This is a book of two halves, really. The first half (and a bit more) is rather standard mockery of cliches, as the three Witches (not my favourites among Pratchett’s recurring characters) experience the delights of foreign travel and people who don’t speak your language.
But when they get to their destination, the city of Genua, towards the end of the book, things really take off; it is as if the Brothers Grimm hit New Orleans – and who is that woman who looks like Granny Weatherwax? A lot of Pratchett’s writing is about Story, in a way, no doubt reflecting the amount of time he has spent thinking about narrative in the last few decades, but I don’t remember any of the novels (after the first couple) highlighting it quite like this.
So, harmless enough at the beginning, much more serious at the end.
The Colour of Magic | The Light Fantastic | Equal Rites | Mort | Sourcery | Wyrd Sisters | Pyramids | Guards! Guards! | Eric | Moving Pictures | Reaper Man | Witches Abroad | Small Gods | Lords and Ladies | Men at Arms | Soul Music | Interesting Times | Maskerade | Feet of Clay | Hogfather | Jingo | The Last Continent | Carpe Jugulum | The Fifth Elephant | The Truth | Thief of Time | The Last Hero | The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents | Night Watch | The Wee Free Men | Monstrous Regiment | A Hat Full of Sky | Going Postal | Thud! | Wintersmith | Making Money | Unseen Academicals | I Shall Wear Midnight | Snuff | Raising Steam | The Shepherd’s Crown
Since I seem to be the only one in favour of a revived Scottish House of Lords {grin}, I would suggest representing the Scottish local authorities, in a similar way to the U.S. Senate represents the States, or the German German Bundesrat represents the Lander.
To me, the importance of a second chamber is not so much what it represents (although it needs in some way to be different from the primary chamber), but its existence as a counter-weight to the primary chamber. George Washington is said to have told Jefferson that the framers had created the Senate to “cool” House legislation, “just as a saucer was used to cool hot tea.”