The Fifth Elephant
Another Discworld novel! This one followed Captain Sam Vimes and The
City Watch on a diplomatic mission to Uberwald where the werewolves are
attempting to start a war among the dwarves. They steal the ceremonial
throne just before the coronation of the new king with plans to hold it
hostage unless the dwarves agree to elect a different king, one who
would deny dwarfdom to the more liberal dwarves with modern thoughts
about gender and such.
This was a fun detective novel with lots of twists and turns. I figured out the mystery fairly quickly, but it was still lots of fun to read. I've noticed this more and more with Terry Pratchett. If I'm familiar with the source material (vampires, rock music, or fairy tales), then I catch on to a lot of the early clues and figure out the endgame pretty close to the beginning of the book. If I'm less familiar, then I miss the jokes and clues and the resolution of the novel comes as more of a surprise. But I like the ones with familiar source material better. I feel a bit more like I'm in on the joke.
So with The Fifth Elephant, I'm trying to figure out what happened. I like werewolves and I get a lot of the lore. I'm interested in the gender issues that Pratchett brought up. I like a good mystery. But overall, this book was kind of blah. It could be that I didn't get the central metaphor - The Fifth Elephant. This seemed at once obvious and obscure. Within the Discworld universe the metaphor should make sense. The Discworld is supported on the back of four elephants who are standing on a turtle. At some point there was a fifth elephant, but something happened. He slipped off the turtle, got caught in an asynchronous orbit, and crashed onto the Discworld, causing the continents to break up. I'm less sure what this has to do with the story I just read.
Or it could be that I read this book on the plane to Vegas and was only half paying attention to it.
Either way, it was decent filler for a plane ride. I like Sam Vimes' wife a lot more than I did. I want to see what happens next with Cheery the female dwarf. I have kind of lost interest in Carrot and Angua's will-they-won't-they relationship, though. And the watch itself is getting too big. They recruit more characters in every book and it's getting hard to keep them straight.
Next up is The Truth, another City Watch book. But also a spoof of Watergate. Should be interesting
This was a fun detective novel with lots of twists and turns. I figured out the mystery fairly quickly, but it was still lots of fun to read. I've noticed this more and more with Terry Pratchett. If I'm familiar with the source material (vampires, rock music, or fairy tales), then I catch on to a lot of the early clues and figure out the endgame pretty close to the beginning of the book. If I'm less familiar, then I miss the jokes and clues and the resolution of the novel comes as more of a surprise. But I like the ones with familiar source material better. I feel a bit more like I'm in on the joke.
So with The Fifth Elephant, I'm trying to figure out what happened. I like werewolves and I get a lot of the lore. I'm interested in the gender issues that Pratchett brought up. I like a good mystery. But overall, this book was kind of blah. It could be that I didn't get the central metaphor - The Fifth Elephant. This seemed at once obvious and obscure. Within the Discworld universe the metaphor should make sense. The Discworld is supported on the back of four elephants who are standing on a turtle. At some point there was a fifth elephant, but something happened. He slipped off the turtle, got caught in an asynchronous orbit, and crashed onto the Discworld, causing the continents to break up. I'm less sure what this has to do with the story I just read.
Or it could be that I read this book on the plane to Vegas and was only half paying attention to it.
Either way, it was decent filler for a plane ride. I like Sam Vimes' wife a lot more than I did. I want to see what happens next with Cheery the female dwarf. I have kind of lost interest in Carrot and Angua's will-they-won't-they relationship, though. And the watch itself is getting too big. They recruit more characters in every book and it's getting hard to keep them straight.
Next up is The Truth, another City Watch book. But also a spoof of Watergate. Should be interesting
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