Industrial revolution, Discworld-style

Raising Steam, Terry Pratchett

The cover of this, the 40th novel in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, shows a train hurtling through the darkness:

It's such an apt cover, not just because the story deals with the coming of steam power and the railroad to the Disc, but also because the plot hurtles along at almost warp speed.  I was a little concerned sometimes that the wheels were coming off the rails, but Mr. Pratchett kept a steady hand on the controls, bringing his story into a neat terminus.

I'm tempted to see how many more railroad metaphors I can work into this - but I'll stop now.

The last few books of this long series have brought some rapid changes to Mr. Pratchett's world, particularly the great city of Ankh-Morpork. Some have been social, such as the liberation of golems, or the integration of vampires (at least those who forswear blood) and now goblins into society.  Others are technological, like the invention of the printing press and a telegraph system (the "clacks").   Of course there are always those who oppose change, who believe that the old ways are best.  This is carried to extremes in the dwarf community, where ultra-traditionalists preach against the contamination of the modern world.  This includes the female dwarfs who, while looking just like males, beards and all, are coming out as female and even daring to dress differently.  Led by the grags, who wear burqa-like garments, the ultras are putting words into action with attacks on the clacks towers.  More moderate and progressive dwarfs feel helpless in the face of their fanaticism and willingness to use violence.  The parallels to our own world are obvious.

Unfortunately for the grags, even bigger changes are on the way.  The catalyst for the next step in the Disc's Industrial Revolution is steam power, driving an engine running on rails.  When it arrives in Ankh-Morpork, the city's ruler Lord Vetinari is determined to harness this new invention for the benefit of his city.  He assigns that task to an official of the Royal Mint, Moist von Lipwig.  Moist is one of my favorite characters in the entire series (despite his unfortunate name).  He is a con man, the perfect Trickster, whom Vetinari appointed Postmaster General - as an alternative to hanging him - in Going Postal.  The Discworld Companion describes him as "A natural born criminal, an habitual liar, a fraudster and a totally untrustworthy perverted genius."  But he's also great fun to read about, as he turns that genius first to remaking the postal service and then the Royal Mint.  Here he is the grease that keeps the wheels moving, as the rail lines spiral out from Ankh-Morpork.  Vetinari orders him to drive the rails all the way to Überwald, the distant country where the Low King of the Dwarfs is facing off against the ultra-traditionalists.  Meanwhile, the grags have found a new cause.

Obviously, there is a lot going on in this book. There are three major plot lines, and the cast of characters is huge, many of them like Moist returning from earlier books.  There are quite a few new characters introduced as well, starting with the engineer Dick Simnel, whose engine the Iron Girder takes on a life of her own in the story.  Mr. Pratchett has fun with some sly cameos as well, including Mrs Georgina Bradshaw, who begins writing guides to the areas she visits on the railway; and Edith Nesmith, a child who loves stories and might grow up to write one about children and railways someday.

I did wonder about the absence of one character, though: Captain Carrot, a dwarf by adoption (he is well over six feet tall), who has risen quickly in the Ankh-Morpork City Watch.  Dwarfs play such a major part in this story, with their deadly disagreements over what it means to be a proper dwarf, and the place of dwarfs in modern society.  I can't quite see Carrot sitting all that out.  For one thing, as the most prominent dwarf above ground, and not just because he's the tallest, he would be a target for the grags.  But then this book isn't exactly lacking in characters, and I suppose Mr. Pratchett couldn't really include everyone from all the books (though it feels that way at times).  Even DEATH only gets one scene, though with the body count in this book, he was presumably lurking in the wings much of the time.

That quibble aside, I did enjoy the book.  However, I would not recommend it as an introduction to the Discworld series.  There is a tremendous amount of backstory, building from the last few books but also on characters like Moist and Commander Vimes of the Watch, which would probably frustrate someone new to his world.

Lord Vetinari has the last word in this book: "And all that anyone can say now is: What next?  What little thing will change the world because the little tinkers carried on tinkering?"  As always, I'll be interested to see what changes the next book will bring to the Disc.

