The twenty-fifth Discworld book is focused on the twin cities of Ankh-Morpork and some world-building. Dwarves there have invented the printing press, and this means the floodgates of new ideas are opened, and not everyone approves.
Our main protagonist is William De Worde. He was born into privilege, but he finds that he doesn’t like the nasty levels of superiority of that echelon of society. He voluntarily leaves a life of luxury to work as his own man. He has a nose for words and the truth, so he makes his living by gathering information and sending it to rich dignitaries all across the Disc. He uses the services of Mister Crisplock the engraver, to do so, but that comes to a literal crashing end when a dwarven cart full of moveable type for their printing press collides with the unfortunate William.
He quickly finds that the dwarves can help him not only get his news to his special clients faster and cheaper than the engraving, but that they can mass produce pages of text so cheaply that they can print the beginnings of a newspaper. They then turn to the homeless population we met in earlier novels; Foul Ol’ Ron, Coffin Henry, and others, to sell them to those on the street, which goes better than they expected. We then meet Mr. Crisplock’s granddaughter, Sacharissa, who at first accosts William for taking needed business away from her grandfather, but he quickly hires her as his first reporter, and they start the Ankh-Morpork Times.
While this is going on, another plot against the Patrician is underway. One would expect us to get a bit tired of these, but since they all work in different ways with different players, they aren’t as tedious as one would rightfully expect. We meet the new firm, Mister Pin and Mister Tulip, who are nasty pieces of work, and they have a shopkeeper named Charlie that looks exactly like the Patrician that they intend to use as part of their employers’ plan. Mr. Pin is the brains of the outfit, while Mr. Tulip is a dangerous psychopath who tries to snort so many substances that it’s amazing he’s even alive, but he also has a surprisingly in-depth knowledge of art, which I found an interesting counterpoint to his propensity for violence at the drop of a hat, and his version of swearing, ‘----ing!’ that he uses continuously.
As things progress, we also get a photographer for the paper, a vampire named Otto Chriek, who happens to be a black-ribboner, a vampire that forgoes blood, although it’s not always for him. Every time he takes a flash picture, the intense light from the frightened salamander that he uses to create the flash burns him, sometimes even turning to dust where he has to be restored by adding a bit of blood to his ashen remains in a nice throwback to Hammer horror. He’s also experimenting with dark light released by certain land eels, and dark light, which is the opposite of light, as opposed to darkness, which is just the lack of light, has some peculiar effects. At one point, Goodmountain, the de facto leader of the printing press dwarves remarks that he doesn’t want any more dark light, and is not a fan of Otto’s ‘prints of darkness,’ a joke that made me laugh more than it probably should.
The watch are quickly involved once that plot starts rolling, so we get some interesting interactions between them and Mr. De Worde. I found the contrast between the watch starring in the previous book (The Fifth Elephant) and them being in a secondary role here stark and extremely fascinating. When William is speaking with them, they feel downright hostile at times, a far cry from the largely heroic, if also often comedic, role they play in books specifically about the watch. This has happened in earlier books too, but never to such a striking degree. Both the watch and especially Vimes and William find a lot of problems with the situation with the Patrician, his assistant Drumknott, and how the whole idea that the Patrician attacked his clerk and tried to make off with a large amount of money. To long-time readers of the series, this does look ludicrous, even if we didn’t have some inside knowledge from reading the book ourselves. And this lack of cohesion is quickly brought up in the Times. The plotters are of course not happy with this and strive to stop those presses in various ways. This only makes William, Sacharissa, Otto, and the dwarves, more determined than ever to keep the Times in circulation.
William is a great protagonist. I love how while he was raised by his bigoted and egotistic father, he works hard to be good to people. Otto, who himself is fighting hard to not drink blood, points this out so well, he likes William not just because he hired him to be a photographer, despite him being a vampire, but he fights his snobbish upbringing, ‘He tries to be nice when he wasn’t raised to be nice’ as Otto puts it. He does lean into that noble upbringing at times, but he fights that arrogant attitude more than he succumbs to it. His desire to report real news, i.e., things that actually happen, puts him at odds with other newspapers that spew out nonsense like we see at the checkout line at the grocery store.
The supporting actors are great, too. Sacharissa is delightful, and her relationship with William is highly amusing, and while she tries to be ladylike, or least what she feels is ladylike, for most of the book, she shows a lot of heart and courage when she needs to and is absolutely crucial to the success of the Times. The dwarves, and especially Goodmountain (which is Gutenberg translated into English, so a nice play on words there), are excellent, Otto is a joy and while he has some serious moments, especially near the end, he’s extremely funny. CMOT Dibbler is even a minor player here, and he always adds some joy to any book he’s a part of. Mister Slant, the zombie that is also guild master of the guild of lawyers, gets a lot of time here for various reasons, and he fits the role of one that uses the law as he needs, he’s quite the piece of work. Our new firm of Mister Pin and Mister Tulip are genuinely terrifying at times, and are well-written villains in that you really hate them as people, but love them for their role here.
This book’s take on how news and the truth work is frighteningly realistic, despite the often ludicrous fantasy setting. This is how Sir Terry makes us laugh while also pondering some very serious issues. When news isn’t truthful, when it’s skewed by the presenter to promote or rebuke certain points of view, it’s more propaganda than information, and that’s something that we have been dealing with on roundworld for a very long time, although lately it’s been far worse thanks to social media and more open and blatantly twisted programs that call themselves news that are anything but, it’s a very old problem.
As I progress past the books I originally read all those years ago, and so glad I kept them even after a very dark time where I was forced to move and leave a chunk of my stuff behind, it’s been a joy to discover that Sir Terry’s later works are as good and often better than what I had read before, and Discworld is far and away my favorite series of books ever. This volume was brilliant and one of the best in an already amazing series of books. It’s another volume that earns top marks for its great story, excellent cast of characters, and enjoyable world-building.
4 breaking news flashes out of 4.
Some fun quotes:
“As for Mr. Pin and Mr. Tulip, all that need be known about them at this point is that they are the kind of people who call you 'friend.' People like that aren’t friendly.”
“William wondered why he always disliked people who said ‘no offence meant.’ Maybe it was because they found it easier to say ‘no offence meant’ than actually refrain from giving offence.”
“Be careful. People like to be told what they already know. Remember that. They get uncomfortable when you tell them new things. New things... well, new things aren’t what they expect. They like to know that, say, a dog will bite a man. That is what dogs do. They don’t want to know that a man bites a dog, because the world is not supposed to happen like that. In short, what people think they want is news, but what they really crave is olds. I can see you’ve got the hang of it already.”
Morella is a Gen Xer who likes strange things a bit too much.
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