And if this is your FIRST Discworld book, please, please go look for earlier volumes. That Being said, there is still enough of this book to enjoy it, to enjoy the humor and to enjoy the visual imagery that occurs in this book. There were a lot of times when I was left wondering where he was going with it, only to be left holding nothing. However, there feels to me like a lot of meandering passage, which of course Terry did often but this felt too much like it didn’t actually meander anywhere meaningful. The story itself is interesting (trains come to Discworld!) and features Moist Von Lipwig, who is an entertaining fellow.

However, it didn’t have that cohesion or flow I’m so used to – it felt like a bunch of Terry Pratchett bits cobbled together. It had all the things you would find in a normal Terry Pratchett fantasy, great characters, great bits, absurd humor and that oh-so-present feel of the UK.

I don’t know how many nights I sat totally taken away from this world and reading without laughing even a bit (while still acknowledging in my head, that was funny!).Īlas, with Raising Steam, I have to wonder if Terry’s onset of Alzheimer’s didn’t have something to do with this book. Here’s the thing: Terry Pratchett’s books were so fascinating they stood on their own without the humor. He made his humor for the most part accessible, but even within that his humor could have nuance and subtlety that you wouldn’t get until your second read.

I don’t honestly remember if I even picked up on all the humor, but i was pretty well read and while he wasn’t one to put on airs, he was a gentleman about it. I don’t remember when I first got the Colour of Magic, I was young, but I was instantly captured. I perhaps can best sum it up by saying I stopped reading fantasy books in my early teens, yet here I am in my high forties picking up Raising Steam. For those of us growing up with Terry Pratchett as a go to author, there is the knowledge that Terry sets the bar almost absurdly high.

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