Review: Feet of Clay

Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett
eBook

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Feet of Clay is the 19th discworld novel Terry Pratchett published, back in 1996. It's also the third book about Ankh-Morpork's City Watch.

Commander Sir Samuel Vimes has settled in his new life as the husband of the richest woman in town, who is also an aristocrat. He's not very happy with his new social circle, though.

Vimes puts a lot of work into the Watch, which by now also employs a number of dwarfs and trolls (to the dismay of Ankh-Morkpork's elite). My new favourite dwarf is Cheery Littlebottom, who is an alchemist. She's a female, but dwarfs don't regularly show their gender... Angua, who tries to hide the fact that she's a werewolf from the dwarf, encourages her, lending her lipstick, earrings and other things, which shocks the other dwarfs, normal people and - most of all - Captain Carrot. Somehow, she reminds me of Abby of Navy CIS, who is also not a regular specimen of the forensic scientist...
When two old men are found murdered, Cheery get's to investigate the murder scenes, but most of her work in this novel is focused on finding how the Patrician is being poisoned every night, despite being severely guarded. There are influential forces at work, who'd like to see him replaced with an easily to guide king.
Other things happening in Feet of Clay include the strange behaviour of the city's golems and Angua trying to break up with Carrot, for his own good. One of these days...

I've always enjoyed reading a good thriller, when you're kept in the dark about the identity of the murderer and are surprised at the end. Located on the discworld, this gets to be funny as well as exciting.
Feet of Clay is well worth the read, although you should probably have read the other Watch novels before, so you know the characters.


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Review: Maskerade

Maskerade by Terry Pratchett
eBook

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Maskerade was first published in 1995 as the 18th discworld novel. It is also the fifth story from the Witches series, which means it is based on folklore or another famous story. In fact, we've switched from Shakespeare to Gaston Leroux or the better known Andrew Lloyd Webber with the Phantom of the Opera.

The book starts with Agnes Nitt from Lancre, who calls herself Perdita and has an amazing voice. She also has lots of body, though, which greatly hinders her career as a singer. Still, she can convince the people at Ankh-Morpork's opera house to let her join due to her talent.
Members of the chorus, like Agnes, live on the premises of the opera house, where Agnes meets Christine, a shallow but beautiful young woman with no talent for singing. During their first night, they switch rooms because Christine hears a voice in hers and is scared. Agnes, although more sensible, can also hear the voice, which wants to help Christine to be a better singer. Imitating Christine's voice, Agnes takes the nightly lessons for her.
Next day, the Opera House Ghost, an institution which used to bring luck to the opera house, requests that Christine sing an important part in the show that night. Since the ghost had started killing people, masking the murders as accidents, his request is obeyed. In secret, though, Agnes is asked to sing the part from the background.
Still, more and more people die in strange "accidents", so it's only lucky Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg are in town. Nanny Ogg has written a very popular cookbook, but receives no royalties, which Granny intends to change. At the same time, they want to see how Agnes copes in the big city, and maybe take her back with them to complete their coven. Two witches are simply not enough.
Agnes avoids the witches whenever she can, but she can't help getting involved in the ghost hunt, since she is the only sensible person in the opera house.

I won't tell you who turns out to be the ghost in the end. If you know Terry Pratchett, you know you can expect a bit of a surprise and a happy ending.
Maskerade was a very enjoyable novel; partly because I like the witches, and partly because it was difficult to guess who the ghost is.


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Review: Men at Arms

Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett
eBook

My rating: 4 of 5 stars




Ah, I'm back at Terry Pratchett, and back in the British Books Challenge 2012.

Men at Arms (first published 1993) is discworld novel number 15, and the second focused on the Night Watch. It is set about a year after Guards! Guards!, where Captain Vimes and his crew were up against a huge dragon. This time, the enemy is not even of flesh and blood.

It all starts with the crazy mind of an aristocrat (and assassin), who wants a king for Ankh-Morpork, and who, by coincidence, recognises the current heir, who happens to be... well, present at all times anyway. In order to remove the Patrician and the current Guild structure, he steals the most deadly and dangerous weapon in existence: the gonne (I believe I don't have to explain to you what it is). It was invented by Leonard of Quirm and ordered to be destroyed by the Patrician, but instead it was kept in the assassin's museum. And it has a mind of it's own...
As more and more corpses - planned and accidents alike - turn up around the city, the Night Watch has to try and come to terms with the proceedings, as well as getting used to ethnic minorities as new recruits and the loss of Captain Vimes, who is going to be married and will be retiring in the process. Lucky for them that they have Corporal Carrot, then, who has a way of owning the city and bringing people to act as good as he believes them to be, so he can quell even the strongest of upheavals.


As someone who has enjoyed many a good murder mystery, I can definitely recommend Men at Arms to fellow readers. The plot is a thrill - as well as the usual Terry Pratchett funny - and ends on quite a surprise.
For me as a Terry Pratchett reader it was also great, because there were a lot of old acquaintances, mostly from Moving Pictures: Gaspode the talking dog, Ruby (Detritus' girlfriend), and even (if only with a small role) Mr. Silverfish of the alchemists. I guess you can read and enjoy the book even if you haven't read Moving Pictures before, but it's so much more fun to see how the old faces are never forgotten.


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Review: Guards! Guards!

Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett
eBook

My rating: 4 of 5 stars





Guards! Guards!, first published 1989, introduced another new set of characters to my personal discworld universe: Captain Vimes and the rank of the city watch.
The book covers and unites multiple story-lines: the one of Carrot, a human raised by dwarfs, who is sent to the city to be with his own kind, and who applies at the city watch to do good. At the same time, a secret society aims at overthrowing Ankh-Morpork's ruler, the Patrician Lord Vetinari, in order to install a manipulable king. They do so by summoning a dragon, using a book stolen from the library of Unseen University and diverse stolen magical items. As anyone who read, for example, the wizard novels can deduce from that: the Librarian is not happy.
The main focus of Guards! Guards! is on Captain Vimes, though, who stops his alcohol abuse in order to be able to get rid of the dragon and protect his city. It's a somewhat clichéd police story, that, but nicely done and quite in discworld style. Together with the rest of the - mostly incompetent - city watch, the Librarian and Lady Sybil Ramkin, breeder of pet swamp dragons, it's Captain Vimes who tries to stop the dragon after the secret society lost control over it and it became king of Ankh-Morpork (amazing what concepts people can wrap their minds around).

Quite a bit of the story is based on the way people believe in stories and sayings - how to recognise a king, one-in-a-million chances, the behaviour of dragons... That makes up most of the novels charm: a mirror to the stupidity of people. Plus, there's dragons and I learned about L-space.
Satire, humour, dragons and L-space - definitely a book worth reading.


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