Book Nook: Raising Steam

In college a friend of mine introduced me to Terry Pratchett and the Night Watch of Commander Vimes. I was hooked immediately. Pratchett combines a kind of irreverent satire with his own unique fantasy world. Many of the stories can be read as social commentary, but they are generally just fun, thought provoking fantasy stories. Raising Steam is the latest book in his Moist von Lipwig trilogy subset of Discworld.

The railway is coming to Discworld and not everyone is ready for this massive new technology. The delvers are rebelling against all things not Dwarvish (and knowing dwarves that is literally everything) and the new Iron Girder is a perfect catalyst for a full scale war. Moist von Lipwig, with a generous prodding from Lord Vetinari, wants in on the railway, as a spokesman for the city of Ankh Morpork and manager of the Bank. Through his genius for greasing the wheels and a little divine intervention can Moist stop a dwarf war, get the train to Uberwald without incident, and manage to not die?

Moist von Lipwig and Adora Belle Dearheart are two of my favorite characters in Discworld, but Lord Vetinari takes the cake in this book. For me there is a particularly vivid connection between certain people I know and the Patrician, especially when he says things to effect of "your job is not to tell me the problems, your job is to tell me the solutions to the problems." His tyrannical nature rings frighteningly true in certain situations. Pratchett's characterizations are both caricatures and wildly interesting and well defined Discworld inhabitants. They are the best thing about anything you will read by Pratchett. Yes the world is an amazing amalgam of craziness, but without the people who live there, Discworld would fall flat. 

Pratchett is still quite funny as a writer, and very adept at putting his hero into odd and possibly dangerous situations while miraculously extricating him at the last possible second. However, something about this book just seemed slightly off. I know Pratchett is suffering from Alzheimer's disease, but he seems still to be fairly competent with his own writing and world building (long time editor helps too I'm sure), but it wasn't until I got to the end of the book that I think I figured it out. In his author's blurb, Pratchett mentions he now can talk to his computer, and I think that means he dictated this novel to something like Dragon Speech Recognition. The words are all spelled fine and the grammar is correct, but the novel reads much more like a stream of consciousness oral telling than the traditional novel format. He always sort of wrote this way, but maybe stream of consciousness comes out different when it is actually just speaking instead of putting pen to paper. Either way I still really enjoyed the story, but the sensation was different.

I really enjoyed this story, but I think that Going Postal (the first to introduce Moist) was and is the best Discworld novel Terry Pratchett has written. If you're looking for a fun, witty adventure then definitely check this series out. Pratchett writes in a fantasy world, but if you're more interested in satire and hijinks in space then check out Douglas Adams and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the two authors have a similar style and like to poke fun at the hubbub of everyday. 

*This blog is part of a grant Medfield has been awarded through the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Library and Services Technology Act administered by the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners.