Thud! by Terry Pratchett

Every Pratchett book I read, I think to myself—what was happening in Pratchett’s day that so closely echoes mine now, years later? Is he prescient? This is Pratchett’s ethnic tensions book (As Dessa said this year, 2018, “Looks like gender’s over, race came back”). This book came out in 2005—reacting to 9/11 and the strained ethnic relations that came after it. It is set in Ankh-Morporkh, Pratchett’s main character throughout the series (though I could also say his main character is you and me), a city populated by some of Pratchett’s series scene-stealers: Sam Vimes & the rest of the members of the City Watch, Ridcully, Vetinari, et al.

Part of what Pratchett does so well in this series is exemplified in this novel: his tendency to populate a novel with minor characters already mentioned in earlier novels. In other words, why create a whole new character in the series, when a past character could fill in here? Explain them enough so they make sense in this novel, then move on. For Pratchett’s series, this keeps a consistency that rewards long-time readers without stripping the novel of meaning for first-time readers. This tendency allows Ankh-Morporkh to feel populated, a complex city that certainly feels similar to cities I’ve lived in. (The tendencies of grouped humans, their struggles and responses—this is where much of Pratchett’s satire stretches its legs.) By contrast, the first few novels had forgotten minor characters that were delved into for jokes, and then forgotten. In later works, by leaving minor characters more ambiguous, Pratchett gifts himself the ability to use them later. To be clear, I don’t want to be Terry Pratchett. But he does what he does so well, I want to understand how and why.

Another series aspect, when Pratchett starts his earlier novels, he often summarizes his Discworld itself, but here he doesn’t—and he hasn’t for a few novels. Instead he introduces on a need to know basis, rather than a must explain everything basis. I miss nothing, having read so much other Pratchett, but I wonder how a new reader would react. Due to my preference for a lack of info dumping, I love Pratchett focusing on the specific novel’s story more. I think that readers are intelligent enough to pick up what they need from what Pratchett puts down, but I am interested to hear from any new Pratchett readers about whether they were able to track successfully—because I believe they would be.

As a single novel, which this blog tries to focus on, these two series tendencies work out spectacularly. Minor characters are, well, minor. Pratchett doesn’t allow himself to dredge their depths like he has in earlier novels. But this way the story moves on without the little eddies and culdesacs for the sake of jokes. That’s not to say the book isn’t funny—it’s hilarious. But the density of jokes is less here than what he’s written before. The tendency to disguise the philosophy behind jokes is less apparent here. The philosophy is more on the surface. (It’s difficult to discuss this book without talking about the series, because I’ve been reading the series through.)

But this book is one of my favorites so far. This novel speaks to current events of ethnic tension and concludes hopefully that proximity can solve some of these problems—in other words, proximity allows external influences to affect ethnic tensions: economic considerations, interest in something as simple as a chess-like game called Thud, and the great equalizer of laws and crime generally help overcome the ethnic tensions. When the focus is solely on ethnic tensions, of course the tension tends to ratchet up incessantly. But if that ethnically schismatic focus can be broken, the tension can be pushed down somebody’s priority list and it can fade. This is Pratchett’s point in the novel.

And this theme plays out in each of the major characters—Vimes, Cheery, Angua, Sally, Carrot, and Detritus. Vimes hates vampires, but Vetinari forces him to hire one, Sally. Sally ends up saving his life and surprising him in many small ways as a good copper. Throughout the book Sam struggles with ways to deal with the ethnic tensions, and clings to the idea that being a copper trumps being a vampire, or dwarf, or troll, or human. This puts him in some awkward positions—like standing with a troll in a dwarf neighborhood—but he uses quick thinking to refocus the complaints of people who could be offended by his subordinate’s presence, refocusing the potential complaints onto his reason for being present. Something like, “I’m just here to investigate a murder, don’t bring up the fact I brought a troll—I didn’t, I brought a copper. Sure, he happens to be a troll, but that’s beside the point right now. He’s a copper. Now, what about this murder?” It’s a combination of theme and story that truly helps this book sing.

Even the less-focused on aspects of the book tend to support this theme: Thud is a game seen as an intriguing interaction between people, and beloved by both trolls and dwarves. This shared love starts to trump the generations long-animosity between these species, at least for some characters. This consistency and the thought put into every aspect of the book is stellar.

Now, a big complaint here from Strange Horizons:

“my biggest complaint with the book is a serious one, in that, if not answered, it will mean the end of (at least) main character use for one of the most popular and beloved characters in the series, one whose struggle against his demons has made him compelling, but whose subsequent vanquishing of them, while immensely satisfying, means he’s lost the compelling contradiction in his nature. In short, while Sam Vimes has endeared himself by conquering the dangerous voice (or voices) inside himself, their absence means we will always know what he’s going to do. This doesn’t make him boring (he had a great cameo appearance in Monstrous Regiment without this being an issue), but it does mean that Pratchett will have to be supercreative if he wants Vimes to continue doing leading-man duty.”

