I Read Books: Raising Steam

 

Raising Steam

There’s two ostensible plots going on here. In one a guy called Dick Simnel masters steam engines and builds a railway. As this is on the Discworld we get several decades of the thing condensed into weeks and months. In this story Simnel joins up with Harry King, who made all his money from waste, and as the city has an interest the Patrician has Moist von Lipwig join them, mostly in negotiating where the railway goes (everyone wants the train to come near – but not actually on their land where the noise and dirt will come).

Everyone wants the train to come? The second plot is that conservative, deep-down dwarfs, unhappy with the pace of change, have started sabotaging the clacks towers (the semaphore telegraph). This ties in with the fact that goblins, previously not recognised as having rights, are great at clacks work (see Snuff). All this is despite the efforts of the Low King, and so puts in danger the Koom Valley Accords (see Thud!) which has brought peace between dwarfs and trolls.

There’s a few good jokes here, with some rulers (especially the Patrician) saying that one can’t just execute people who either oppose or propose these extraordinary changes, only for people to point out that in fact they can. There’s some discussion of steam engine time (when it’s time for steam engines then steam engines appear) and slightly unfortunately the monks of time make a one scene appearance to say “eh, we didn’t think it was steam engine time, but there’s steam engines, so I guess it is". Similarly the book likes to over-use the mark of one or other of the Watching Darks that Sam Vimes has on his arm, mostly to scare dwarfs who have been caught in sabotage.

It reads like Pratchett wanted to write a book about steam trains and then shoved a lot of Discworld gubbins in there. Like Snuff people spend a lot of time declaring who they are and what they think of the situation, it’s almost 19^th century in feeling. Moist von Lipwig has a few moments where he shines, but mostly he goes from place to place making deals and discovering the next stage of the railway building story and/or dwarf rebellion.

Read This: For a fun fictional story about building a steam railway in a fantasy world of intrigue
Don’t Read This: The plots fit together awkwardly and characters from previous novels appear from weird and inconsistent new angles