Fiction Fans

Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett

• Episode 167

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Your hosts are baffled by Raising Steam, the penultimate Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett. They debate which miniseries it ought to belong in, talk about how long it takes for the plot to take off, and actually enjoy all of the wife characters we see in the book. They rejoice in pro-goblin propaganda and have a brief Words are Weird discussion about smut.

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Thanks to the following musicians for the use of their songs:

- Amarià for the use of “Sérénade à Notre Dame de Paris”

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

Lilly:

Hello and welcome to Fiction Fans, a podcast where we read books and other words, too. I'm Lily.

Sara:

And I'm Sarah.

Lilly:

And today we'll be discussing Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett, the final book in the Industrial Revolution miniseries? Moist von Lipwig miniseries. We'll talk about that later.

Sara:

either way, whichever series it's the final book for, it is the penultimate Discworld novel. There's only one more after this.

Lilly:

But quick, our first five minute intro. What is something great that happened recently?

Sara:

I made a really good salmon for dinner last night.

Lilly:

Mine is also cooking related.

Sara:

It's almost like we're related.

Lilly:

Salmon though, that sounds delicious.

Sara:

Yeah, it was salmon with a coconut milk sauce with like ginger and garlic and turmeric. And. Tomatoes, and you like, well you spend some time baking it, and then you broil it, and so the tomatoes get all blistered, and it was really good.

Lilly:

that sounds great. Yeah.

Sara:

Yeah, and it was also very easy, which is my favorite kind of meal.

Lilly:

always the best, right?

Sara:

Like, you put all of the ingredients together for the marinade, you let the salmon sit, you toss it in the oven, on a pan, it does its thing. Easy.

Lilly:

Excellent. My good thing that I made recently, because apparently that's what we're going for right now, is banana bread.

Sara:

Ooh.

Lilly:

My mother in law taught me a while ago that when you have sad old bananas but you're not going to get to them in the near future, you can just chuck them in the freezer. Which is brilliant and has saved many a banana. But we have gotten to the point where the freezer is overflowing, so I was like, I gotta do something about this. I did. My secret, if anyone wants to know, is that whatever your recipe says for the number of bananas, just double it. It might increase, well it does increase the baking time a little bit, but not by that much. And, I think vastly improves the banana bread.

Sara:

I was thinking about making banana bread this morning because I have some milk that is a little sour. Still, like, okay to drink. I mean, okay to, okay to use. It's not gone bad, but not, yeah. Not something I want to put in my cereal. Sadly, I don't have any bananas, so I have to figure out a plan B.

Lilly:

What are you drinking for this fine recording?

Sara:

I have some lovely green tea.

Lilly:

Nice. Our electric kettle broke.

Sara:

Oh

Lilly:

I am drinking room temperature water.

Sara:

Do you not have a regular kettle?

Lilly:

Yeah, but who got time for that? Not me.

Sara:

That's how I make all of my tea.

Lilly:

So you have time for that. I do not. We could pause the recording for 15 minutes while I go boil water if you want.

Sara:

I mean, you, you could also just microwave it. I know that's not as good, but

Lilly:

it's Just fine. Unless you're using loose leaf tea. I've never had a problem with microwaved tea, but, I was also running late for the recording, so. H2O. And I have not read anything other than Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett.

Sara:

Our last recording was quite recent, so neither have I.

Lilly:

Yes, excellent. So let's dive in. This book was very slow for me in a way that Discworld books usually are not.

Sara:

Yeah, this book was a bit of a struggle, and it took a lot longer for me to read, too. I feel like the beginning, and really the first, like, three quarters of the book, is very disjointed. Like, it's a bunch of scenes that theoretically go together, but they don't feel linked. They feel very separate.

Lilly:

We're following completely different plot lines, right? We have Moist von Lipwig working with the creation of the railroad, the first train, and all of that. And then we are getting The dwarves, or a faction of dwarves, who are mad about progress and so targeting the Klax Towers. And I guess technically they're related because Moistvon Lipvig is kind of involved with the Klax Towers. Really, his wife Adora Bell is in charge of the Klax Towers. But the two plotlines feel completely separate, and usually Pratchett hints at how they are going to come together much earlier in the book.

