The Discworld Series by Terry Pratchett

Discworld #38: I Shall Wear Midnight

Tiffany Aching is almost sixteen and is now a respected witch across the Chalk. She is taken aback when the death of a local dignitary seems to spark off a burst of hatred and fear towards witches. Her investigation reveals the return of an ancient force of evil, which unleashes bigotry and invective even from mild-mannered people, even from Tiffany's oldest friends and allies. Fortunately the Nac Mac Feegle are unaffected, and with their help Tiffany sets about restoring her reputation.

I Shall Wear Midnight is the thirty-eighth Discworld novel and the fourth to focus on the character of Tiffany Aching, ostensibly the protagonist of a series of books "for younger readers." It's also one of the darker Discworld novels, tapping into the idea that there is a coil of communal hatred in people that can be periodically unleashed for no real reason, and a canny operator can direct that bile towards their own ends.

The book is something of a Greatest Hits of the Ramtops, bringing in Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg, though with tremendous restraint Pratchett does not allow them to overwhelm proceedings. We also get a flying visit to Ankh-Morpork (complete with cameos from several Ankh-Morpork regulars), a blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance by Magrat, and even the return of one of the major protagonists of one of the very first Discworld books and has been puzzlingly MIA for the thirty-five books since. It's the largest-scaled Tiffany book and the one that seems to make the most effort to make her books feel connected to the larger Discworld setting, which it is successful at.

But for all that, the story is focused a lot on Tiffany's personal story. She has found acceptance and respect, but that is suddenly endangered by people deciding they hate her for almost no reason whatsoever. Anyone who has been the victim of bigotry, for whatever reason, especially from people they've known for a long time, can identify with this idea. Pratchett explores the metaphor by making the source of this inexplicable hatred an actual entity, the Cunning Man, but also reinforces it by having it that the Cunning Man can only be defeated, not destroyed totally.

The book alternates between obvious in-your-face humour - the Mac Feegles would be getting tiresome if Pratchett wasn't so good at giving them development, as individuals and a species - and more subtle gags and vigorous poking of the human condition. Like Unseen Academicals before it, this book was written shortly after Pratchett learned of his early-onset Alzheimer's diagnosis. Whilst Unseen Academicals ended up feeling unfocused and distracted, I Shall Wear Midnight feels focused and angry, like Pratchett had decided if he was on his way out, he was going to go out kicking and screaming at the injustices of the world. And as we know from Small Gods, Night Watch and Monstrous Regiment (among others), nothing is more glorious than an angry, articulate Pratchett.

I Shall Wear Midnight (****) is not perfect, it's mildly overlong and the final confrontation with the Cunning Man is vague at best, but this is otherwise a roaring return form for Pratchett after arguably the weakest book in the series. It's also the strongest outing for Tiffany Aching.
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Thanks for another great review @Werthead! I've read much of the Discworld series--there's a few I know I haven't read (a conscious choice for each), and I've long had the feeling that there are a few I don't know about at all--and I've found those reviews of yours which I have read are on the money. One day, I'll read each of your reviews, if only to see how your experiences compare to my own.
 
I've never read any of these, but recently bought the City Watch omnibus, so will try that out one of these days. Includes Guards! Guards! which sounds like a good starting point.
 
Discworld #39: Snuff

Commander Samuel Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch has faced down some of the greatest perils anyone can think of: dragons, guns, magic, time travel and Ankh-Morpork street food. But now he faces a challenge that he cannot escape, avoid or resist through force: a holiday. Relocating to the Ramkin rural estate, Vimes has to relax, eat good food and perform other hideous tasks like socialising, but his mood improves markedly when the dead bodies start showing up.

Snuff (2011) is the thirty-ninth Discworld novel and the last to feature Commander Sam Vimes in a starring role. The character originated in the eighth Discworld novel, Guards! Guards!, originally published in 1989, and Pratchett carefully developed his character over the course of twenty-two years and multiple books, making him one of the most popular Discworld characters and also the only one to have his own theory of macroeconomics that is often quoted in the real world.