The folklore of two worlds

The Folklore of Discworld, Terry Pratchett and Jacqueline Simpson

This book was such a delight.  I have read and re-read Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, but only one of the companion books, The Art of Discworld (written with Paul Kirby).  Then, just in the space of a week, I found not only this book, but also Turtle Recall, the actual Discworld Companion.  Both are revised editions, incorporating material from the most recent books in the long-running series.  I don't think I'll be sitting down to read the Companion, but I've already been dipping in and out, looking up my favorite characters, like Anoia, the Goddess of Things That Get Stuck in Drawers.

The subtitle of The Folklore of Discworld is "Legends, Myths and Customs from the Discworld with Helpful Hints from Planet Earth."  The chapters deal with different elements of life of the Disc, starting with "The Cosmos: Gods, Demons and Things."  Later chapters cover the various species of beings (including the hilarious Nac Mac Feegle); the witches, especially those from Lancre and the Chalk, who feature in several of the books; and of course DEATH himself.  The authors cite examples from the Discworld stories, explain their context in those books, and then connect them to beliefs and practices here in our world.  I have never studied folklore myself, but many of the narrative and the practices discussed were familiar to me, and I enjoyed learning more about them.

Jacqueline Simpson wrote in her Preface,

      So when Terry invited me to join him in exploring this incredibly rich network of links, I had only one misgiving.  Is it wise to explain so much?  Might it not be best to let readers enjoy the glimpses and hints and clues half-understood, and gradually make their own discoveries? 
      But as Terry has said elsewhere, a conjurer is more entertaining than a wizard, because he entertains you twice: once with the trick, and once with the trickery.

For myself, I don't think it has diluted the magic at all, to understand more about the elements that Terry Pratchett weaves together in creating his world and its many characters and settings.  In fact, I came away impressed with the breadth of his knowledge.

The book includes a bibliography, in part as Terry Pratchett says in his Preface, "because people who love books always want to recommend them to other people at the least excuse."  Discovering that the bibliography includes They Fought Like Demons, a history of women soldiers in the American Civil War, was just icing on the proverbial cake.  The authors cite statistics from that book in a section on "Female Soldiers," like Polly Perks and her companions in Monstrous Regiment - which, coincidentally or not, was my introduction to Terry Pratchett's books, and still one of my favorites.

The only trouble is that now I want to sit down with Guards! Guards! and read my way around the Disc.

Murder in the country

Snuff, Terry Pratchett

I managed to catch one of those miserable colds that are going around, which left me with no energy or brain cells for reading (that's how I know when I'm really sick: I can't read).  I spent an awful lot of time watching TV, though now I can't even remember what was on - and not just because I kept falling asleep.  When I finally started to emerge from the brain fog and could concentrate again, I decided a visit to Terry Pratchett's Discworld was just what I needed.  He has a new book coming out later this year, and I've had this one on the TBR shelves for too long.

If you're not familiar with Pratchett's books, he is probably best-known for the Discworld series, which are set on a world with a lot of parallels to our own, except that in addition to humans it includes dwarfs, trolls, vampires, werewolves, golems, witches and wizards, and a few talking animals.  Pratchett uses the parallels and the divergences between our world and the Disc to great satirical and comedic effect.  The Discworld books can be read as stand-alones, but they draw on and then add to a detailed, complex backstory, full of in-jokes and references to past events.  Snuff is part of the subseries of stories focused on Sam Vimes and the Watch, the police force in the great city of Ankh-Morpork.  The Watchmen (and women, these days, not to mention dwarfs, trolls, vampires, and werewolves) make an appearance in most of the books, but sometimes only as cameos.  The Watch stories were my introduction to Ankh-Morpork and really to the series, and they've always been a favorite.

