The review below has spoilers. I describe the plot below, but for the most part I think everything I comment upon could have reasonably been on the back cover except for the spoilered climax section which describes the ending, so click to reveal spoilers at your own peril.
Overview
This is Discworld book number 40, and you might not think there is not a whole lot to talk about these days…and you would be right. But we are adding a train to the setting. And the grags (fundamentalist dwarves) are at it again. Sure, they were dealt with in the Fifth Elephant and more recently Thud, and possibly a couple books I am forgetting, but they are back. And the Low King of the Dwarves needs to ride the train back to Uberwald…for reasons.
Humor
Pratchett’s works are generally funny. It’s not always true, Night Watch is a pretty good read despite being mostly serious, but even that book has some laughs in it. This book is funny like Stars Wars is funny. That is, it is a body of work with occasional jokes that may make you laugh, but there are not enough attempts at humor that anyone would describe it as funny. I am trying to remember funny parts, but the first thing that comes to mind is something about a nymph, and apparently it was not very good because I can’t actually remember the joke. Fred and Nobby have some comedic stylings, but they are barely in this and they are just retreading material that was done much better 24 years ago in Guards! Guards!. I think the book really wants the engineer’s focus on mathematics and numbers to be a joke, but at best it comes off as quirky.
Callbacks
I have already heard this book has the most callbacks of it as any Discworld book and that’s probably right. I think all the named characters in the Watch get mentioned, except Dorfl. I specifically remember Vimes, Angua, Sally, Cheery, Detritus, Nobby, Colon, and Bluejohn. The Archchancellor and Rincewind make an appearance, and Ponder Stibbons is at least mentioned. Furthermore, truly obscure characters like Charlie, the Patrician’s lookalike, and Queen Ynci of Lancre get mentions. Other characters never get mentioined by name, but you can tell there are references Nanny Ogg and Foul Ole Ron, at least if you are as obsessive about these things as I am. And all the callbacks make the book feel like fan faction. It’s like reading a Star Trek story in which the author keeps making references to obscure aliens that were only mentioned once and then promptly forgotten because of how stupid they were to show how devoted he is. Not helping is the fact that characters who get reintroduced are not handled particularly well. Would you believe that Rincewind, the craven would be wizard, is scared of the train. But wait, he is conflicted because he could use it run away from scary things. Truly masterful character writing. Other characters are actually portrayed inconsistently from previous books, as will be discussed more thoroughly below.
Romanticism Engaged!
If you are not familiar with Pratchett, he writes fantasy stories that are generally satires. The first books are mostly DnD stories through the eyes of NPCs classes. Rincewind is a wizard who can’t do any magic. He spends most of his time trying to run away from random encounters. Samuel Vimes is an NPC whose job is to show up in a big group and still barely be a speed bump for the hero. Or at least he started as such. The early books make the not too subtle point that a world in which monsters are constantly trying to kill you would suck for most of the population. Later books apply the same standards to other topics.
None of that skepticism and snarkiness apply to Raising Steam. Pratchett posits a world where railroad barons treat their worker’s with deference and charity and care primarily about their legacy. Which is interesting, because he has Harry King as the railroad baron, and he was already almost a mafia don. Seriously, earlier books talk about how people disappear when they get in the King of the Golden River’s way. And he and has goons physically beat down people in this book. But apparently Harry is really a kind and generous soul who not only gives pensions to his workers, he also gives a pension to an old lady whose sons died while trying to cut into his business. You would never think pensions are something workers fought and died for or anything. This book depicts an industrial revolution in which employees are so enthusiastic about working on the railroad that they would gladly work all night, and it was up to railroad management to look out for their health and force them to take breaks. What the fucking fuck?
Trains: Best thing or Bestest thing?
Discworld books feature a lot of anachronisms, which have been kinda explained as the Discworld’s magical world being influenced by ours. Generally, when a new invention is introduced, something goes really badly, or at least strangely. When movies are introduced to the Disc, they turn out to be part of ancient occult force that had to be sealed away by priests dressed like ushers. Near the end of the story, the Damsel in Distress grows to be fifty feet tall, kidnaps an ape, and climbs to the top of a large building. The first mall was part of invasion by alien entities, and had to be stopped by a crack team of dead people. The “gonne” is a haunted weapon that corrupts who ever uses it.
