We saw Terry Pratchett at Town Hall Tuesday. He’s frail compared to the man I saw at Kane Hall back in the 1990s, but still sharp. He took questions, and one, predictably enough, was which of his characters he was most like. “In my heart I know it’s Rincewind,” he said, grinning. But then he continued in a more thoughtful vein:

“Twice I’ve kneeled in front of the Queen and she’s swished a very large sword over my head and fortunately, she’s missed every time. When I stood up a knight, a ferrier, a blacksmith, a soldier in the Crimean War, all my ancestors stood up with me. . . . and you find yourself wondering about your roots and arguing with prime ministers. .

“And that’s the part of me that’s Vimesy.” This man who more or less accidentally became part of the power structure. A peer of the realm. Married to duchess who is on first names basis with most of the powerful since childhood. In this book, Vimes more or less accidentally takes on some of the ways that the powerful stay powerful, both as someone who believes in law that transcends the local power structure, and as a part of the power structure that just happens to be outside of his jurisdiction. It’s good for him he’s got friends in high places. Also in low ones.

This isn’t the sharpest Discworld book ever, and there are those who will not appreciate its earnestness. Vimes goes on vacation and more or less accidentally takes on the triangle trade. Unambiguously hero work.

It is unabashedly one of the darker Discworld books. Not darkness made visible, though The Summoning Dark does whisper dark and helpful things in Vimes's ears. Horrible things happened in the gaps; things the author darkly references but does not explicate. There are unspoken parts of the book that make me squirm.

The villains are also mostly off screen, which is somewhat dissatisfying. One of the things I like about the Discworld books is that the villains are people too. Maybe this time Pratchett could not bear to share their perspective. Or maybe he didn’t want to give us the comfort of really despising them by keeping them vague and mostly off screen.

It felt a little like the pieces that were left over from Unseen Academicals. Like Pratchett is doing his best to bring in all the despised races of fantasy world and show that they’re human too. All parts of ourselves we’ve done wrong by. Like the man said, if humans could fall, why couldn’t orcs rise, after all? Or goblins?

It’s quite utopian in the resolution. Mostly utopian. Except for the realpolitique that very few people are actually punished. Though the spiders might help.

It had one of the best lines I’ve read in a long time, spoken by the Watch’s forensic accountant, A. E. Pessmial, discussing how people can come to do terrible things. “'I'm sorry. I know that I am a small, weak man, but I have amassed a large library; I dream of dangerous places.'"

Pokes quite nicely at Jane Austen, though not as sharply as Unseen Academicals poked at Tolkien. May have been partially inspired by how all the amazing things that her British Empire was doing happened in the silences.