In this book, Sam Vimes reluctantly leaves the city behind for a holiday with his wife and son on the family's country estate.  Once a street kid in Ankh-Morpork's slums and later the alcoholic captain of the despised Night Watch, Vimes has made over the police force and himself, rising to become Sir Samuel Vimes, Duke of Ankh-Morpork and (most importantly to him) Commander of the Watch.  He met Lady Sybil, the last heiress of the noble Ramkin family, in the course of an investigation, and two lost souls found each other.  Vimes has never quite adjusted to being a Duke, though.  At heart he remains Sam Vimes, the city Watchman. He is the proverbial fish out of water in the country, both as a city man and as the lord of the manor.  But then his Watchman's eye tells him that there is something wrong, possibly criminal, going on in the local village.  Being Vimes, he can't help poking around and asking questions, any more than he can help upsetting people in the process.  He has a run-in with the local blacksmith, who then goes missing, and Vimes finds himself accused of his murder.  But the real victim is a young goblin girl.  Goblins are a despised minority, whom many consider animals rather than a sentient species.  Vimes's insistence that the girl's death was murder and she deserves justice will draw him into the goblin world and into a dangerous investigation that reaches far beyond the quiet village.

Pratchett's books are great fun and often laugh-out-loud funny, but he usually has a serious point to make. Here he is addressing prejudice and discrimination, as well as the question of how much an outside group has to change or adapt to be accepted in the dominant society (a question of particular interest to Captain Angua, the Watch's sole werewolf).  Goblins are not attractive: their language is difficult to learn, they are scavengers, they live in caves, they smell bad.  For some on the Disc, that justifies enslaving or even killing them. Vimes and Sybil set out to change that, starting with the search for the killer.

I enjoyed this book, with its familiar characters in a different setting.  Though the Ramkin estate is miles from Ankh-Morpork, the investigation eventually draws in the City Watch as well, bringing in old friends from the earlier books.  (It does not however feature DEATH himself, a very popular character with his own marvelous subseries of stories.)  Sometimes, particularly in the later books, it feels to me like the message  rather overwhelms the story, as with the previous Disc book, Unseen Academicals.  Here I thought the balance was perfect.  I enjoyed Vimes's investigation, which includes a wild ride on a riverboat caught in a flood tide.  There is also the more peaceful chapter, earlier in the book, where Sam and Sybil are paying calls in the neighborhood.  One visit is to the widowed Lady Gordon and her five unmarried daughters, one named Jane, who is writing "a novel about the complexities of personal relationships, with all their hopes and dreams and misunderstandings."  She doesn't actually say it's called "First Impressions," but then she hardly needs to.

Now I'm looking forward even more to the new book, Raising Steam, which will take us back to Ankh-Morpork.  It features another favorite character, the reformed (or recovering) con man, Moist von Lipwig.

This book is the third I've read for the Peril the First, with the R.I.P. VIII challenge.

Happy Hogswatch!

Hogfather, Terry Pratchett

I find comfort in reading about other people's stressful holidays in the midst of my own.  Though mine cannot compare with that of the families in Connecticut, or with those who are losing their jobs in these months, I learned this week that the apartment complex where I live has been sold to a developer, who will tear it down.  We haven't heard officially, but we will probably have to move out in the next 30-45 days.  I've already started looking for a new place for me, two cats, and far too many books.  I'm lucky it's just me and the cats, that I don't have to worry about finding a place with good schools for kids, as some folks here do.  But it's still going to be an anxious Christmas, and I can feel myself turning toward comfort books even more than usual.

Terry Pratchett's Hogfather is one of my seasonal Christmas books.  If you aren't familiar with his work, he is probably best-known for a long series of books set on a world called the Disc, one with a lot of parallels to our own, which he uses to great satirical and comedic effect.  Each book can be read on its own, but each book also draws on and then builds on a complicated backstory, familiarity with which gives Pratchett's jokes and allusions a deeper meaning.  There are some stand-alone books, but also what I'd call subseries, centered on different characters. I particularly enjoy the books about Sam Vimes and the Watch, the police force in the great city of Ankh-Morpork; the two books about the reforming con man Moist van Lipwig; and those featuring the witches of the remote Ramtop mountains, including the apprentice witch Tiffany Aching.

