Review: Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett

The fortieth Discworld novel and Sir Pterry's last before his death, Raising Steam is a treat, not as good as some books in the series, but a treat nonetheless. Truthfully, any novels with Moist von Lipwig is alright with me, as I dearly love the government crook and all the political hijinks he got into. Government procedural and political satire is one of my favorite types of novels, so it's no wonder that Mr von Lipwig's adventures making Ankh-Morpork a better place under the watchful eyes of the Patrician interests me. However, I must admit, even though I love Mr. von Lipwig, I have to admit that this book is not as good as I'd like to think it is.

I have high hopes for Raising Steam. Any novels in which the Patrician drags Ankh-Morpork screaming into the future is always good in my opinion, but even I must contend that Raising Steam does not feel as much as a novel as it is a book full of summaries. Don't get me wrong, it is still okay-ish, but in this book I feel that Sir Pterry is more of a summarizer than a narrator. We'd only get summaries of things happening, with plenty of humorous asides still. When he wrote this, Sir Pterry was very ill, Alzeheimer's, and it clearly shows. 

The recurring characters feel a bit odd. Maybe this is because it's been such a long time since I've last read a Discworld novel, but as I read this book, I feel that there's something off with our friends Moist von Lipwig, the Patrician, and even Commander Samuel Vimes. In the previous books, a big show is made of Moist von Lipwig's very average face, so average that most people couldn't recognize him were it not for his big gold hat. Yet in this book various characters have said that they recognize Mr. von Lipwig's face from the papers, even though he was evidently not wearing his gold hat when they meet him nor was he mentioned wearing the hat when he's photographed in the papers. This was only the first in a list of things that nag me about the characters when I read the novel. One of the most cherished thing about the Discworld series was its continuity and its ability to make long-running brick jokes, so this inconsistencies bother me greatly.

I really like the plot about the trains and the dwarf terrorists however I feel like the pace can be at times stilted again for the fact that the narration felt more like a summary to me. The bit about the wonders and progress new technology can bring is very well written, and I like all the diplomacy and politicking that took place, but again, description was sparse. The plot can feel disjointed, and there are some unnecessary parts that would do well sitting on the cutting room floor. 

At first I'd like to give this book four stars, but upon consideration, the character inconsistencies and the disjointed, stilted pace is much of a bother to me and so I lower it a full star. This novel is good, and I'd still recommend it for Discworld fans, but I wouldn't recommend new-to-Discworld fans to start with this as their introduction to the wonderful world of Discworld, as I don't think it's a great representative of Sir Pterry's writing. There are many other Discworld books that are far, far better than this.