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Stuart
read and liked
Cat's
review of Thud! (Discworld, #30):
"I will start off by saying that Terry Pratchett is my favourite author, however, as always, I will be as objective as possible.
With that said, I found this book slightly disappointing. I will give it an "Okay" or a "not so ...more
I will start off by saying that Terry Pratchett is my favourite author, however, as always, I will be as objective as possible.
With that said, I found this book slightly disappointing. I will give it an "Okay" or a "not so enthusiastic good". It dragged on in a few places, which is what I found the most disappointing about it. There is a mystery in the book (obviously, since it's a Watch story) but it was not ... that interesting. The mystery in itself just seemed a bit thin, like there should have been more layers to it, more fullness. It was not as exciting as some of Pratchett's other books. This is not to say that it was dull; many times I had problems putting the book down because I wanted to know what would happen next, but I did not find I guess you could call it the main plot that exciting.
Vimes, who is as always the hero, was hurt a few times, and there were some skirmishes, and I just found that rather trite. The first time he was hurt, it just seemed too much like "Well, Vimes is the hero and the hero gets hurt, otherwise what's the point?" I know that that was thrown in there so that Vimes would meet the troll (you'll know what I mean if you read the book, otherwise I won't tell you), but it still seemed too pointless for my liking.
Next, there is Sally. She is one of the new characters. I do not like her at all, and I cannot see that she has ANY bearing on the story at all. All of her parts in the story could have been taken care of by someone else and none would have been the wiser.
You see, Sally is a vampire. Vimes does not like vampires, but he was forced to take on a vampiric officer. It's like Pratchett sat down and thought: Okay, regarding the Watch we have humans, dwarfs, trolls, golems, Igors, werewolves, gargoyles, imps, Nobby Nobbs, what do I have left to try? Gee, I guess I haven't added a vampire yet. Let's do that.
And that is bad. That is very, very bad. Particularly since Sally seems to have no personality worth mentioning. If you write up a sheet with all of the characters' names on one side and their descriptions on the other, for Sally it would say, "Sally - vampire" and that is it. She is so flat it hurts. And then there is this rivalry/jealousy thing between Sally and Angua (the whole vampire/werewolf dislike, you know), and that was played out very badly, too. I did not care. Whenever Angua showed signs of dislike towards Sally or jealousy, for me it was just, "Meh. Whatever". It was not plausible and it was not interesting. There was no real interaction between Angua and Carrot (Carrot being Angua's beau, for the unenlightened). If there was supposed to be some sort of jealousy, you could at least have had either Sally take a shine to Carrot or vice versa. There was nothing for Angua to be jealous of in that aspect. What? Were I supposed to think, "Gee wiz, I wonder if Carrot will ever choose Sally over Angua?". Carrot would never do that. There was even no attempt to make me believe that he would. I mean, there could have been some kind of rescue scene where Carrot saved Sally, and then Some Things progressed from there, but there wasn't. This just made the whole jealousy thing seem stupid. Of course there ought to be some friction between Angua and Sally, but it could have been handled a lot more believably than it was.
There was a scene (well, several) where Sally, Angua, Cheery (a dwarf) and Tawneee, Nobby's girlfriend (I'll get to that) went pubbing in order to "bond". We've already had girls' nights out in the Watch books. It's not interesting anymore, not unless you add something new to it. Adding a vampire to the group does not make it new. It was extremely boring.
Now, Tawneee. Nobby has a girlfriend. This was not particularly interesting either. She didn't do anything, she was just there. For a character who does not do anything she seems to be there far too much. I recall the time when Nobby was ... Morris dancing was it? Now that was a great "secret/hobby" for him to have. That was well written, well crafted. Tawneee the Pole Dancing Girlfriend was not.
A.E. Pessimal. Lord Vetinari sends an inspector to inspect the Watch. This inspector is A.E. (he wasn't named, he was initialised). What was the point of him? A.E. inspects the Watch; he is a nuisance; as a joke Vimes swears him in; A.E. loves the Watch; A.E. wants to stay in the Watch. So what? Why should I care? He doesn't do anything!
It just seems like there are all of these loose threads ... I mean, in the earlier Watch books all of the little threads came together in one big ball of yarn. In this book you have one ball of yarn and many threads that are flapping loose, with no real purpose. It really hurts the book, in my opinion.
The thing with the dwarfs and the trolls/the ending. Dwarfs and trolls hate each other. They fight each other. The anniversary of Koom Valley (the most famous battle ever fought between trolls and dwarfs) is coming up. Dwarfs get killed. Trolls are suspected. At the end of the book it's "We are family. Let's try to live together like brothers and sisters!" It is just too tame, too idealistic. Sure, it would be nice, wouldn't it, but it just seems ... Rather than focusing on a murder mystery, whodunnit, possibly save the world, but at least save Ankh Morpork, Vimes now reunites two feuding races. And that just does not make much sense to me. It's too ... sweet. You can't just go from choppy-choppy to lovey-dovey in the course of one book! It's ridiculous, which is why I cannot find it plausible, which, again, in my opinion, hurts the book.
What I really, really liked, though, was Vimes interacting with people, Vimes exploring, and especially Vimes with his family. I loved Vimes with his family. I loved Where's My Cow, the book that Vimes must read to his son - Young Sam - every night at 6 o'clock. That was wonderful. Every time, that was wonderful. To see how much Vimes loves his wife and his son, that was great. I think Sybil (his wife, in case you don't know) was the only female character in this story that I really cared about.
"This is all rather fun," said Sybil [...]. "Do you remember when we last went on holiday, Sam?"
"That wasn't really a holiday, dear," said Vimes. [...]
"Well, it was interesting, all the same," said Sybil.
"Yes, dear. Werewolves tried to eat me."
Pratchett's writing is good, but the story seemed lacking, which I have already touched upon. The book had many good elements, don't get me wrong, I just don't feel that it is the best book he has ever written. All in all, if you're looking for a good Watch book to read, I'll recommend "Guards! Guards!" or "Men At Arms". If you're a die-hard Pratchett fan, I think you will be missing out on a lot of Discworld developments (between trolls and dwarfs) if you don't read the book, and it does have many wonderful Vimes scenes in it, but other than that I don't consider it a "must have".
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