As enjoyable as Discworld novels always are - amazingly, this is number 39, including the ones aimed primarily at younger readers. Much as I like reading them, it's been a while since a new Pratchett really impressed me, and this one doesn't break the run - it has its moments, but doesn't break any new ground (quite a few of the recent ones have been quite self-consciously concerned with the importance of tolerance of difference - with goblins the downtrodden here).
There's something slightly small-canvas about it, not least in the way that it's nearly entirely told in the same narrative stream (though Vimes is admittedly probably one of the best major characters to do that with), so that there isn't the sense of slightly chaotic plotting and general teeming panoply that normally prevails in these books. Also - Death doesn't appear in it! Which made me wonder if he stopped showing up in every single book a while back and this is just the first time I've noticed. Still, all in all, nothing to complain about here.
There's something slightly small-canvas about it, not least in the way that it's nearly entirely told in the same narrative stream (though Vimes is admittedly probably one of the best major characters to do that with), so that there isn't the sense of slightly chaotic plotting and general teeming panoply that normally prevails in these books. Also - Death doesn't appear in it! Which made me wonder if he stopped showing up in every single book a while back and this is just the first time I've noticed. Still, all in all, nothing to complain about here.