One of my favorite characters shows up in almost every book: Death.  Pratchett's version of the Grim Reaper is a tall skeleton in a black hooded robe, with glowing blue eye sockets, the obligatory sickle and a white horse named Binky.  Death is an anthropomorphic personification and therefore he has (in Pratchett's words)

in some measure, human traits - like curiosity.  He'll want to see what makes humans tick, being well aware of what makes them stop.  It's a moot point if Death can have emotions, but he does appear to be sentimental.  Certainly he seems to be increasingly uneasy in his role and has been known to bend the rules very slightly . . .

In this book, the Hogfather, the Disc's version of Father Christmas, has gone missing, and Death is filling in temporarily for reasons of his own.  His granddaughter Susan (who has a lovely complicated backstory and has inherited certainly family traits) learns of this and sets off to find out why, though he expressly warns her to keep out of it.  The wizards of Ankh-Morpork's great Unseen University are also drawn into the mystery, which interrupts their usual Hogswatch program of feasting and academic squabbles.  As always, in an entertaining and often hilarious story Pratchett has some serious things to say, in this case about the real meaning of holidays and celebrations, about poverty and injustice, about faith and belief, and about what it means to be human.  And as always, it's as hard to stop after one Pratchett book as it is after one piece of Christmas candy.

Hooray for Holy Wood!

Moving Pictures, Terry Pratchett

I love Terry Pratchett's Discworld series of novels.  I came late to reading him, with 2003's Monstrous Regiment, but that just meant that I had all the older novels to catch up with, as well as the new ones to look forward to.  I'm not quite sure, then, why this book sat on the TBR pile for so long.

The Discworld books are set in a world that rides through space on the back of the star turtle, the Great A'tuin.  It is a world with witches and wizards, trolls and dwarfs - and gods who are only as strong as their followers' belief in them.  This world also resembles our own, though, in quite a few ways, particularly in the human characters.  The contrast, and sometimes the overlap, between the other-world and the actual-world elements provide some of the funniest moments in the books.  Pratchett uses them to satirize elements of modern life, and to point up their absurdity.

As one might expect from the title, Moving Pictures is a story about films and popular entertainment.  As it opens, on a small spit of sandy beach about 30 miles from the great city of Ankh-Morpork, Deccan Ribore, the last Keeper of the Door, meets DEATH.  We aren't told what the Door is or why it needs a Keeper, but as he explains to DEATH, he hasn't had time to find and train his replacement, so there will be no Keeper after him.  When he leaves, with DEATH, something emerges from the sandy hillside known as Holy Wood: "Something invisible. Something joyous and selfish and marvelous. Something as intangible as an idea, which is exactly what it was. A wild idea."  An idea that immediately makes tracks for the bright lights of Ankh-Morpork.

In the city, all kinds of people are soon infected with wild ideas.  The alchemists have figured out how to capture images on film, and suddenly a moving-picture industry springs into life.  Crowds of people find their way to the new studio town born out in Holy Wood, hoping to break into the "clicks."  Among them is Victor Tugelbend, a reluctant student wizard at the great Unseen University.  Cast in a one-reeler with an ingenue named Theda Withel (who goes by Ginger), Victor finds himself possessed by a force that turns him into the screen's best lover and fighter.  He and Ginger are on the way to stardom, but they begin to realize that there are forces swirling around Holy Wood with a deadly purpose, one that must be stopped.

To be honest, I didn't completely follow that part of the story.  It has something to do with the drowned city in the bay just off Holy Wood, and the duties of the Keeper of the Door, and beings from another dimension.  Even at the end of the book I still wasn't sure how it all fit together.  For me the great fun of the book was watching the rise of the "clicks" industry, and catching all of the film references and in-jokes.  Terry Pratchett clearly knows his classic films.  The greatest click ever made in Holy Wood, the one that sets off the final struggle, is called Blown Away: "A Man and A Woman Aflame With Passione in A Citie Riven by Sivil War!. . . Brother against brother! Women in crinoline dresses slapping people's faces! . . . A great city aflame!"  There are references to Snow White, The Sheik, King Kong, Singing in the Rain, and Casablanca, among others - not to mention a dog named Laddie that rescues people.  All this adds up to such a good, fun read, and as always, I am left in awe of Terry Pratchett's wit and cleverness.

