The Turtle Moves! (14 page)

Mostly, though,
Feet of Clay
, like most of the Watch stories, is about Vimes and Carrot solving crimes and pursuing justice and racial tolerance in Ankh-Morpork. This series is probably the most coherent and consistent of all the various segments of the Discworld oeuvre, and I don't really feel a need to say much more about the individual volumes. They've settled into their mature form by this point. We'll be returning to the Watch in a couple of volumes, with
Jingo
, in Chapter 25.

But first we see what's up with Death and his granddaughter.

T
HE AUDITORS OF REALITY, last seen in
Reaper Man
, are back. This time they're trying a somewhat subtler approach in their attempts to remove illogic from the universe, and have engaged the Guild of Assassins to put an end to the Hogfather, Discworld's equivalent of Santa Claus—or rather, given Mr. Pratchett's nationality, I should probably say Father Christmas.

Death undertakes to foil the scheme, filling in for the Hogfather on Hogswatch while his granddaughter Susan, now working as a governess, tackles the actual assassination plan.

The Guild of Assassins has sent a psychopath named Mr. Teatime (“Teatime” is four syllables, not two—each vowel is pronounced individually) to handle the job, on the theory that he's the most likely to succeed, and that they'll be glad to be rid of him if he doesn't make it back. Teatime has, in turn, recruited a few helpers, and taken them to carry out his ingenious plan for destroying the Hogfather.

That plan takes them to places Death cannot go,
¹¹⁰
so Death tries to keep things under control elsewhere by playing the role of Hogfather while Susan deals with the killers. Death's appearance as the Hogfather at a department store, replacing their hired actor, is marvelous. There are good bits with the Death of Rats and his interpreter raven, as well.

We learn much more about the Hogfather, the Tooth Fairy, and other anthropomorphic personifications in the course of the story. Susan was only sixteen in
Soul Music
, when we last saw her, and has since grown
into a formidable young woman; here we get to know her better. She's working as a governess and has become something of an expert on childhood fears, which serves her well in dealing with the Tooth Fairy's tower and various other things.

The wizards of Unseen University and their thinking machine Hex have their share of the story, as well, though Rincewind is absent—presumably still on EcksEcksEcksEcks.

The Hogfather himself is off-stage for almost the entire book, though. He doesn't have a single line of dialogue.

Mr. Pratchett demonstrates in this novel that he understands children very well indeed. But then, by this point in the series he's demonstrated that he's got a pretty good handle on the entire human race, and children generally qualify as human. Not that it's always obvious.

Britain's Sky One television network has made a live-action adaptation of
Hogfather
as a four-hour miniseries, but as of this writing I've only been able to see brief excerpts, since I'm on the wrong side of the Atlantic. The bits I've seen look very well done, though, and the producers seem to have done an especially fine job with Susan.

Death and Susan are featured again in
Thief of Time
, as seen in Chapter 32, and of course Death continues to appear wherever appropriate in the various other series. Next in the overall series, though, it's back to Commander Vimes and the Watch.

T
HE LOST ISLAND OF LESHP has resurfaced in the Circle Sea, midway between Ankh-Morpork and the empire of Klatch, and both nations find themselves determined to control this rather soggy bit of real estate. A peace mission from Klatch arrives in Ankh-Morpork, where someone promptly attempts to assassinate the ambassador. Sir Samuel Vimes, Commander of the Watch, sets out to investigate this crime, and finds himself entangled in politics, intrigue, patriotic fervor, and war.

The Patrician, Havelock Vetinari, prefers not to oversee the actual war, and hands control of the city over to Lord Rust for the duration of the conflict; in company with Leonard of Quirm, he then undertakes some investigations of his own.

Klatch is invaded, though not very successfully.

Along the way, Nobby gets in touch with his feminine side, we learn a little about the species known as Curious Squid, and the usual sort of shenanigans go on. It all ends with order restored, the mysteries solved, and Vimes made a duke.

Reg Shoe, the zombie first encountered in
Reaper Man
, has joined the Watch, as have representatives of various other exotic species—though no Curious Squid.

We discover that Lord Vetinari can juggle. Given his training as an Assassin and his generally high level of competence, this does not come as much of a surprise.

At one point a reference is made to “The monstrous regiment of watchmen,” perhaps anticipating a novel yet to come—or perhaps just
playing around with the English language a little, since John Knox's oft-quoted phrase
¹¹¹
has been around for a long time.

Yet another Dibbler parallel appears in Klatch, a fellow named al-Jibla. Alas, we never learn his forenames.

While in general I don't try to provide detailed annotations, since the fans online have already done such a thorough job, the L-space annotations on Nobby's disguise as “Beti” fail to mention one of the possible reasons that name was chosen—the Betty in mummers' plays and Morris dancing is a half-man, half-woman.

The target of Mr. Pratchett's satire here is obvious right from the title. He's attacking the sort of belligerent, unthinking “patriotism” known as “jingoism,” and its tendency to bring about pointless wars—usually ineptly run wars, at that. This makes this one of the less-subtle novels in the series, but it's still both highly entertaining and thoughtful, and at least as relevant now as when it appeared ten years ago.

At this point in the series, we really aren't seeing much real change from one book to the next; Samuel Vimes is still ferociously egalitarian in his beliefs, moving up the social ladder but not happy about it, and convinced that the world would be a far better place if people minded their own business. He sees everything from the point of view of the honest policeman, including considering war to be a crime worthy of arresting all concerned for breach of the peace. The other members of the Watch are also set on their paths—Captain Carrot as the natural leader who declines to assert his authority, Angua as the Watch's secret weapon and Carrot's devoted companion Detritus as the one-troll heavy weapons squad, Sgt. Colon as the fat and stupid old copper, Nobby as . . . well, as Nobby, and so on.