None of this applies to the trains, which are immediately accepted, and pretty much work exactly as advertised. Weirdly, the first train “Iron Girder” seems to be female and alive, and the books actually teases a Carrie subplot. But the only thing she does is kill a saboteur, and this whole subplot goes precisely nowhere. Besides that, the trains are just trains.
Pratchett seems to be looking at the time of rail transport with unbridled nostalgia, and suddenly his writing is shit enough that almost everyone else feels the same way. It’s a little like reading a book in which everyone is a stamp collector. Not because it is about a group of stamp collectors, just everyone is randomly super psyched about philately. Which makes the choice of Moist Von Lipwig as the protagonist really strange. You see, Moist is con artist who got shanghaied into government service. He has been in two prior books, where he basically had to sex up old government services that had fallen into disuse, the post office and the royal mint respectively. Those books are much better than I am making them sound, and in fact Going Postal is a personal favorite. But in this book, he is in charge of a new project, and the people of Ankh Morpork generally love novelty anyway. Plus they have all been rewritten as a bunch of train spotters. So Moist mostly just negotiates for easement rights. If that does not sound exciting to you, the author agrees, and for the most part this is skipped over.
Much as Pratchett likes trains, he seems aware that the word train repeated over and over is not an actual plot. This story needs some drama and some tension damn it, and Practhett is more than willing to derail a fan favorite character in order to get it. So the Patrician orders Moist to build a railroad to Uberwald as soon as possible. The conversation goes something like this.
Patrician: “Build a railroad to Uberwald as soon as possible”
Moist “Why?”
Patrician: “I am not here to answer questions. I am here to threaten you with torture until a railroad appears.”
Moist: “But there are several logistical concerns.”
Patrician: “Torture! Torture! Torture!”
It’s really hard to express how much of a character derailment this is. The Patrician is supposed to be a tyrant who tortures people, especially mimes, but he is also subtle and he rarely takes any overt action when he can avoid it. This is a guy who is written to be sardonic when angry, and I kept thinking he was going to throw an actual tantrum, complete with beating his heels on the floor and holding his breath. And he is not even scary. My Dad’s not exactly the master of intimidation or anything, but even he told me to only threaten someone once, because if you don’t follow though on the first threat the other guy has no reason to think you are serious the second time.
So we have tension, but its shit tension. We still don’t have any specific deadline but soon. Furthermore, building a train is not exactly a thrill ride that supports a good story. It’s not like Moist is out there with a hammer and spikes frantically laying track. Railroads are built by lots people of taking very precise measurements and then having lots of other people engage in very tedious work, and this book is no exception. Now, if the only problem with building a train was that Lord Underbite was against it, and Moist had to go to his haunted castle and convince him otherwise, that could be a story. But for the most part we are looking at a civil engineering project as described by a non-expert tertiary observer so the author does not have to learn about trains or anything.
But wait, there’s more. The grags, which this book assures at length are a bunch a loonies nobody likes, hold a coup while the Low King is away. Don’t think about how a movement with no popular support can have a coup, it’s story time. So the Low King has to race back to Uberwald. And of course he needs to use the train. I mean, sure he left Uberwald without using the train and he could theoretically just take a carriage back. In fact, the good guys send out a bunch of decoy carriages, and while they are stopped by the bad guys, the good guys just get out and ROFLSTOMP them. Among the buttkickers is one Cheery Littlebottom, the Disc’s first forensic specialist, who I am pretty sure does not actually do that sort of thing. But anyway, carriages are for sissies. I am sure hiding the King in an unfinished, untested piece of technology subject to derailing and dependent upon miles and miles of unguarded track which your enemies will be destroying on general principle is a better idea.