The last Tiffany adventure?

I Shall Wear Midnight, Terry Pratchett

If this is the last book in Tiffany Aching series - well, I just hope it's not.  But if it is, Terry Pratchett has taken it to a wonderful end.  Of all his "series" that I've read (the Guards books, the DEATH books, the witches books), this is the strongest and best.  Each book builds on the last, and each sets the bar higher.  If I had to choose just one TP book, it would probably being Going Postal - but it might be one of the Tiffany books.

In this book, Tiffany is finally back on the Chalk, as the witch of her own village, her own people.  She is 16, on her own, with people's lives in her hands, including the Baron's, who is dying.  Suddenly there are hints of witch fever, talk of curses and evil spells, from people who have known Tiffany all her life but who now see her as different, and maybe dangerous.  The Cunning Man is abroad.

Of course, it wouldn't be a Tiffany story without the Nac Mac Feegle there to protect their Hag o'the Hills, and in the end their kelda and their hill.  Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg make their appearance late in the story, but they leave Tiffany to find her own solutions (they're just there as insurance), though she does get help from the legendary woman wizard Eskarina Smith. Tiffany even gets to travel to Ankh-Morpok, where she meets not just Mrs. Proust of Boffo fame, but also Carrot, Vimes, and Angua [apparently I missed her promotion to Captain]. I'm sure the Patrician was fully briefed on the affair of the King's Head; sadly he was absent from the story, though Death has a walk-on role. Which did make me wonder, what would Tiffany and Susan Sto Helit make of each other?

It was interesting to see connections with Lark Rise to Candleford, of all things, as in the "rough music" and the fair that opens the book.  It's explained partly by the author note at the end, where TP talks about growing up in a Lark Rise-ish cottage.

I hear there is a new Vimes book coming this year. I'm so thankful that Terry Pratchett is well enough to continue writing, and writing so well.

Witches & queens & elections

The Queen of Attolia, Megan Whalen Turner

I have had the latest Tiffany Aching book (I Shall Wear Midnight) on the TBR pile since last year.  It has been so long since I read one of the Tiffany books, though, that I thought I'd re-read Wintersmith, just to sort of set the stage.  I'd only read it once, when it came out in 2007 - so other than the dance with the Wintersmith, I remembered nothing.  It's such a perfect book, one of Pratchett's best - one of those that blend the humor with the more serious elements, and really make you think - and it has not only Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg, but my favorite minor character/goddess Anoia.  It was such a good read that when I sat down with I Shall, it was a disconnect.  I wanted more of the Wintersmith/Lancre story.

So I set it aside for the moment, and picked up The Queen of Attolia. Turner has been highly, enthusiastically & repeatedly recommended on the Dorothy Dunnett lists to which I belong. I bough The Thief  last year and enjoyed it - and after getting the other three books from the library & not reading them, I of course bought them & added them to the TBR pile.  The Queen is very different from The Thief - in the 3rd person, with the story shifting away from Gen for much of the book. I found some of the politics confusing, and I think a map would be a great  help.  I'm interested to see where this marriage goes, since I'm not totally convinced it's a love match.  But I do love Gen (and Eddis) - who has some Lymondish qualities.  And that's one more off the recent TBR pile.

When I got tired of Attolian politics, I read Rebecca Traister's Big Girls Don't Cry, about "The [2008] Election That Changed Everything For American Women."  I found it inspirational, informative, and even infuriating in spots (not Traister herself, but the instances of blatant sexism that Hillary Clinton faced every day of that campaign).  And proving that all roads lead to Jane Austen, she pops up in the chapter on "Pop Culture Warriors."  This was a library book, but I may need a copy, just to remind myself.