For his swansong, Pratchett gives him a starring role with the rest of the City Watch relegated to brief, background appearances. The plot is nothing spectacularly new, with shades of The Wicker Man and Hot Fuzz here (not to mention a sprinkling of light Jane Austen) as Vimes becomes a fish-out-of-water in the countryside where the rules are different and his normal resources are not available. One of the reasons for Vimes's popularity is his impressive competence, with opponents getting the upper hand through surprise or genuine innovation rather than because the protagonist is given an idiot ball to hold for a while, and that holds true here. Vimes may not know the inns and outs of countryside politics but he does know people and how they operate, and that gives him a strong advantage.

The novel is on the long side for Discworld but is not as egregiously long as Unseen Academicals, which spun its wheels so long it was surprising it could be extracted from the ruts to be published. It helps that Vimes's investigation is genuinely interesting, taking in as it does local economics and the inter-species relationship between humans and goblins, the last Discworld species it is still "okay to hate," something that Vimes sets about changing. We got a taster of this storyline in Unseen Academicals but here it is explored more in-depth, with goblin society explored in full. It's impressive that, almost forty books in, Pratchett was keen to explore more of the Disc and its people.

The book is also helped by its pacing and it furiously action-packed finale, one of Pratchett's stronger resolutions as Vimes and his squad of hand-picked friends have to race along the river to stop a huge injustice taking place. The novel also continues the immensely impressive city-building of Ankh-Morpork, with brief interludes to return to the city to find out what's up with the Patrician and some of the other Watch members.

Given this is a late Pratchett novel, written after being diagnosed with a terminal illness, it is impressive how optimistic it is (an improvement over Academicals). Vimes's investigation legitimises an entire species of people and changes the perception of them overnight, to the betterment of the world. Sergeant Colon, a popular character but one who has been excused for his limited world view and prejudices too long, gets an astonishing wake-up call. Nobby Nobbs finds happiness! Kind of. If that doesn't give you hope for humanity (or immediately adjacent sub-species), I don't know what else will.

On the negative side, we probably again get too many extended scenes with the Patrician, which dents his mystique a little. Pratchett also lets a few running gags (Vimes's son's obsession with excrement of any and all zoological origin; the Patrician's increasingly bitter, metaphorical battle-to-the-death with the Times crossword compiler) maybe run on a few times too long. But these are minor issues.

For late-stage Discworld, Snuff (****½) is a very solid book, packed with interesting ideas that make you think, and some good laughs.
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Discworld #40: Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett

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.
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Discworld #41: The Shepherd's Crown by Terry Pratchett

Some people live such lives of integrity, honour, wit and compassion that their absence leaves a voice in the universe that cannot be easily filled. When one such person on the Discworld dies, triggering continent-wide remorse, their enemies find that hole and pour through. The elves are back, and they have unfinished business...

In an interview in 1995, Terry Pratchett said he found the idea of writing "the last Discworld novel," to be disconcerting. Though he always underestimated how many ideas he could mine from the setting (declaring in The Discworld Companion in 1994 that he doubted he'd still be writing regularly in the setting five years hence), he always saw it as a toolbox and a world he could continuously return to even after hiatuses. In the event, there were no (or very brief) hiatuses, and he would only reluctantly write "the last Discworld novel," its forty-first installment, a full twenty years after that statement.

The feeling permeates The Shepherd's Crown that Pratchett knew, or strongly suspected, this might be Discworld's final hour. He usually had multiple novels in progress, but though he had ideas for several novels beyond this one (famously crushed under a steamroller after his passing to prevent cashing-in by other writers), he hadn't really advanced far with them at all, but instead poured everything he had into getting this book into a publishable state. Facing mortality, he made the choice to go out with a (politely) raised finger and one of his most epic books.

The Shepherd's Crown opens with the death of one of the Disc's most beloved characters, someone who has been a force of nature in the series since almost its very start. Their passing will already have regular readers (perhaps teetering on the edge of teariness knowing that This Is It in terms of there being no more Discworld books after this one) feeling moved as Pratchett ponders on the impact of a single person's life on the people around them and the wider world. An avalanche of long-standing Discworld character cameos reacting to the death may have the reader reaching for the hankies already.

