Review by Booklist Review
In 2007, just years before he was granted a knighthood for services to literature, Terry Pratchett announced he had been diagnosed with a rare form of early-onset Alzheimer's disease. Although his illness has limited his ability to use a keyboard, it hasn't stopped him from using dictating software to create yet another installment, number 39, in his internationally popular Discworld series. Here the invention of a steam-powered locomotive by an ingenious young artificer named Dick Simnel creates a stir among the citizens of Discworld's prominent metropolis, Ankh-Morpork, as well as disrupting the affairs of assorted dwarfs, trolls, and goblins in the surrounding countryside. To keep Simnel's invention properly reigned in, Lord Vetinari dispatches Moist von Lipwig, his trusted minister of almost everything, including the Royal Bank, to fund and supervise the construction of a railway. Leavened with Pratchett's usual puns, philosophical quips, and Discworld in-jokes, the story offers an amusing allegory of Earthly technology's many seductions and give series fans at least one more visit with their favorite characters. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: A 200,000 initial print run, extensive advertising and media appearances, and frenzied online and social media coverage will carry forward the latest in Pratchett's mega-selling series (more than 80 million copies sold).--Hays, Carl Copyright 2014 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Briggs, narrator of audio editions of over 30 titles in Pratchett's long-running Discworld series, set in a bizarre fictional world, once again puts forth a vivacious performance in this recording of the 40th installment. As this audiobook demonstrates, selecting Briggs to give voice to Pratchett's characters was not just the obvious choice but the right one. A young man's determination to succeed at harnessing the four elements-earth, air, fire, and water-where his father catastrophically failed produces the Discworld's first steam engine, a device that can finally solve the pressing question of how to get fish from coastal Quirm to the distant inland city-state Anhk-Morpork. Building a railway between the two will require balancing the needs of an idealistic engineer, a demanding investor, conniving aristocrats, desperate goblins, and political extremists. Briggs gives each character his or her own distinctive voice and uses accents to illuminate Discworld society. A Doubleday hardcover. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Review by Library Journal Review
In the most recent "Discworld" novel (after Snuff), Moist Von Lipwig has turned his skills as a con man into a job bringing the railway into the world. Moist negotiates with sleazy landowners, schmoozes with government officials, and rounds up bandits to clear the path for the rail to be laid down. Throughout the story he is being hurried, with a sword of Damocles over his head, so the rail can be used to prevent radical terrorist dwarves from stopping the change coming to the world. Despite all that Moist does, the real star of the show is the railway itself and the many changes it is able to bring to the Disc. In typical Pratchett style, he plays humorously on the great influence of train travel in the UK. Owing to the central subject matter, the references are more apt than usual to fly over American heads. There are plenty of references to previous books, which will be fun for longtime fans but possibly confusing for those who are new to the series. Stephen Biggs is the long--standing reader for this series and is excellent, as ever. Verdict Another fun Pratchett, but not one to start with. ["Full of Pratchett's usual sly humor and clever wordplay, this is another solid entry in the hugely popular "Discworld" series," read the review of the Doubleday hc, LJ 3/15/14.]-Tristan M. Boyd, Westbank Community Lib., Austin, TX (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Pratchett's 40th Discworld novel brings in oneor, as it turns out, twointriguing new characters and introduces a radical new concept: the railway. Young genius engineer Dick Simnel invents a steam locomotive he names Iron Girder. Waste management tycoon Sir Harry King immediately grasps the lucrative possibilities and invests part of his fortune in the railway. Ankh-Morpork's Lord Vetinari intends for the city to keep control of the new enterprise and appoints con manturnedcivil servant Moist von Lipwig to keep an eye on matters. The railway proves wildly popular with the public. Unfortunately, dwarf fundamentalists opposed to fraternization with trolls or humans begin making terrorist attacks, murdering railway workers and setting fire to clacks communications towers. The terrorists eventually overthrow the legitimate dwarf government in Uberwald while the dwarf Low King is more than 1,000 miles away. Only by means of the railway, declares Lord Vetinari, can Low King Rhys return to Uberwald in time to foil the plotters. But Uberwald, haunted by vampires and werewolves, may be approached only across high plains covered with stumbleweed ("like tumbleweed, but less athletic"). And, Moist protests, the railway isn't finished. Somehow, Vetinari explains kindly, Moist better find a way to finish it if he wants his head to remain attached to his neck. Young Dick, meanwhile, entertains a most peculiar notion: that Iron Girder is female and sentient. And after witnessing the locomotive deal with a misguided dwarf's attempted sabotage, Moist is inclined to agree with him. In recent years, Discworld humor has become implicit (check out the hilarious names of Uberworld towns, for example) rather than explicit, while continuing to explore serious themes with impeccable Discworld logic, and the trend continues here. Brimming with Pratchett's trademark wit, a yarn with a serious point made with style and elegance.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
