Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett
Jun. 6th, 2016 04:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroMoist Von Lipwig oversaw the coming of mail service, a fiat money system, and to some degree the creation of the semaphore-as-internet system the modern Discworld runs on. Now the secret to the steam engine has been unlocked and railways are about to riddle the Disc…and who but Moist should be there to smooth the way?
In a bunch of ways, this feels more fragmented than other books—there are more time-jumps within the narrative, and more scenes that feel like setpieces. Like the last few books, there’s also a show-don’t-tell problem with the action scenes: We get somebody’s recollection after the fact, or a short third-person description from the narrator, but we don’t actually get to see things happen.
(Also, we’re read basically this story a dozen times: New technology is introduced to the Disc, people get upset, conflict ensues but in the end society moves on sensibly.)
I have my share of specific nitpicks: While granted, there isn’t much indication that the grags or their catspaws are particularly good fighters (they’re zealots, but not soldiers), Moist’s ability to fight them off (even when doped up on goblin potions) strains credulity. I realize he’s the nominal hero of the book, but given his background and especially recent activities, his fighting prowess should be limited to the occasional lucky kick.
Where are Carrot and Angua in this book? They rest of the watch make appearances; you’d think they’d be useful. Especially given that Carrot is a dwarf, and specifically the kind of dwarf the grags are likely to have a problem with.
How big is a goblin? They apparently can crawl through rat holes because they’re so limber and skinny; and can move around under a dwarf’s armor to cause them problems. But they also manage human-sized facilities and accommodations without much trouble and no one ever has to, say, stoop to talk to them.
After numerous books in which the dwarves were Jews, it’s interesting that they basically become Muslims for this book. Despite the call backs and references that wouldn’t make any sense unless you’d read a number of the other books (someone is referred to as “Going totally librarian” on someone else; Rincewind shows up long enough to appreciate the locomotive’s ability to get you away from things very quickly), the Discworld tendency towards “alternate pasts” rears its ugly head. Things like the dwarven obsession with gold from the early books or the presentations of races like gnomes and goblins gets rewritten to fit the needs of this story. Which is okay in general but you need to decide whether you’re a slave to continuity or free-wheeling it; you can’t have it both ways.
I read something—and now, of course, I don’t remember where—that noted the Discworld has changed, over the course of the series, from a world of magic to a world of science. Medieval stasis was broken somewhere around Moving Pictures, and since then the steampunk features of the world have becoming consistently less magic-driven and more scientific. The monsters have all become humanized. The gods are gone and the miracles are explained. Which is an interesting lifetime story arc, I must say.
Overall: The last half-dozen or so Discworld books have been middling at best; which is likely due to a combination of factors. This, like several of those, makes a good “one last romp with the familiar set” as you see Pterry off to the great clacks tower in the sky, but his best work was definitely behind him.
In a bunch of ways, this feels more fragmented than other books—there are more time-jumps within the narrative, and more scenes that feel like setpieces. Like the last few books, there’s also a show-don’t-tell problem with the action scenes: We get somebody’s recollection after the fact, or a short third-person description from the narrator, but we don’t actually get to see things happen.
(Also, we’re read basically this story a dozen times: New technology is introduced to the Disc, people get upset, conflict ensues but in the end society moves on sensibly.)
I have my share of specific nitpicks: While granted, there isn’t much indication that the grags or their catspaws are particularly good fighters (they’re zealots, but not soldiers), Moist’s ability to fight them off (even when doped up on goblin potions) strains credulity. I realize he’s the nominal hero of the book, but given his background and especially recent activities, his fighting prowess should be limited to the occasional lucky kick.
Where are Carrot and Angua in this book? They rest of the watch make appearances; you’d think they’d be useful. Especially given that Carrot is a dwarf, and specifically the kind of dwarf the grags are likely to have a problem with.
How big is a goblin? They apparently can crawl through rat holes because they’re so limber and skinny; and can move around under a dwarf’s armor to cause them problems. But they also manage human-sized facilities and accommodations without much trouble and no one ever has to, say, stoop to talk to them.
After numerous books in which the dwarves were Jews, it’s interesting that they basically become Muslims for this book. Despite the call backs and references that wouldn’t make any sense unless you’d read a number of the other books (someone is referred to as “Going totally librarian” on someone else; Rincewind shows up long enough to appreciate the locomotive’s ability to get you away from things very quickly), the Discworld tendency towards “alternate pasts” rears its ugly head. Things like the dwarven obsession with gold from the early books or the presentations of races like gnomes and goblins gets rewritten to fit the needs of this story. Which is okay in general but you need to decide whether you’re a slave to continuity or free-wheeling it; you can’t have it both ways.
I read something—and now, of course, I don’t remember where—that noted the Discworld has changed, over the course of the series, from a world of magic to a world of science. Medieval stasis was broken somewhere around Moving Pictures, and since then the steampunk features of the world have becoming consistently less magic-driven and more scientific. The monsters have all become humanized. The gods are gone and the miracles are explained. Which is an interesting lifetime story arc, I must say.
Overall: The last half-dozen or so Discworld books have been middling at best; which is likely due to a combination of factors. This, like several of those, makes a good “one last romp with the familiar set” as you see Pterry off to the great clacks tower in the sky, but his best work was definitely behind him.
