Dick Simnel, a man who knows exactly how a slide-rule works, has invented the steam engine. Suddenly Ankh-Morpork is at the centre of a transport revolution, as journeys across the Sto Plains that took weeks can now be accomplished in hours. The Patrician assigns the semi-fully-redoubtable Moist von Lipwig, late of the Ankh-Morpork Post Office, Bank and Mint, to oversee the expansion of the rail network in a manner that is politically acceptable. But when civil war breaks out amongst the dwarfs of distant Überwald and the Low King has to get home ASAP, Lipwig and Simnel realise their modest invention may have consequences far beyond what they were expecting.
Raising Steam (2013) is the fortieth and, distressingly, penultimate Discworld novel. It's also the third novel to focus on the roguish Moist von Lipwig, following Going Postal and Making Money. Curiously, Pratchett spent several years suggesting that the third Lipwig novel would be called Raising Taxes. The book's appearance in its final form suggests that not even the mighty comedic firepower of Terry Pratchett could make a book on taxation funny, whilst he could certainly stretch to bringing the steam engine to Ankh-Morpork in a comedic manner. This subject matter almost feels like a book that could write itself.
Infamously, this book was written some years after Pratchett's unfavourable medical diagnosis, and in fact is the last novel Pratchett wrote that he fully completed, edited and polished to his satisfaction (the one remaining book, The Shepherd's Crown, was assembled from earlier drafts than Pratchett would normally be happy using). However, as with Snuff, I was surprised not to discern any sign of this in the text. In fact, Raising Steam might be one of Pratchett's best-constructed novels. The average Discworld book was usually put together in stages, stage one being "throw stuff at the wall to see what sticks" and the final stage being, "write some bits between the other bits that hopefully make sense." Most of the time, Pratchett pulled this off well. A few times, he didn't. But it's only a handful of times that he pulls it off as well as this. Raising Steam has a large number of subplots and ideas that are all in motion simultaneously and all pull together at the end with a most satisfying "click."
This may also be the most epic Discworld novel. The book fills a longer timespan than any other in the series, with the action unfolding across a year or more as tens of thousands of people assemble the Discworld's first rail network from a standing start, and Pratchett only makes this rapidity convincing given the enormous manpower the continent can draw upon, including the industrious and newly-emancipated goblin workforce (paying off a major subplot unfolding through Unseen Academicals and Snuff in the process) and a golem taskforce. There are the political ramifications of the development of the railway, requiring Lipwig to engage in political discussions with the leaders of the surrounding towns (and we again get a visit to the very-definitely-not-French city of Quirm, hot on the heels of its semi-starring role in Snuff). There's the ongoing development of the goblin culture. There's the ongoing curious relationship between the Patrician and the Lady Margolotta of Überwald. We revisit the Forest of Skund for the first time since the opening books of the series. We revisit the town of Ohulan Cutash for the first time since Equal Rites (that's Book 3, thirty-seven volumes and twenty-six years earlier, for those not keeping score). We also get the deepest dive, so to speak, into dwarfish culture that we've had in the entire series, with political intrigue, coups and counter-coups. We have the Discworld equivalent of Lenin's mad train ride across Europe in 1917 (if not with quite as bloody as result). We have - get this - battle sequences. We have Vimes playing a major role in a non-Vimes-specific novel. I think we get more City Watch action in this non-City Watch novel than in the last actual City Watch novel. It's a lot.
The book also spans a much a larger amount of the Disc than we've seen for a long time, with discussions of geography, trade routes and national borders. This is the only Discworld novel that comes with a map at the front, which feels like it's breaking the last self-imposed rule Pratchett set upon himself for the series, even if the map feels more inspired by the Reverend W. Awdry's Railway Stories than by Tolkien.
There's also a simmering anger here that is allowed, with appropriate wordplay, to boil over at the right moments. The book is a simmering call to arms in favour of reason, rationality, diplomacy, science and discourse rooted in logic and facts. The world the religious fundamentalist dwarfs want, of superstition and fear and the other kept as far away as is dwarfishly possible, is being swept away and their response is to lash out rather than to adapt. Pratchett has no track with such self-imposed blindness and, as usual when he's annoyed, the author produces some of his best work.
Raising Steam (*****) is a powerhouse freight train of a book, which I was completely not expecting. It depicts the Disc and its vast array of characters in their full panoramic glory, marching into the Industrial Revolution not in fear, but in optimism and hope. If this had been the final Discworld novel, it would have been Pratchett going out on a crowd-pleasing high. But of course that would be a bit too obvious, a bit too easy. For the actual final book, Pratchett would instead go for the emotional jugular.
