Truth, The by Terry Pratchett

I'm really not much into the Discworld series yet.
Though when I read The Truth, I had to admit that it was my favorite.

What is really great about Prachett is his playful and indirect(though amazingly sharp and sceptical) criticism of the modern world through his stories of the Discworld.

And scepticism is certainly needed when judging what is really The Truth.

It all begins with our hero William de Worde who, more or less by accident, ends up starting the first newspaper of Ankh-Morpork. Running the newspaper, however, becomes much more complicated than he had thought. Especially when the patrician is framed for murder and William wants to discover who did it.
Some of the characters I liked the most in "The Truth" are Mr. Pin and Mr. Tulip, who are the two men doing the "handywork" for the men who wants to depose the Patrician.

Mr. Pin does the thinking and Mr. Tulip does the... well the work that involves fists moving so fast, that they actually blur.

Running a newspaper also has other complications. Such as the man who constantly comes up with different humourously shaped vegetables and asks if William could print a few pictures of them in his newspaper. Which involves my favorite character of the book, Otto Chriek, a vampire iconographer whose job is quite dangerous to himself, since taking a picture often involves him turning into a pile of dust.

We also meet the talking dog, Deep Bone (Gaspode), who becomes quite important, since the only witness, who can tell if the Patrician really killed someone, is a dog.

"The Truth" consists of chaos, humour, dogs (and maybe even a few parrots supposed to look like dogs), C.M.O.T. Dibbler "Ankh-Morpork's most enterprisingly unsuccessful business man", a newspaper, another newspaper and some of my favorite Discworld characters.

But does it contain the truth? Read it and make your own judgement.

To start, the Truth is a Discworld novel. This makes it good. Even the bad Discworld novels are funny. This one, however, is great. Really great. It is basically a satire of the media in general, and also Watergate. The hero, William de Worde, bears similarities to Teppic of Pyramids and Victor of Moving Pictures. All 3 are great characters. William runs into a group of dwarves with a printing press by accident. He ends up making a newspaper with them, after he sees what they can do with his high class newsletter. He is assisted by Sacharissa, the prim and proper daughter of his former printer who provides a great character for him to bounce his feelings off of. Also included is the photographer Otto, a vampire, and the funniest character in the book. He is allergic to light, yet obsessed with it. Some of the Otto scenes are pure genius. Anyway, the Committee to Unelect the Patrician has hired two killers, Mr. Pin and Mr. Tulip (a parody of Neil Gaiman's ingenious Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar of his excellent novel Neverwhere). They frame the Patrician in a seemingly airtight crime, and William must find out the Truth with the help of Deep Bone (aka Gaspode the Wonder Dog). Overall a wonderfully clever and hilarious satire and his best in years. Go read it.