captaind's Full Review: Terry Pratchett - The Truth
There’s a rumour in the mountains… the Dwarves have learned how to turn lead into gold…
Thus begins the 25th Discworld novel and my 150th review. (Well okay there are one or two I deleted, so technically it’s not the 150th review I’ve posted, but it’s my 150th review ,now…)
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Ankh Morpork has never had a newspaper – people like William DeWorde are paid to write letters to important people containing little snippets of news and gossip. The Dwarves have invented moveable type, which is about to change all of that… and William becomes editor of The Times. But there are several problems with this – the Guilds are not happy, and a little thing called The Truth keeps getting in the way…
Especially is this the case when Lord Vetinari (the Patrician) is accused of murder… but the evidence just doesn’t add up. DeWorde crosses swords with Commander Vimes of The Watch about this matter. But there are more powerful players involved than Vimes, and they don’t want their plans scuppered by anyone – least of all some nosy newspaper reporter…
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If you’ve never read a Discworld novel before, don’t be put off by the fact that there are 24 before this one – you’ll enjoy this novel without any prior knowledge. And Discworld, after all, is a world much like ours, only complicated by things like Magic, many different races inhabiting the world along with humans (Trolls, Golems, Werewolves etc), and different ways of doing things – such as an Imp that can remember and repeat whatever it hears (Dictaphone), etc.
I’ve heard many people say that this is the best Discworld novel yet. To be honest, such a statement is almost impossible to quantify, but I think it’s safe to say that this is the best satire novel in the Discworld series. It satirises the publishing industry far more cleverly than, for instance, Soul Music did the music industry – though I still love the latter book. The humour here is more subtle than most, with less emphasis on the surreal and more on satirical and character-based humour. It’s the sort that creeps up on you slowly then grabs you and won’t let go, rather than the more obvious kind that clouts you upside the head but then wonders off.
There’s no shortage of action, either. Since the humour runs through the whole book, there’s no real tension to speak of, but you still don’t always know what’s going to happen – but you want to know. The set-pieces are written brilliantly, and there is literally never a dull moment in this book. Even by Pratchett’s standards, this is excellent.
The main character, DeWorde, is very well written, and is quite a thoughtful one too. He’s the straight man in a funny world, though he does have a dry sense of humour that occasionally surfaces. He’s very likeable and his general integrity means that he always keeps your sympathy. I never like Vimes’ character as much when viewed from the outside – when he’s not the central character – but he does have a certain consistency with the Vimes I’ve come to know. Death only appears very late in the book and seems to be there simply as Discworld fans have come to expect him to be in each book – a little disappointing here, but there is one good joke to be got from him.
Of the new characters there are The New Firm, consisting of Mr Pin and Mr Tulip, who remind me of the criminals that featured in a few Bugs Bunny cartoon, only I can’t remember their names – you know, a big, brainless thug, and a small, smart boss… anyway, they’re great characters, with Mr Tulip’s occasional hidden depths and interesting speaking style (you won’t see what I mean by that until about a third of the way into the book) providing some of the best laughs.
But my favourite character in this book has to be Otto, a reformed Vampire (Black Ribbon), who’s given up the red sticky stuff and even virgins in black velvet basques (now that must have been difficult…) in order to conform to society. Of course, he occasionally finds it difficult to strictly keep to his oath, but a bout of singing and a mug of hot cocoa usually helps…
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This book is just wonderful. It’s one of the longer Discworld novels (about 400 pages in the paperback) and will have you laughing and smiling the whole way though. But there’s some deeper meanings to be found here as well – it’s not written purely for laughs.
If you’re a Discworld fan, you have to get this book.
And if you’re not… then you have to become a Discworld fan (and then get this book)… oh well you can skip the becoming a fan part, maybe that’ll come after reading the book…
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