I’m not certain that I agree. While she is correct that Vimes needs his cigars less in this novel, and he does vanquish the voice of the demon; in my eyes, Vimes still has at least two major contradictions: Pratchett set up this new contradiction within Vimes about being a father and a busy head police officer, new competing priorities for his time and mortality; also, Vimes’ most basic conflict of his desire to keep the peace and his difficulty in doing that within the laws is still strong and well. So I don’t see this novel as putting Vimes out to pasture as a character.

In all, I think this is one of the stronger Discworld novels and would suggest it to anybody as a solid place to start in the series.

Going Postal by Terry Pratchett

I’m struggling to tell how sarcastic this book is. There are chapters! There are even interstitials! And there’s a love interest! Is this even Pratchett? Or is this Pratchett poking the typical story structure in the eyeball? As evidence, some of the interstitial titles intentionally mislead the reader in a way that makes readers laugh when they realize—the way angel refers to Vetinari and the girl in the tower with “Princess in the Tower”; the way Moist is a hero and not a hero, but he’s called a hero; “Gladys Pulls it Off” refers to her satisfying the exacting needs of another character’s rigid and gendered moral code; “There is always a choice” is a truism subverted and played for laughs. Some of them are also intentionally funny little sayings that spark the reader’s imagination and whet the appetite for the reveal of what they’re on about: “Mr. Lipwig’s bad underwear”, “The Bacon Sandwich of Regret”, “The wizard in a jar”. And this shows Pratchett at his best, touching on culture and exposing it in his own way, with humor. We know interstitial titles, and most of them are terrible. But these are good ones in that they help spark imagination, but they also play with expectations and subvert the idea of interstitials. The text referenced is not limited by the interstitial. So, yes, the book is somewhat sarcastic in its structure. But while it’s sending up these tropes for laughs, it’s also showing why they were used in the first place: a tendency I associate with post-modern cinema (Wes Anderson, Quentin Tarrantino).

The story starts a bit sparse, then speeds up quite a bit. It’s one of those books where you wonder what the heck is going on for a third of the book (luckily the humor should carry this bit for most readers) then the second two thirds explain that first third and give it new meaning—very much like Umberto Eco’s Foucault's Pendulum. Again, this might be lampooning a tendency of modern literature to take a third of the book just building the framework for the important bits later on, but Pratchett inserts his humor and strong character development in order to make the reader care early and often about what’s going on—doing it right, in other words.

Theme: Karma. This book is all about it. It’s like Game of Thrones, with humor. (My summary of the theme of Game of Thrones being, “Satisfying a desire requires sacrifice. You can't shake your past and you have to sacrifice on the altar of the future. Sometimes the consequences are foreseen, and sometimes they are not.”) But this is also about how Moist can work to overcome his past, to subvert the Karma, in a way. At its heart, this tale optimistically maintains that you can overcome your past and become a better person. Yes, there are repercussions to Moist’s ill-spent youth. But he also learns from those experiences and surprises himself with his new lifestyle. This theme and conclusion is communicated clearly and I appreciated the way it reflects reality, instead of the hopelessness of other novels with similar themes.

Pratchett pulls this theme out of almost every situation, dialogue, and monologue in the book. But he forgoes making it boring because he consistently shifts his viewpoint and the landscape. In other words, as Moist changes, and as the city changes around him, and as the character focused on shifts from Moist to others and back, the situation in which karma plays such a central role evolves and its influences update to reflect the optimism of Pratchett’s point. This is a fantastic tactic that allows the depth of the theme to surf along the waves of these constant minor updates to the landscape of the novel. Pratchett then swings between complex and simple reflections on karma while it all feels necessary and appropriate.

Like the theme, Moist is not the slapstick character typical of earlier Discworld novels, instead, he struggles between criminality and straight shooting, apathy and engrossment, all the while subtly shifting from a shyster to a pillar of society. On this character development rests the whole story. Though that’s not to say the story is forgettable at all. This tale of extreme government ineptitude and rebuilding of the postal service gripped me throughout. Sure, it sounds boring on the surface—corporate restructuring, the novel—but the whole is much greater than the sum of the parts.

In short, though this isn’t a slapstick comedy, it’s deeply funny. Though it’s a corporate tale, it’s set in such a fantastic world that the boring parts are lent interest by the window dressing bringing in other themes. Though the character development is central to the novel, it’s not some drama bereft of adventure. Though it is partly sarcastic, this is sarcasm done right. This is good writing and a good book.