But Pratchett is far too clever to have a novel that's basically an excuse for melancholy. The elves, his most reliably hateful villains, take advantage of the absence to return in force and it's all hands-on-deck as the Disc must muster its forces to oppose them. There are crowd-pleasing cheers as the young-but-not-untested Tiffany Aching leads the battle against the invaders in force, with a surprising return to prominence from the long-retired witch Magrat Garlick, who's already taught the elves a thing or two previously. As with the previous book, Raising Steam, it feels like here Pratchett is borrowing a lot of ideas from the subgenre of epic fantasy, a genre he's not been afraid to gently (as a huge Tolkien fan) mock in the past, and finds them both surprisingly useful and something that he is very good at employing.

But Pratchett is still Pratchett. Wars, battles, epic fights to the death etc are all very well, but he's more interested in the human soul and the human mind, and the impact upon them of these concepts. Empathy and compassion are also present, as Tiffany tries to bring the exiled Queen of the Elves to an understanding that may lead to peace...but there are those elves who don't understand the world has changed to one of iron and steam and they have no place in it any more, and are unwilling to change with it.

The Shepherd's Crown was said to have been left unpolished and only partially edited at the time of Sir Terry's frankly unacceptable passing in early 2015, but I wonder if this was overstated. It's clear that several subplots are not as fleshed-out as you'd expect (Geoffrey and his unusually intelligent goat feel like they needed at least moderate expansion), but the main narrative thread is here, complete and relatively tight. For a novel written by someone deep in the grip of Alzheimer's, the attention to detail is at times astonishing, with minor characters showing up from 20+ books back to kick names and take bottom, or possibly (and hopefully) vice versa. Pratchett himself extends thanks to his assistant Rob Wilkins and his editorial team for providing supporting during the last few novels, but even so, Sir Terry himself had to get the words down just months before his passing and it's frankly astonishing he did it, and did it so well.

The Shepherd's Crown (****) is not the best Discworld novel, but it might be the one that best sums up everything Sir Terry Pratchett set out to accomplish in this series. A tremendous feat of worldbuilding, frequently laugh-out-loud jokes including some that take a while to parse (is it bad that I only got the joke in the name "Casanunda" with this book, thirty-two years after reading the original gag for the first time?), and a tremendous sense of human compassion. Pratchett famously did not take fools gladly, but he had a lot of time for people with all their strengths and foibles, and that shines through here perhaps more strongly than ever before.

A full assessment of the entire Discworld series will require a much longer article, but it has to be said here that The Shepherd's Crown, unpolished though it might be, is a fitting capstone and a final footnote (Pratchett loved those) on the series. Like many others, I was reluctant to read these last few books because the idea of there being no more Discworld books to read for the first time was a horrible one. But there is also a gained appreciation for the author who, facing mortality square in the eye socket, still went out delivering some of his best ideas.
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That project took slightly longer to complete than expected.
 
Thanks @Werthead! Another good, thorough review.

Wow, what a project this has been! Thank you for all these reviews of the Discworld series. Let me be the first to say, this is quite the resource. Pratchett's books have been reviewed by many people, but have the the series been reviewed so completely by a single individual before? I honestly haven't looked, but having one person's thoughts on each and every one of the forty-one books is, perhaps, only a little less valuable than the novels themselves. Thank you.

What's up next for you? Will you be reviewing Nanny Ogg's Cookbook or Tiffany Aching's Guide To Being a Witch?
 
RedMage said:
Thanks @Werthead! Another good, thorough review.

Wow, what a project this has been! Thank you for all these reviews of the Discworld series. Let me be the first to say, this is quite the resource. Pratchett's books have been reviewed by many people, but have the the series been reviewed so completely by a single individual before? I honestly haven't looked, but having one person's thoughts on each and every one of the forty-one books is, perhaps, only a little less valuable than the novels themselves. Thank you.

What's up next for you? Will you be reviewing Nanny Ogg's Cookbook or Tiffany Aching's Guide To Being a Witch?
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Reading something other that Pratchett, at least for a little while.

I do have his biography, followed by Nation (which would be a re-read) and Dodger (a new read). I could expand to a complete non-Discworld review series, which would be substantially less books but still about a dozen books (more with things like the Long Earth series, though that was much more Stephen Baxter than Pratchett).
 
Are there any other authors whose entire cannon you'd like to read? Say, someone who's been around for a long time, or who had a long career before passing away a few decades ago. Moorcock? Asimov? Bradbury? McCaffrey?
 
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