So Granny decides to be nice. She bows out, and no one wins the trials this year.
I was a little surprised at the length of the story. I didn't really think there was enough plot to sustain half an hour of reading, and I was, in narrow terms, correct. This is not a complaint. Much of the story consists of Granny being nice to people, which is terrifying. I don't know about you, but to my tastes, you can't have too much of that.
The Sea and Little Fishes on angelfire.com
Sad to say, that link no longer works. I suggest the collection A Blink of the Screen, which contains much of Pratchett’s short fiction, including but not limited to Discworld stories.