BOOK REVIEW- RAISING STEAM (Terry Pratchett, 2013)

Raising Steam is the latest book by Terry Pratchett in the Discworld series. The last book of Pratchett’s that I read (The Long War) was quite disappointing, and so I went into this book with some trepidation. I have always enjoyed the Discworld books and have read most, if not all, the previous books set in the Discworld universe. I am happy to report, that I found Raising Steam to be a good return to form for Pratchett, even with its flaws.

Raising Steam follows the story of what happens when steam engines, in the form of trains, are introduced to the Discworld universe. As is always the case, there are those who think it is a good idea and those that are opposed to it. In this case, this feels like it is mostly focused on the traditionalist dwarves and the progressive goblins. Along the way, there are various twists and turns sprinkled with Pratchett’s usual wit, sarcasm and societal observations.

Raising Steam focuses on the character of Moist Von Lipwig, former conman turned to the service of the state by Vetinari, a tyrant. Along the way, various other characters are introduced, with most returning from previous Discworld stories. Some of the problems from The Long War resurface during Raising Steam. It feels like Pratchett tries to focus on far too many characters at times without giving them proper development. The difference here is that Raising Steam has 30-odd previous books of character development to draw from. This means that even with a character only introduced briefly, their personality was already clear in my mind.

This brings us to another problem with Raising Steam- the preachiness. Sometimes it felt like Pratchett has become too big a fan of his own characters. This results in characters like Vetinari, Vimes and Moist feeling like they can’t put a foot wrong. The side-effects of these characters being almost infallible is that the villains are almost an afterthought, with their threat-level feeling minimal and their reasoning feeling almost comically bad. This is a shame as previous Discworld books have done such a good job of building up very believable villains and the reasoning behind what they did.

But even with these flaws, Raising Steam never fails to entertain. Pratchett’s usual wit is on display as he examines the nature of humans (or dwarves, or goblins, or whichever fantasy race he uses as a proxy). Even if at times it felt like there wasn’t much at stake due to poor writing of the villains and some hero-worship of his heroes, I still breezed through Pratchett’s latest book much faster than I have read any other books in a while.

4 out of 5 Steam-Cooked Waffles.