It is over 30 years since Terry Pratchett's first foray into the magical realm of the Discworld. 40 stories and 10-20 other publications have since followed, with over 80 million books sold in 37 different languages. If you want to talk about an epic series, then you have to look no further.
They don't have the depth of a Wheel of Time or a Lord of the Rings but the way Pratchett runs multiple themes through the series gives them a unique feel. While there is essentially a reading order to them you can often pick up any of the books and become immersed very quickly in an environment that is familiar.
The other good things about the Discworld series is the way Pratchett uses the events on Discworld to satirise real life, or alternatively basing his tales on something on our "roundworld". Raising Steam is one of the latter, heralding the Age of the Railways.
*SPOILER ALERT*
The world is changing. A young man from Sto Lat has worked out how to harness steam, now the race is on to take advantage of the opportunities afforded by the advent of the railways. As always with anything new on the Discworld, it can only happen with the "permission" and input of Lord Vetinari. And when Vetinari needs a civil servant to keep the interests of Ankh-Morpork to the fore, he calls on Moist von Lipwig.
Having rescued the Royal Mint and fixed the Post Office, Moist is in the ideal position to maximise the potential of the railways, for profit of course. This is the third book to feature the ex-con von Lipwig and it follows a similar feel to the others. Moist somehow always manages to dig himself out of the holes that Vetinari happily puts him in.
Throw in a dwarf rebellion, some gender politics and plenty of goblins and you can very quickly see that Raising Steam is typically Pratchett. The old characters that we know and love are back, as good as ever. The news ones he weaves in are interesting and perfectly rendered in your mind within no time at all. The universe of the Discworld is 40+ books old but it never feels full or contradictory with things that have been before.
You kind of know where the story is going quite early in the piece, but that has always been Pratchett's way. He has always been more about the little touches; the nods to his fans, the throwaway lines that turn out to be very important, the small elements as opposed to relying on blockbusting plot twists or huge sweeping set pieces.
This story isn't actually one of his better ones. Once again the little touches are great but I felt the overall plot line was a little bit uninteresting this time. It's not by any stretch bad but I don't think it is one of his best. The idea of introducing the railways is great and the bits of the story around this are really enjoyable.
It was the dwarf rebellion story which felt a bit "tacked on", almost like Pratchett needed somewhere to go on the railway and this was what he came up with. It doesn't feel organic and natural. That particular plotline also got tied up a bit too quickly for my liking - once the train arrived everything went back to normal. Again, that just added to the feeling that the plotlines didn't really come together naturally.
Its amazing that Pratchett is still churning out these stories though, his mind seems as sharp as every despite the Alzheimer's which can't make his brand of story telling easy. Overall this is a pretty typical Pratchett tale, if you like what he brings to the table then you can't go wrong with this. It's not one of the classic Discworld tales but it is plenty good enough to keep you entertained for a bit, and there are (as always) one or two cracking moments which make the journey worthwhile.
Verdict: 4 stars out of 5
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