And we still don’t have an actual deadline. The worst thing that can happen, the bad guys get control of the government, already happened. The Low King can sneak back in, or do the not stupid thing and raise an army of dwarves from Ankh Morpork, whenever he likes.
The Climax (Spoiled for your protection)
So the train reaches a foggy chasm and records indicate there is no bridge. You would think someone would have said something before this. But Moist urges us to have faith, and sure enough the train goes across the chasm with absolutely no problem. But how you ask, or at least this book desperately wants you to ask. Turns out Moist grabbed a shit load of those golems he found in the last book, whom he was absolutely not supposed to use and are currently something of WMD on the disc, and had them tunnel here and build a bridge, while somehow conjuring some obscuring fog so nobody could see it. Then he has the golems take the bridge apart after they cross so there is no evidence. So instead of giving a dodgy excuse like saying he paid some old acquaintances from his days as a scoundrel to do some bridge work, he blames the whole thing a on a fucking miracle. Smooth.
But that’s not all, we have to have our climatic fight scene. So Dwarves start dropping onto the train to fight it out. You would think it would have been easier just to sabotage the track in some way, then polish off the survivors, if any, when the train derails, but what do I know. Would you believe that Moist, who before this book had only one lucky strike against a surprised opponent to his name, is actually an excellent swordsman who is able to defeat several trained dwarven soldiers? Well then how about this, Nobby and Colon, two comic characters who have entire careers revolving around racing to the scene of a crime slowly enough to make sure all the bad guys have gotten away first, have taken several levels in badass and crushing dwarves like they are the heroes of Helm’s Deep. If you are still believing this shit, what if I told that the Patrician has assumed a secret identity as furnace stoker/champion shovel fighter and is also kicking ass, in what I assume is a concentrated attempt to make sure I can never take him seriously ever again.
So the Low King shows up and gives a speech off screen, and that totally crushes the rebellion because these guys were never serious antagonists. And then he comes out as a she, which was an interesting plot twist several books earlier when it happened to a character we cared about. And then she announces she is pregnant, and basically violates enough Dwarf norms that it is a little like Barack Obama announced he was gay and that he is partner Steve would be moving into the White house immediately. But nobody cares, because it is the end of the book and the opposition was never shown to have more depth than a Saturday morning cartoon villain.
But that’s not all, we have to have our climatic fight scene. So Dwarves start dropping onto the train to fight it out. You would think it would have been easier just to sabotage the track in some way, then polish off the survivors, if any, when the train derails, but what do I know. Would you believe that Moist, who before this book had only one lucky strike against a surprised opponent to his name, is actually an excellent swordsman who is able to defeat several trained dwarven soldiers? Well then how about this, Nobby and Colon, two comic characters who have entire careers revolving around racing to the scene of a crime slowly enough to make sure all the bad guys have gotten away first, have taken several levels in badass and crushing dwarves like they are the heroes of Helm’s Deep. If you are still believing this shit, what if I told that the Patrician has assumed a secret identity as furnace stoker/champion shovel fighter and is also kicking ass, in what I assume is a concentrated attempt to make sure I can never take him seriously ever again.
So the Low King shows up and gives a speech off screen, and that totally crushes the rebellion because these guys were never serious antagonists. And then he comes out as a she, which was an interesting plot twist several books earlier when it happened to a character we cared about. And then she announces she is pregnant, and basically violates enough Dwarf norms that it is a little like Barack Obama announced he was gay and that he is partner Steve would be moving into the White house immediately. But nobody cares, because it is the end of the book and the opposition was never shown to have more depth than a Saturday morning cartoon villain.
So our B plot is fantasy racism, or at least xenophobia. Lots of Pratchett’s books address this, but this particularly book stands out because of how terribly it is done. Like I said before, the bad guys in this book are the grags. They were first introduced in the Fifth Elephant, where the book was careful to make clear there is a difference between being progressive, modern, cosmopolitan, and pro Anhk Morpork and being a good person. In fact, the day is saved when an orthodox dwarf supports team Anhk Morpork for the good of the Dwarves as whole. In Thud, we find out that Koom Valley, the cause of the current enmity between troll and dwarf, was actually caused by reactionary elements, and the kings were trying to sign an accord. Currently, the grags are hated by everyone and are down to a core of always chaotic evil obvious bad guys. Seriously, I can’t believe none of the female characters get tied to the railroad tracks while the grags twirl their mustaches. They would not be any less obviously evil and with that you can make an argument for parody.
