With Discworld book forty, we have the last Moist Von Lipwig book. There’s been a slow but consistent trend of the Disc gaining technology over the years, and we get to see it make a giant leap into steam locomotives in this volume.
Dick Simnel, the son of Ned Simnel, the eccentric but brilliant smith that we met all the way back in Reaper Man, is obsessed with steam power, and partly because an explosion of steam is why he is fatherless as the book begins. This obsession quickly materializes as the Disc’s first steam locomotive, the Iron Girder.
Dick makes his way to the biggest city in the world, Ankh-Morpork, and there he meets with Harry King, a man we’ve met before, the man who built his fortune on the waste products of others, but his wife wants him to advance their social standing, and with the Iron Girder and Nick’s other ideas, here’s his chance to get involved at the ground floor of the revolution of steam power and make his wife happy at the same time.
Even in its early stages where it's just a simple circular track that people can ride around on like a carnival attraction, the idea of steam locomotion has broad appeal and people are demanding more. This is where Moist, the Patrician, and the city watch all get involved. Moist is of course still in charge of the post office, the mint and the bank, and his skill as a former confidence trickster serves him well here. The Patrician sees the value of rapid, long-range transport almost immediately, and the city watch get involved as the plot develops.
The infighting among the dwarves that we’ve seen before is becoming more dangerous and more common. The arch-conservative grags are encouraging violence against the clacks, so much so that some are torn down and the crews attacked, so when they hear about the new steam trains advancing technology even further, they are none too happy. This unhappiness causes massive unrest in the court of Rhys Rhysson, the low king we met back in The Fifth Elephant, and this bleeds out into not only Ankh-Morpork, the city with the most dwarves on the Disc, even if it isn’t a dwarf city, but into the more conservative populations below Uberwald, and even as far as Llamedos, where dwarves and humans tend to blend into each more than anywhere else. An untrustworthy zealot named Ardent leads these reactionaries in their wretched crusade to stop progress, and their instigations and violence is giving other dwarves, and especially Rhys, problems that must be dealt with.
In stark contrast to the backwards thinking of those ludicrously conservative dwarves, the trolls are quite fine with finding jobs with the railroad and some take up living under the railroad bridges, providing them with some extra protection. And while humans are also largely thrilled by the prospects of this new technology, no one seizes upon its potential more than the goblins. Riding high on their newfound status among the other major people of the Disc, they are naturals at working technology like the clacks and now the trains as well.
Moist and Adora Belle are married now, obviously at Spike’s (Adora Belle’s nickname) insistence. She is still involved with the golem trust, but no longer runs it as they are now running themselves, but she also hires a lot of goblins for the clacks that she now runs since her father invented it, and after the greed and corruption that was ruining the service was excised back in Going Postal. Their relationship is great fun, with Spike both loving and being exasperated by her husband’s need for excitement and risk in his life, while Moist obviously loves her very much and is happy to let her be herself, which is great considering how assertive and fearless she is.
The book focuses on both the explosion of growth of the railroad and the dwarven schism that comes into direct conflict with said growth. This collision course of progress and traditionalism is something we see a lot in literature and film of course, but Sir Terry attacks this idea with aplomb and a dash of humor as always. Like most of his later books, the humor takes a backseat to the story and the comparisons to our roundworld, but humor is still a part of the Disc as always and still made with great wit, even when things can get a bit dark.
And while this book does indeed have some dark moments, it never gets as dark as Night Watch did. But be ready for a few situations where things do sink into some evil moments, but evil moments that are outshone by the good ones as per Sir Terry’s usual style. One reason I love his writing so much is how he is so good at understanding both the good and the bad in humanity, and giving us examples of the good, the bad, and the in-between.
Even with the railroad expanding at an astonishing rate, the Patrician’s demand to have a line from Ankh-Morpork to distant Uberwald is a stretch, but he quickly makes sure that Moist knows that this isn’t a request, it’s an order. This rail line becomes critical to the resolution of the dwarven situation, and the combination of that conundrum and Vetinari’s insistence that this connection is made brings the watch in. Vimes and Von Lipwig have encountered each other before, but always on less than amiable terms, but it's quite agreeable here, at least at times, and watching them work together was good stuff indeed.
As the penultimate Discworld book and the final Moist and Technology book, it’s quite a banger. I’ve always liked Harry King and it’s nice to see him get to shine like this here. Dick Simnel reminds me so much of his father Ned, whom I really enjoyed reading about so many books ago. The relationship between Moist and Spike is brilliant fun. The plot with the conservative dwarves and the more progressive, more modern dwarves is interesting and all too real at times. Vetinari is in top form, and even Drumknott, his secretary, gets to have some fun with the trains. Another excellent book from a brilliant author.
4.0 Iron Girders out of 4.
Some fun quotes:
In Ankh-Morpork you can be whoever you want to be and sometimes people laugh and sometimes they clap, and mostly and beautifully, they don't really care.
That's the trouble, you see. When you've had hatred on your tongue for such a long time, you don't know how to spit it out.
“We can't just drop everything, sir!"
"Mister Lipwig. Is there something in the word 'tyrant' you do not understand?”
Morella is a Gen Xer who likes strange things a bit too much.
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