Raising Steam (Discworld, #40; Moist von Lipwig, #3)
Terry Pratchett
To the consternation of the patrician, Lord Vetinari, a new invention has arrived in Ankh-Morpork - a great clanging monster of a machine that harnesses the power of all the elements: earth, air, fire and water. This being Ankh-Morpork, it's soon drawing astonished crowds, some of whom caught the zeitgeist early and arrive armed with notepads and very sensible rainwear. Moist von Lipwig is not a man who enjoys hard work - as master of the Post Office, the Mint and the Royal Bank his input is, of course, vital... but largely dependent on words, which are fortunately not very heavy and don't always need greasing. However, he does enjoy being alive, which makes a new job offer from Vetinari hard to refuse... Steam is rising over Discworld, driven by Mister Simnel, the man wi' t'flat cap and sliding rule who has an interesting arrangement with the sine and cosine. Moist will have to grapple with gallons of grease, goblins, a fat controller with a history of throwing employees down the stairs and some very angry dwarfs if he's going to stop it all going off the rails...
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0 0If I based this review purely off the goodwill Sir Terry Pratchett has garnered from me over the course of his Discworld series this book would be five stars. And I feel heartless rating this book as less than that considering he was battling Alzheimer's while he wrote this and has now sadly passed away. However, basing this review solely off the enjoyment I got from this book alone, I can't give it more than 3 stars. Were this the first Discworld novel that I had read I'm not sure I would have been particularly motivated to read more.
It's the tale of Moist von Lipwig and the invention of steam locomotion on the Discworld. At the same time there is also a dwarf rebellion brewing that felt to me like a recycled idea to provide some threat. It features characters both old and new and as usual has some clever things to say about society. However, I found the beginning very slow and halfway through the book I had no idea where it was going. Even once the story gained some traction I felt little sense of urgency as the dangers facing Moist and co. felt strangely vague. At times I found the writing obtuse and confusing, sometimes having to re-read pages several times and even then still not fully comprehending. And the characters I know and love were sadly flatter than I'm accustomed to. Still this book did have some of the usual Pratchett insights and witticisms and managed to maintain my fondness of its characters even if they weren't at their peak.
Maybe my lack of interest in trains caused this to resonate less with me. Or maybe this book saddened me because I know the supply of new Discworld books is now finite. With only one new Discworld book remaining I really wanted this to be better so that I could savour this world while it lasted. Ultimately, however, it felt a little unpolished and not up there with Pratchett's best. I still enjoyed it but it was far from perfect. My hopes for a fitting farewell to the Discworld now rest on my next read: The Shepherd's Crown.
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