By no means am I saying that the Watch books are getting repetitive, because they aren't; it's just that the pattern for them is set. And we'll see it continue in
The Fifth Elephant
.

First, though, we last saw Rincewind arriving on the continent EcksEcksEcksEcks.

I
T'S NOT AUSTRALIA. Mr. Pratchett has stated that explicitly.

EcksEcksEcksEcks is, however, very
reminiscent
of Australia, which nobody denies. When Rincewind lands there (as we saw him do at the end of
Interesting Times
), he finds that it's cut off from the rest of the Discworld, and appears to have been added after the rest was built, rather than being part of the Disc's original creation. It doesn't
fit
with the rest. It's magically separated from the rest of the Disc, to the point that the weather systems that ought to reach it don't, and it never rains there.

Not rarely.
Never
.

Time is also somewhat damaged in its vicinity. Rincewind keeps stumbling across things that have been there for thousands of years, but that hadn't been there for thousands of years a few hours ago.

Before going further, there's something I feel it necessary to mention here. Obviously, I love the Discworld stories—I'd hardly have read them all, let alone decided to write a book about them, if I didn't. But naturally, some I like more than others.

The Last Continent
is my least-favorite novel in the entire series. Some people think the first two are the worst, or point to various others as a bit lacking, and maybe I'm missing something, but to me,
The Last Continent
seems very definitely the weakest entry.

Where the novels before and after it in the series have nicely constructed plots, rich characterization, and everything else necessary for the creation of an entirely satisfactory reading experience,
The Last Continent
seems more a series of gags strung together by a series of
dei ex machinae
—literally, as Rincewind survives and is guided on his way through the direct intervention of a divine being that manifests itself through cave paintings, posters, billboards, and the like. This being may be the continent's creator, though that's not established definitely; it usually appears in the form of a kangaroo that tells Rincewind he can call it “Scrappy.”

In the course of the story, Rincewind makes his way across a good bit of EcksEcksEcksEcks, encountering mystical kangaroos, Mad Max references, beer, ballads about bush rangers, beer, drought, and more beer. He's aware, as he travels, that EcksEcksEcksEcks has severe long-term problems caused by its failure to fit properly into its place on the Disc, and that the lack of rain is one of these problems, but he's not making any attempt to solve them; he's simply trying to run away and get off the continent and back to Ankh-Morpork.

Meanwhile, the senior faculty of Unseen University is trying to find a way to treat the Librarian, who has fallen magically ill. His incapacity has made the university's library impossible to use safely. It's suggested that Rincewind, once the Librarian's assistant, might be able to help, and so, led by Archchancellor Mustrum Ridcully, the wizards set out to retrieve Rincewind.

However, they're almost immediately sidetracked by a discovery in the rooms of the Egregious Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography, who, they realize, has been missing for some time without anyone having noticed. They wind up on an island some distance off the coast of EcksEcksEcksEcks, more by happenstance and authorial fiat than by planning or reason, where they encounter an interesting god and have a few adventures.

In the end, Rincewind and the senior faculty all wind up beneath a brewery in the Ecksian town of Bugarup, where they are led to perform the magic necessary to screw the continent properly into place on the Discworld.

They are not there through any skill, daring, or pluck of their own, but only because divine forces have
put
them there. Rincewind completes the ritual not because he's figured anything out, or made a conscious choice at all, but because Scrappy has guided him to do it.

For me, this is a thoroughly unsatisfactory way to structure a novel.

Yes, there are lots of funny bits along the way, especially if one is familiar with Australia, and Rincewind does display some cunning here
and there, but all in all I consider the story a disappointment. After reading it the first time, I pretty much concluded that the character of Rincewind had been played out.

That was before I read
The Science of Discworld
, though. That's where we see Rincewind next, and where he redeemed himself in my eyes, as described in Chapter 29.

First, though, let us return to Lancre and its witches.

T
HE LONGEST OF THE SHORT prose-only Discworld stories, originally written for the anthology
Legends
, “The Sea and Little Fishes” introduces the Witch Trials, which we'll see again in the Tiffany Aching series. It also gives us a first look at Letice Earwig, who will return in
A Hat Full of Sky
.

The Witch Trials, it should be noted, are nothing like the infamous witch trials of our own world, but are, rather, modeled on sheep trials, or time trials, or whatever—they're an annual competition in witchcraft, they are not court trials.

This story is about Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg—Agnes Nitt, the third in the Lancre coven, has only the very smallest of roles. Really, it's a character study of Granny Weatherwax, as seen from Nanny Ogg's point of view. It establishes once and for all that Granny is the most powerful witch on the Disc—and, like the wizards of Unseen University, an important part of her power is knowing when
not
to use magic.

She's also not a nice person. A good person, someone who does what's right, but not a
nice
person.

She's a
proud
person. She demands respect.

Which is a plot point in our next novel.

T
HE KINGDOM OF LANCRE is celebrating the birth of an heir to the throne, and King Verence has invited the neighbors in. Unfortunately, those neighbors include a clan of vampires from nearby Uberwald, the Magpyr family, who decide to make themselves at home.

Permanently.

Lancre, of course, is protected by its witches, but the vampires have planned for that. These are not your traditional, easily handled vampires; these are
modern
vampires, who have overcome the traditional thinking that has held their kind back for so long. Garlic, sunlight, religious symbols—those can all be survived with a little training. There's no need for all that skulking about in the dark, being warded off by holy symbols, turning to dust, or whatever; with the right mindset and some careful practice, these vampires know that all these weaknesses can be overcome.