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The Truth: (Discworld Novel 25) (Discworld Novels)

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Goodmountain says that the Bursar's words are not properly justified - meaning that the spaces aren't set evenly in the typeface but which the Bursar misinterprets to mean that Goodmountain does not believe he has properly rationalize his argument.

Death says "WHO KNOWS WHAT EVIL LURKS IN THE HEART OF MEN?" with its reply, "T he Shadow Knows!" is a direct quote from the old radio show "The Shadow". Pratchett is likely juxtaposing Death's use of this line and its source in the radio show with Psalm 23 "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil." The Shadow of Death is also a painting by the 19th century artist William Holman Hunt, foreshadowing Christ's death on the cross. Generally, I don't like industrial revolutions or stories about them. Yes, yes, I know: we owe an industrial revolution a lot - but that goes for the bad stuff as well! Similarly, I prefer Death, the witches or Vimes with a loaded dragon as a rifle. Like a cat, I don't like change much. Hence, you can imagine my hesitation. I know that many feel loyalty to the excellent work that Nigel Palmer and Stephen Briggs did in the past, reading the Discworld books. I, like many, felt that disconnect when Stephen took over from Nigel, and I took a few books to become comfortable with the change.You can always tell when my favorite author is on his ‘A’ Game and when he is off. When the plot for a book is a bit weaker than the norm the easy jokes start coming through. The obvious ones, more likely to come from the fun guy at a party or a start up standup comic. I think of all the bad jokes that permeated through Soul Music and Moving Pictures and I cringe. So it is with great pleasure that I will point out that nowhere in The Truth did a character shout out some paraphrasing of ‘you can’t handle the truth.’

Newspapers invade the Discworld. After a while it becomes clear that articles don’t always need to necessarily tell the whole truth to sell newspapers. But when a plot to overthrow Lord Vetinari threatens to shake up Ankh-Morpork, they realize only the truth can save them.William de Worde, a ne'er do well noble who is ashamed of his noble heritage, has until now made his living by painstakingly collecting news and sending off a sort of newsletter to foreign peoples of import who are willing to pay him for it. Then some dwarfs roll into Ankh-Morpork with something called a printing press, and suddenly, what if they printed a bunch of them and sold them for like, fifty cents? And maybe hired some people to sell them? And maybe pay some people to tell them things that are going on in town? Like bake sales and fires and robberies and whatnot. This was also terrific read-aloud fare thanks to the character of Mr. Tulip, who swears a lot. Sort of. Specifically, he says, "--ing" all the time. Pratchett makes it clear that he isn't doing the old-fashioned removal of profanity with a dash left behind to show where the bad word was; his character's dialogue is self-cleaning, which leaves a lot of the other characters mystified. It's a lot of fun to read Tulip's dialogue aloud with a solid working-class British accent and lean on that dash before pronouncing the "ing" part. Seriously. Try it. It sounds fantastic.

Just as in Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere, two criminals make an attempt to steal the show and damn near do. Mr. Pin and Mr. Tulip are the Vincent and Jules of the Discworld: dangerous loose cannons with good lines. At the same time, there is a plot against Lord Vetinari (again). And the conspirators are bringing in outside help (their first mistake). Parts of the novel are pure Monty Python material : ... no, that’s not it. No, sir, I know that’s not it. Because it’s a parrot, that’s why. You’ve taught it to bark and you’ve painted “DoG” on the side of it but it’s still a parrot ...” After Terry was diagnosed with Posterior Cortical Atrophy, a rare form of Alzheimer’s disease, in 2007, at the cruelly early age of 59, I began to accompany him at public appearances, reading for him when he no longer could, helping him through interviews on stage as “keeper of the anecdote”. We became, of necessity, a sort of double act. The unconscious self satirizing potential is best shown by the pressure to find something to tell, the first reporters not sure about what´s worth telling, still asking questions such as what´s really important and serious or how they can be sure if it´s true, how sweet. But soon the childhood diseases are over and trivia and irrelevances are produced in mass just as in real life, where the only change is technological, while the humanities are stagnating and degenerating with the always same wars, hate, greed, injustice, and destruction with a system cemented as fake democracy.

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Ah, Mr de Worde," he said, stepping inside. "There are several thousand dogs stampeding through the city at the moment. This is an interesting fact, isn't it?" After the two return to the office, William learns of Lord Vetinari's reinstatement, and asks Sacharissa out. Afterwords, Mr. Tulip, reincarnated as a woodworm, comments on the "-ing good wood." And of course I had, this was a fun re-visit to Sir Terry’s 25th Discworld book, something of a standalone but in the Industrial Revolution sub-canon. And then there's that matter of William and his staff What I didn't find quite as spot-on was some of the twists and turns of the novel. For one thing, the identity of who is behind the elaborate conspiracy is so easily deduced that it ruins some of the driving force of the last half of the novel. Of course, the problem is that the readers know the identity (or can deduce it easily if you're paying attention), while the characters don't because they don't have as much information as we do. It's a case of the reader being a bit too omniscient for his or her own good and ruining the final revelation a bit.

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