Going Postal
Sep. 30th, 2005 10:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
owlIt's always a good thing to remember when you've pre-ordered books from amazon.co.uk.
Anyway, I now possess the paperback of Going Postal. I've seen people saying that it's a The Truth clone: young man founds/revives Ankh-Morpork institution, meets girl, gets into trouble, gets out of trouble. I don't think that's true. I liked it a lot, more than any other recent book except for Night Watch.
I thought it was more 'mystic' than a lot of DW books: the dead ships sailing past Anghammarad, the dead linesmen 'sending home' and remaining in the Overhead. The dead ships really hit me, because it's the sort of thing you can almost believe on the Roundworld.
I couldn't help liking Moist. By the time he'd undergone Vetinari's version of occupational therapy and been almost hanged, you had to feel a bit of sympathy for the guy. And I suppose one of the things in the book was the difference between him and Reacher Gilt (what a great name!): that moist had the sense to take the chance of redemption when it was offered. Oh, and 'Twelve and a half percent'? Hilarious!
It was good to get some of the inside workings of the clacks. (The operators reminded me, rather, of software engineers). I was interested to see how fast the technology's developed from the semaphore arms in T5E. how much time, in Discworld terms, had passed between the two books? It's not a coincidence that the Internet was rising madly in the Roundworld at the same time.
I liked the little glimpses of old friends: Dr Lawn's Lady Sybil Free Hospital (where people 'sometimes get better') and Sacharissa (now married, no prizes for guessing to whom). One thing that bothers me a little about that is the sheer numbers of the Ankh-Morpork cast; Vetinari, the Watch, the University, Foul Ole Ron and the crew, the Times, and now the Post Office and the clacks. With all these pushing in, will future books set in Ankh-Morpork start to seem like an extended cameo list? Vimes and the Times even appear in MR.
Anyway, I now possess the paperback of Going Postal. I've seen people saying that it's a The Truth clone: young man founds/revives Ankh-Morpork institution, meets girl, gets into trouble, gets out of trouble. I don't think that's true. I liked it a lot, more than any other recent book except for Night Watch.
I thought it was more 'mystic' than a lot of DW books: the dead ships sailing past Anghammarad, the dead linesmen 'sending home' and remaining in the Overhead. The dead ships really hit me, because it's the sort of thing you can almost believe on the Roundworld.
I couldn't help liking Moist. By the time he'd undergone Vetinari's version of occupational therapy and been almost hanged, you had to feel a bit of sympathy for the guy. And I suppose one of the things in the book was the difference between him and Reacher Gilt (what a great name!): that moist had the sense to take the chance of redemption when it was offered. Oh, and 'Twelve and a half percent'? Hilarious!
It was good to get some of the inside workings of the clacks. (The operators reminded me, rather, of software engineers). I was interested to see how fast the technology's developed from the semaphore arms in T5E. how much time, in Discworld terms, had passed between the two books? It's not a coincidence that the Internet was rising madly in the Roundworld at the same time.
I liked the little glimpses of old friends: Dr Lawn's Lady Sybil Free Hospital (where people 'sometimes get better') and Sacharissa (now married, no prizes for guessing to whom). One thing that bothers me a little about that is the sheer numbers of the Ankh-Morpork cast; Vetinari, the Watch, the University, Foul Ole Ron and the crew, the Times, and now the Post Office and the clacks. With all these pushing in, will future books set in Ankh-Morpork start to seem like an extended cameo list? Vimes and the Times even appear in MR.
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Date: 2005-10-01 09:21 pm (UTC)To make a short story long, yeah the linesmen are kinda like software engineers. :)