Terry Pratchett has left early to avoid the rush

[inflatable dalek]

So, in preperation for the Shepherds Crown I've been catching up on the books I haven't read.

Snuff really is as bad as Cliffy said at the time. To recap from my Facebook:

Sadly it was probably the poorest Discworld book this side of the football one. Mainly because the subjects of spoofery felt a bit tired (Jane Austin?!) and it was odd for Sam to take such an adversarial attitude to the countriside when this is at least the third book he's been out in the sticks in (after Fifth Elephant and Thud) and he didn't seem so surprised by everything in those.

Plus, whilst the anti-prejudice message is a good and worthy one, after Trolls, Dwarves, Vampires, Gollums, Whatever the minority was in the Football One and so on another book with a "Ha, this traditional monster is just like us and maybe man is the real monster!" plot was predicable and over done.

Plus it was odd to have the "Copper goes on holiday and finds themselves fighting crime" thing played so straight. It needed at least a lampshading.

That said, once the book got on the river it got going and was a lot of fun, and the happy ending for Nobby was amusing and unexpected.

The weird thing about the Pride and Prejudice stuff is it goes nowhere. There's a tired and unfunny dinner scene with the sisters early on and then it's completely forgotten about until the epilogue.

The low point was a truly bizarre bit where Vimes talks to the now literal darkness in his head and is told exactly how the murder happened so he doesn't have to bother with investigation or deduction.

It also suffered from Vimes being just too damn tough. He was just up against minor league villains, instantly working out what happened and was happening and barely breaks a sweat. It's just too easy.

Of course, and this isn't the fault of the book but it's unavoidable, it's a shame the last Watch book barely has any of the others in it. Detrius is a non speaking extra and the Ahnk Morpork subplot feels like a case of "Oh yeah, best do something with those guys" and doesn't really add anything.

Plus, Rust now being A Very Old Man and young Sam's age meaning it's been six years in fiction since Night Watch does make it feel as if everyone has stagnated. Carrot's probably the same age now Vimes was in Guards Guards...

Currently a 100 pages into Raising Steam and it is much better, even if it is the same plot as the two previous Moist books (and is basically the checklist of "Things around what I'm spoofing this time" style book that goes all the way back to Moving Pictures).