Maybe I’m doing it wrong.
Anyway, I finished the book last night. I loved the amusing nod to LotR near the end!
And
[spoiler]I’m kinda glad Gilt didn’t believe in Angels. I was getting worried when it seemed like V was going to give him the break he gave Moist.
I assume it was Igor who sent the bird to Moist and not Gilt.
Damn it. Vimes never spoke a word in the whole book.
But it’s still one of the best I’ve read yet. Loved all the popular culture piss-takes[/spoiler]
I particularly liked the ‘Eye of Sauron’ joke. very good.
Very funny and entertaining, but I feel a bit like poor PTerry is running out of ideas. Mind you, very good writing, but isn’t everything a bit cliched? And I mean not in Terry Pratchett’s usual way of twisting and warping cliches to rejuvenate them and make them funny, not all the time.
The story was a bit, well, predictable. The main character is a crook, yes, but consider this. Moist plays the part of the Heroic, Charismatic Good Guy because he knows that’s what the common people appreciate more, but in this way he ends up being the stereotyped Heroic, Charismatic Good Guy.
All in all, I quite like it, and I will re-read it again and again, but in some way I feel I appreciate more the simpler, yet more original older books like the ones in the Watch trilogy or the early books about Death.
There is definitely a Going Postal thread here already, It has a lot of spoilers so I skipped it - I hadn’t read the book at the time.
I have now. Spoilers ahead. . .
It has chapters!
I liked it much better than Monstrous Regiment and laughed more than with Night Watch.
I’m not sure if the greedy mis-management of the clacks was a satire on a particular industry/company (enron?), or just a generalised swipe
OK Lobsang no Vimes but plenty of Vetinari. I think it’s better that not all the characters turn up in all the books. You get the Wizards here but they don’t do any magic (except using the omniscope).
I liked the angel/messenger theme and more depth on Golems and the running gag about what stamp collectors would do if there were no stamps and Ridcully tacitly siding with Moist with his “magic” broomstick ploy. Also Moist’s internal deliberations and his total confidence on being able to manipulate people.
What is the LotR reference? Since I loath Tolkien I will have missed that.
Are those burning clacks towers on the cover? If so is that deliberate misdirection since Moist decides not to hack/destroy the trunk in the end?
I don’t have the book to hand so this may lose some of the essence (and a lot of the correct wording",
[spoiler](They are trying to get the omniscope to work)
“All I get is this damn fiery eye”[/spoiler]
I always study the covers of Discworld books closely. But even so I consistently have to refer back to them when I get to certain parts of the book. I didn’t notice any burning clacks towers, (I remember burning-somethings).
This book was fabulous. I really liked the Lone Gunmen like part. I liked Moist, but I loved Spike. What made the book for me was the spot on critism of the IT/telecom industry, especially the description of the engineers.
So, I had KellyM read Feet of Clay and The Truth before this one. She has already read Guards! Guards! and Men at Arms as well as some of the Rincewind and Witches ones. Are there any others that she should read before picking this one up?
I really enjoyed it. Doesn’t pip Nightwatch to my favourite spot and i’d say its not as good as Monstrous Regiment either but still top class reading.
I don’t jave the energy to go looking for cites over at The L-space Web, but it’s been quite some time since Pterry said he had a problem with DW becomming over crowded. He knows his readers, who mostly are dedicated fans and my WAG is that he’s feeling somewhat constrained about this place he’s created. The last five regular books (The Truth, Thief of time, Night Watch, Monstrous Regiment and Going Postal) clearly show a trend of him trying to break free from the classic three themes: Wizzards (sic!), the Watch and the Witches.
I think Night Watch is his best book so far and yes, it stars Vimes. But it really isn’t part of the DW that we’ve come to know.
He’s also on record about people demanding “more humor, less humor, more witches, more Vimes, no witches, less Rincewind” or some such. I can’t imagine being Pratchett and living with that pressure.
So he takes another way out: Writing books about themes and stories that he’s passionate about, dressing them up in a Discwordly way and putting familiar characters in cameos. It’s a tradition that DEATH makes an appearance in every book, but I’ve gotten the feeling that those cameos are getting contrived.
Using chapters is something new and a clear break. I wonder if he wouldn’t do well to write something else and then picking up DW again. His outings in other directions have been good and I wouldn’t mind reading him doing a contemporary crime story, set on roundworld.
I was happy with Ridcully showing up. No one can write dialogue like Pratchett and it’s at its best when the wizards banter.
By spring, there’s Science of DW III and the third installment about TIffany Aching to look forward too. Hopefully the science book will be less sloppily written than II.
As for GP. It’s almost as if TP has skipped a whole century. Everyone was going into the century of the fruitbat a couple of books ago, and now we’re heading for another (don’t remember which). This also shows in that the books are becomming more and more in phase with our own world. I’m not sure I like it - it’s a bit too transparent at times.
However, the themes of the book were good. About how shape defines content and a well deserved slam on IT/Telecom/modern robber barons. It could’ve been great with a serious (satirical if you want) look at a stock exchange.
I liked Monstrous Regiment better.
I liked it better than Monstrous Regiment, but not as much as Night Watch.
There were burning clacks towers on the cover. Well, they looked like burning telephone poles to me, but I assume they were clacks. I really liked the clacks technology explanations, and the obsessive clacks-engineer stuff.
Maybe I don’t know enough about the IT industry, but the villains weren’t that convincing. And Moist’s turnaround was good but I thought it was a bit shallow: Brilliant Con-Man who thinks stealing is just a game Suddenly Realises Stealing Makes Innocents Suffer, And Repents. To be fair, I think he also realises that playing fair can be as exhilarating as cheating. At heart he’s a showman.
I agree with Lobsang- it’s sad that there was no Vimes. I’m in love with Vimes.
All in all, good book.
I liked it just as much as the rest - I also wish Vimes had spoken but that’s OK. It’s good to have new characters too.
The timeline on this one confuses me. Didn’t the clacks system just start in one of the previous Watch books - and now it’s suddenly 20 years old? Did I miss something somewhere or has this book leaped ahead in the timeline?
I was impressed to see that my SO, who doesn’t read as much as me, and who only reads Vimes’ books from TP, managed to finish Going Postal in two nights. Apparently it really grabbed him. I liked it a lot too…I really liked seeing the golems out and working.