The Truth

Would you believe a book review written by someone who calls himself "bs" about a book called The Truth? Believe it. Terry Pratchet is hard to pin down -- is this humor? Unadulterated absurdity? Clever satire? More real than real? Whatever it is, it's The Truth.

The Truth author Terry Pratchett pages 336 publisher Harper Collins rating 9/10 reviewer bs ISBN 0380978954 summary A refreshing new perspective on yet another romp through the streets of the greatest city on the disc, Ankh-Morpork.

The Truth, which is Terry Pratchett's 25th entry into the hopefully never-ending discworld saga, features yet another Ankh-Morpork mystery. Only this time, there's a twist -- Instead of focusing on how The Watch again save the city, The Truth tells the tale from the perspective of William de Worde, founder, editor, and investigative reporter for the city's first newspaper. With the news that The Watch is investigating an attempted murder by the ruler of the city, William's fledgling newspaper quickly grows and just as quickly attracts the attention of many important city citizens.

For those who have yet to encounter Terry Pratchett's Discworld, here's the short version. The Discworld is a fantasy world which is most definitely flat. In fact, it rides on the backs of four giant elephants, who in turn stand atop a giant turtle. Pratchett's world parodies any and every element of our world that he can put his pen on, from movies to music, from fairy tales to opera. All along, Pratchett's razor sharp wit supplies innumerable references to pop culture, and he has a seemingly endless supply of puns.

When recommending any of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, I'm faced with the issue of continuity. You see, with 25 novels in the series so far, references to earlier novels in the series are practically inevitable, and The Truth is no different. However, thanks to the nature of the narrative, The Truth should be relatively accessible to new readers. Because William and his employees on the newspaper are all characters newly introduced to the Discworld, no prior knowledge is needed. However, the cast of characters with which William deals -- from Lord Vetinari to Commander Vimes to Gaspode the Wonder Dog -- might seem a little shallow if you don't have the background supplied by previous books in the series. Don't let that deter you, however, as there is still a lot in this book to find funny, even without the heaps of background that is assumed.

The entire telling of this tale is solid. From the subtle clues sprinkled throughout as to what is happening to the parodies of cameras and palm pilots, the narrative doesn't have a piece out of place.

The only major flaws in the book are the aforementioned Pratchett learning curve and the eclipsing of our hero, William, by the supporting characters in the novel. From a villain by the name of Mr. Tulip, whose wallet reads "Not a very nice person at all" and believes that a potato will save his soul, to Otto Von Chrek, the newspaper's photographer and a recovering vampire, who occasionally finds himself a pile of dust when his flash goes off, William simply doesn't stand out. William is just an ordinary guy who wants to know the truth about what is happening and wants to share that truth with anyone willing to read or be read to. William is very easy to relate to, and for that reason makes an excellent main character, but when push comes to shove, William is finds himself better suited as an observer than a saviour."

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Comments

Re:Good, but he's no Tolkein...

[jeff.paulsen]

Pratchetts work is good, and I can imagine this "Truth" is probably an interesting read, but I think geeks and slashdot readers might find the Classic fantasy of Tolkein much more rewarding than this 'cyber-fantasy' style of Pratchett.

Also, Tolkein manages to create a rich imaginary world, we can believe in, whereas Pratchett does not.

Tolkein is well and good, but Pratchett's Discworld is NOT un-rich or un-believable. Ankh-Morpork has an actual economy. There are people with actual jobs, making the city run. Golems, trolls, dwarfs, gnomes, vampires, werewolves, and witches all interact in a plausible network, doing valuable work with a sensible division of labor.

I would lump Pratchett in the same category as Rankin or Douglas Adams, a lightweight, using Fantasy as a marketing gimmick, rather than treating it with the seriousness it deserves.

Hardly. The "Guards" stories, Feet of Clay being my favorite, are technically police-procedural mysteries, worthy of favorable comparison to Ed McBain's 87th Precinct books - but the stories would not work outside of a fantasy setting. The "Witches" story arc broke new ground in the genre with practically every book, deconstructing fantasy cliche after fantasy cliche, and giving new life to some very tired ideas. The fantastic elements of the stories are integral and necessary, not a "marketing gimmick".

Pratchett is unquestionably in the vanguard of fantasy authors, having inheirited that position from the late Avram Davidson. There's more to Fantasy than Tolkein (although, again, I am not dissing Tolkein - he produced great stuff, which is none the worse for its age). Great new works are still being produced, and should not be dismissed just because they are popular and funny.

Call that a review?

[mblase]

Five paragraphs, only two of which actually give information about this book as opposed to the rest of the Discworld? Oy.

Let's try doing this properly (minor SPOILERS ahead):

The Truth is Terry Pratchett's landmark 25th book in the Discworld series, and a very, very fine book it is. It's designed with plenty of appeal for longtime fans and new readers alike, plus the usual assortment of puns, historical allusions, digs at pop culture, and sarcasm that fans of Pratchett (not to mention Douglas Adams of Hitchhiker's Guide fame) have come to expect and love.

The book takes place in the well-established Discworld city of Ankh-Morpork, a parody of London, England with a few sprinklings of New York City thrown in. Ankh-Morpork is governed by the Patrician, a man who doesn't rule so much as check and balance the cities business and criminal interests against each other, and policed by the City Watch, who have had several Discworld books to themselves but this time ride along as guest stars. The main character is William de Worde, a young man who comes from a family of aristocrats but lacks the wealth and influence of aristocracy himself.

William has eeked out a living up until now by providing a monthly newsletter to foreign dignitaries regarding the major events in Ankh-Morpork society and politics. Ankh-Morpork has a Guild of Engravers who painstakingly produce metal plates of his letters in order to mass-produce several copies, but William is soon given the means and the motive to increase production when a team of dwarves smuggle a printing press into the city. (The Guild of Engravers had convinced the Patrician to make printing presses illegal within the city before now.)

That's the means. The motive is an apparent murder by the Patrician on one of his own employees, and the City Watch are unable to get to the bottom of it. It's up to William and his rapidly-evolving printing press to find out what's happening while the Watch, the Engravers, and assorted criminal elements try to (literally) dig his new newspaper out from under him.

William de Worde is a guy who's just trying to get to the truth, the real truth, while everyone around him is telling him the "real" truth just isn't important. Only the Patrician seems to be on his side, and with that man implicated in a murder, William's support is constantly unravelling around him. Even his own employees are caught between, alternately, their families, their heritage, or their need to make money and their desire to help William keep the paper alive.

Every Terry Pratchett fan has his or her own sliding scale as to what makes a book good or bad -- more jokes, less pop culture, more characterization, less mythology, more history, less sarcasm, more established characters, less unnecessary characters, and so on and so on. So far, The Truth seems to rate highly on just about every fan's meter due to a healthy blend of all of the above. The Ankh-Morpork Times encounters reformed vampires, tabloid competitors, Discworld photography (a little demon in a box paints whatever he sees, and magical eels provide the flash), family royalty, gangsters in black suits who keep saying "____ing", journalistic ethics, and of course the omnipresent Death (tall, black cloak, has a thing for sharp farming implements). Those who understand the cultural and historical parody will laugh twice as hard, and the rest will enjoy rereading it years later and picking up on jokes they didn't understand the first time.

The Discworld series began years ago with The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic, but a lot has happened to Ankh-Morpork since those days of mere sword-and-sorcery parody. The Truth is a good point to start if you're a new fan, and should be enough incentive to go back and get the rest. (The first books are being rereleased even now on paperback in the United States by the same publisher.)