In Discworld, Santa Claus is called Old Hrrr— and he does his utmost, every Hogswatch, to grant the wishes of all children, even those who want to get: “a torture chamber of the Omnian Inquisition with a clockwork rack and near-real blood you can reuse.” But one day, just before another Hogswatch, Old Hrrr disappears, and millions of children’s belief in magic is thrown into danger. Death has to take the place of the fat fellow with the sack and stuff millions of kids’ stockings with gifts to give disbelief a proper, decisive answer.