Toot, toot! Time for Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett.
This is the last Discworld book about Moist von Lipwig, and I’m looking forward to seeing how he’ll con everyone this time around.
I’m also looking forward to seeing how Lord Vetinari will – very subtly – threaten to have him killed if he doesn’t use those conman skills for the good of Ankh-Morpork.
…
Also, the above is total hogwash, because I already finished the book. But I wrote the draft of this post before I started and I’m not going to change it just because the sun has been hiding for a week, so I haven’t had the lighting a photo of a Discworld book deserves.
On to the owl photo. Hoot, hoot!
Raising Steam
by Terry Pratchett
To the consternation of the patrician, Lord Vetinari, a new invention has arrived in Ankh-Morpork – a great clanging monster of a machine that harnesses the power of all the elements: earth, air, fire and water. This being Ankh-Morpork, it’s soon drawing astonished crowds, some of whom caught the zeitgeist early and arrive armed with notepads and very sensible rainwear.
Moist von Lipwig is not a man who enjoys hard work – as master of the Post Office, the Mint and the Royal Bank his input is, of course, vital… but largely dependent on words, which are fortunately not very heavy and don’t always need greasing. However, he does enjoy being alive, which makes a new job offer from Vetinari hard to refuse…
Steam is rising over Discworld, driven by Mister Simnel, the man wi’ t’flat cap and sliding rule who has an interesting arrangement with the sine and cosine. Moist will have to grapple with gallons of grease, goblins, a fat controller with a history of throwing employees down the stairs and some very angry dwarfs if he’s going to stop it all going off the rails…
[…] Raising Steam (Terry Pratchett) This one lacked something for me. It was not a bad book by any stretch of imagination, but it seemed more like a study of the steam engine’s influence on society rather than a Discworld novel. I think it was just all together too sensible and had far too few insane moments. But I absolutely loved the mental image of Lord Vetinari whacking dwarf assassins with a shovel, so it wasn’t a total loss! […]
Such a pretty cover! And a pretty owl! I haven’t read this one yet (I’ve only read Going Postal of the Moist von Lipwig books) but I’m looking forward to reading the rest of this sub-series.
Going Postal is also the best of the Moist books, in my opinion!
I’m going to be watching the movie this Saturday, so I’m hoping that is good as well.
I enjoyed the movie! When I saw it, if had been years since I read the book, though, so I can’t say how good an adaptation it is. I liked it as a Discworld movie, though.
I heard it doesn’t really follow the story that closely, but it captures the feeling of the book, and that’s honestly more important to me.
The beginning at least follows the story quite well! I haven’t gotten far into the book yet (maybe 40-50 pages?) but it’s pretty darn close. And the feeling of the movie is why I love it so much. I hope you enjoy!
As soon as I saw that Charles Dance plays Lord Vetinari, I was sold.