The thirty-fourth book of Discworld features the Watch and the ancient rivalry between trolls and dwarves. The battle of Koom Valley was long ago, but its memory lives on and is still a cause of friction between the two species, and that friction is bubbling up in Ankh-Morpork.
For regular readers of the Disc, the idea that dwarves and trolls aren’t exactly friends has been long established. This book brings that conflict to a head and smack dab in the middle of the largest population center on the Disc. This brings the watch in, and the watch books are among the most popular of all the Discworld books for good reason.
Speaking of the watch, it’s been dealing with some dwarves and trolls quitting as the remembrance of their ancient battle is getting more heated than usual, but it also grows as Sam is forced to add its first vampire. He’s always been against it, despite hiring a werewolf, a zombie, an Igor, several gargoyles, and others, but vampires always made him uncomfortable. Even the black ribboners, vampires that swear off drinking blood and replacing it with some other obsession, bother the otherwise accepting watch commander, and Salacia Delorisista Amanita Trigestrata Zeldan... von Humpeding, better known as Sally, joins the watch.
Being a werewolf, Angua isn’t exactly a fan of a vampire joining, but they make a fun pair in this book. Even having a girl’s night out with Cheeri and Nobby’s stripper girlfriend Tawnee. Tawnee’s real name is Betty, and she’s so gorgeous that Angua points out that goddesses would kill to have her figure. This makes the others wonder how she ended up with Nobby. Nobby needs a certificate just to prove he’s actually human and even then, many doubt that he really is. We find out that because she is so stunning, men are afraid to ask her out for fear of rejection, but Nobby doesn’t have such a fear, although we do find out that he does have reservations about her cooking.
Sir Sam has a ritual with his son, young Sam, as back in Night Watch, Sybil insisted they name their only son after her husband, in that every day at 6 p.m sharp, before the very young child goes to sleep, he reads his child Where’s My Cow (also an actual book released to coincide with this novel) and makes the appropriate animal noises. This becomes very important at times in this book, as one can likely imagine. This is often amusing, and also an important plot point when needed as well.
I also want to mention how endearing the relationship between Sam and Sybil is. When we first met Sam Vimes back in Guards! Guards!, he was a pathetic drunk. It didn’t take long for him to become a much better character, and his interactions with Sybil in the same novel set the stage for what has become one of my favorite relationships in any novels I’ve ever read. How the scion of one of the oldest and wealthiest families in Ankh-Morpork and a cynical copper born to poverty can love each other so much without being unbelievable or so sappy that it hurts, is amazing. They’re fantastic here, especially now that we have young Sam to bind them even more closely together.
The tensions over the upcoming remembrance of Koom Valley only grow worse as Grag Hamcrusher, a dwarf that was a leading voice in anti-troll sentiment, is found murdered with a troll club near the body. Vimes discovers that dwarves from the mountains that prefer the old ways have been tunneling under the city and eventually learns that they were looking for something ancient and very important, and that the regular city dwarves are not exactly happy with this situation, and this becomes full-blown anger once we discover more of how badly things went underneath their city. The idea of a troll being the murderer as a troll club was left on the scene, also feels a bit too convenient, and when you add all this onto the fact that the huge painting of the battle of Koom Valley was stolen from the museum, which I’m sure most readers can surmise that this is no coincidence, the watch ends up heavily involved in both dwarf and troll politics, whether they want to or not.
The situation is quite complex. There’s far more than just an ancient feud at work here. There are inner-dwarf politics between the very traditional grags from under the old mountains, the far more modern city dwarves, and the low king’s ideas stirring things up there, while the trolls have simpler politics, and are mostly concerned with what Mr. Shine thinks, Mr. Shine being a troll made of diamond. Trolls are all made of rock in Discworld, and usually have diamond teeth, but some very rare trolls are born made of diamond and unlike regular trolls, they don’t need the cold to increase their brain function and are made leaders of troll-kind thanks to these facts.
Koom Valley is not just a rallying cry, it’s not just a gigantic painting that was stolen, and not just a powerful symbol of the ancient enmity between the trolls and dwarves, it is a real place, and one that once we are taken there by some of our characters, we find that it’s a very dangerous place, that I wonder why anyone would try to go there in the first place! The treacherous walls of the very valley itself, the constant storms, the sinkholes, the foreboding caves, all combine to make it far less than ideal for battles, vacation spots, or even just passing nearby.
Another great book in my favorite series of fantasy novels. It has some memorable moments with a situation that is both comical and has frightening real world ramifications as Sir Terry does all too well at times. At one point, one of the more progressive dwarves asks the extremely conservative ones how they can live a life focused on such hate, and that one feels so relevant to today’s situation that it stings to see in print from twenty years ago. It’s also another great entry in the watch cycle of books; although not quite as good as the finest tales of Ankh-Morpork’s finest, it’s still brilliant stuff.
3.875 recreations of the battle of Koom Valley out of 4.
Some fun quotes:
“A VERY ACCURATE ONE. YOU SEE, YOU ARE HAVING A NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE, WHICH INESCAPABLY MEANS THAT I MUST UNDERGO A NEAR-VIMES EXPERIENCE. DON’T MIND ME. CARRY ON WITH WHATEVER YOU WERE DOING. I HAVE A BOOK.”
A young man of godlike proportions* was standing in the doorway.
*The better class of gods, anyway. Not the ones with the tentacles, obviously.
It was written in some holy book, apparently, so that made it okay, and probably compulsory.
Morella is a Gen Xer who likes strange things a bit too much.
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