Just due to the total lack of subtlety and nuance the moral message here could be pretty forgettable, but it is worsened by the way Pratchett has written his fantasy races and is now ham fistedly using them. One of the evil things the grags do is try to massacre the people at wedding between a dwarf and a human. That’s totally bad and everything, but it’s a shit metaphor for interracial marriage. Because a human man marrying a dwarf woman is not like a white man marrying black woman. It’s like a white man a very short man with a full beard. Because that is what dwarves look like on the Disc. They all have full beards and they have taboos against telling people their actual sex. Which should have been obvious because one of the attempts at a big reveal is when one of the dwarves comes out as female.
The Trolls are barely in this book, but they also try to gamely buck stereotypes in ways they really can’t. You see, the two trolls introduced in the book are a lawyer and a librarian, instead of having jobs like bouncer or dock worker. The book actually makes a big deal about the lawyer, with one of the characters assuming he is a bodyguard, until it is explained. And all this would be fine if it were DnD trolls we are talking about. But Pratchett trolls are different. Pratchett trolls are made out of actual rock and have silicon brains that only really work in the cold. I don’t know if that makes any sense, but it is the established physics of the universe. The only trolls who can really think that were introduced before this are a crime lord, who operates out of meat locker, and the king of the trolls, who has a bullshit exemption. Detritus is the most prominent character who is troll, and he has a special cooling helmet that makes him merely very dumb. The lawyer is explained as related to the king of the trolls, and claims a new bullshit exemption. The librarian has zero explanation so I don’t know why she is shockingly urbane and erudite in a second language when da trolls dey have to talk like dis cuz of the brain thing.
Despite that, I still think the racism thing is the worst with the goblins. Goblins were mentioned previously but only really developed in Snuff, another rather unloved recent Pratchett book. In that one, they are basically African slaves, and the book is mostly about trying to get people to accept them as people, not objects. It works somewhat better than this book, although it is a little too on the nose. The message was also somewhat diluted by the fact that goblins don’t look like people and they have habits that really would make people not like them, like saving their snot. Additionally, Snuff would have better received if Pratchett had not also wrote Feet of Clay, which used golems for the same message, came out much earlier, and was a better book.
Anywho, last book the goblins could be hunted for sport if you wanted, and Vimes was trying to get people to realize they should have rights, relying on a goblin with a beautiful singing voice to show they have value. In this book, they are apparently well on the way to acceptance. A number of characters mention the Patrician signed something indicating they have rights now. Our omnipresent narrator assures us goblins are accepted because they work hard, practically not pausing to sleep, and work on the Clacks towers, which other people don’t want to do.
Think about that for a second. As an American, I can’t help but think our Mexican immigrant population would be much more accepted if they were just willing to work longer hours for less pay than us natural born American workers. Nope, can’t think of how anybody would not like that. Actually, the goblins are working on semaphore towers, which is kind of a Pratchett expy for the internet or computers. The workers actually describe sending messages as coding. And while the technology is new, he has already introduced a set of young workers who are obsessively fascinated with the things, like computer nerds. No sir, can’t think of how those guys would be adverse to a bunch of goblins who can barely speak the language running them out of a job. God dammit, when your antiracism message is making me take the side of the idiots screaming “build the damn fence” you are doing it wrong.
One last thing about the goblins, they are also individually annoying. They all have this incredibly annoying accent thing that drives me up the wall. This book, we are introduced to "of the Twilight the Darkness" (yes you have to say the whole thing. To do otherwise is a grave insult). He functions somewhere between a Mary Sue (saves the day a few times with help from other goblins) and magical negro (dispenses sage advice, potions to our hero). Let me conclude my review merely by saying that I hate this character with the intensity of a thousand suns.
