Release date for UK - 24/9 (1st October for US) according to Amazon.
Synopsis reminds me of GOING POSTAL (conman goes straight, needs to turn around a failing business, interested parties want him to fail). Still, I have every Discworld book and I look forward to adding this one to the collection.
It should remind you of Going Postal since it is a continuation of Moist Von Lipwig’s story at the end of Going Postal. Now he’ll be taking over the Ankh-Morpork Mint, and I assume the Grand Trunk as well. Hopefully Adora Belle Dearheart will be back as well - there is something so “pineapple prickly” about her. Will Reacher Gilt return as nemesis?
I can’t wait.
Read the epilogue to GP. Vetinari does the “go through that door and I promise you will never hear from me again” routine, he thoughtlessly does so and plummets fifty-odd feet to his death. It is wise to listen to exactly what the Patrician says.
So Moist is getting his own sub-series? Cool. I like Moist. Now that Rincewind has been dropped (finally) and the Witches are semi-retired, we need a new regular.
Definitely. Moist is a good character to work with in the extended Ankh-Morpork setting. I was pleased when I found out that he would be coming back.
A real problem that has occurred in the series, I think, is that the setting has become just too refined. Pratchett can’t set everything back to the status quo in every book, but at the same time things might have progressed a little too far. Part of the strength of Night Watch, I think, was throwing the watch back into a more nasty framework. Comedy playing off the tragedy.
Going Postal brought some of that back and Pratchett can probably get a few more books along the same lines out of Moist until he becomes the next Patrician.
That’s my take on it as well. Reacher wasn’t all that smart, when you get down to it. Cunning, but not even in the same sport much less league as Vetenari.
I don’t have it in front of me; I read a library copy. But that’s my recollection of the final scene. Vetinari wasn’t trying to deceive anyone; the consequences of the choice he was offering were clear even if he didn’t state them explicitly. It’s not as if Vetinari has trouble making himself understood…
Also, I have to disagree with you silenus. I think Gilt was smart, possibly smarter than Moist. Moist, in the end, was perhaps more imaginative and had certain edges (read: contacts) that Gilt didn’t anticipate. But if Gilt wasn’t smart he couldn’t have been conned in quite the way that he was.
Yay! After a second reading Going Postal, Moist Von Lipwig became one of my favorite characters. I’m very happy to see that he isn’t a one-off. I see Simon Pegg in the role when they get around to making the movie.
At the risk of spoilers, what mint? I thought it was established that Ankh-Morpork ran mostly on account ledgers, with very little actual gold at all (see Men at Arms), and that in a city where brass fittings have a lifetime of hours, even the coins were clipped. And Rincewind foresaw what would happen if the Agatean concept of paper notes was ever tried in a city full of skilled forgers. (Interesting Times)