Sara:

Yeah, well, I'm not even talking about that so much as just that usually each scene flows into the next a lot better.

Lilly:

Mm, yeah.

Sara:

Whereas for me, for this, each scene was kind of its own little island, separate from the scenes that surrounded it, regardless of how it fit into the larger plot.

Lilly:

Yeah.

Sara:

And that does kind of, I don't want to say make sense, but this is one of his very last books. He was quite ill at this point. With early onset Alzheimer's, so it's not a surprise that he couldn't write as well.

Lilly:

I wonder if it was just rushed, too. Like, if it had been gone over again, he could've Like, woven them together a little more. I guess it depends on the,

Sara:

I don't, I mean, I don't think so, because in the biography, A Life with Footnotes Wilkins, his assistant, talks kind of a lot about the process of writing this, and how if I recall correctly, they, weren't sure that it was going to come together until the very end. So I don't necessarily think that it was a matter of time.

Lilly:

the plot itself.

Sara:

Yeah. And, and

Lilly:

remember that? We read that two years ago. I guess you read it twice. That helps.

Sara:

no, I only read it once.

Lilly:

Oh. How do you remember that? We read it two years ago.

Sara:

I just, I have a random thing stick in my brain.

Lilly:

The pacing also felt very different from previous Discworld novels. It seemed like a lot of setup for I think you said, like, the last quarter of the book, which, at that point, there is a very clear goal. We have two sides of one problem. It's extremely concrete. Literally, get someone from point A to point B, or stop person from getting from point A to point B. So straightforward that the entire book of setup to that is kind of wild.

Sara:

Well, like I kept expecting there to be issues cropping up earlier.

Lilly:

Yeah, it's

Sara:

there's, there's a lot of time spent on the logistics of developing the real. way system. And none of that really has any serious problems.

Lilly:

Yeah.

Sara:

And like, I was expecting there to be more conflict in that regard too.

Lilly:

That's why I said it felt like it's set up. There's not, like, stuff happening plot wise. I mean, things are happening, the trains are being developed, they're laying down rails between cities, and Moist has to negotiate land rights and stuff like that, but yeah. It feels more like an exploration of what the railway system would look like in Discworld than the beginning of the novel.

Sara:

yeah, I agree with that. This was your first time reading this book, right?

Lilly:

Yes.

Sara:

I had read it before. I think I read it when it came out. So it came out in 2015. And I had read it once, but I don't think I've read it since. And I can kind of see why rereading it now, to be honest.

Lilly:

So, we decided that we are not going to have a spoiler section for this conversation, which is unusual for us, although Discworld novels, actually.

Sara:

Yeah, we, we, sometimes we decide that the Discworld novels don't need a spoiler section. And I think this is one of them because the plot is really not all that Like, whether or not you know how it ends doesn't actually make a huge difference to how you feel reading the book, I think.

Lilly:

But also, I mean, as we've said with Discworld before, the good guys win. That's not a surprise. When we do have spoiler sections for Discworld, I think it's more when it's surprising how the good guys win, or how characters are changing through the book that we don't want to spoil,

Sara:

Yeah, if there is some kind of twist,

Lilly:

And this feels very straightforward in a way that, like, especially because Moist von Lipwig as a character has been set up so thoroughly with going postal and making money. And the other characters in the book joke about it, right? That Nari gives him the impossible task of getting a train from Ankh Morpork to Überwald in an absurd frame of time. I don't remember what it is, but not enough time. And everyone just kind of goes, Well, Moist, impossible odds, your favorite. We're so excited to see what crazy miracle you pull off. And that's exactly what happens.

Sara:

yeah, he does.

Lilly:

what that miracle is, I think we probably won't mention, because that is a fun, like, it is set up a little bit, but I, that's the kind of thing that I wouldn't want to spoil. But the fact that, yes, he does pull it off and save the day, I don't think anyone's going to be shocked.

Sara:

agreed.

Lilly:

The main conflict. In as much as there is a conflict for the first half, is there's sort of a dwarven civil war. That's a dramatic way of stating it, but We have the Low King, who we've met all the way back in The Fifth Elephant.

Sara:

I'm pretty sure that the low king shows up before

Lilly:

Okay, well that's where we're, we get a lot more of his character.

Sara:

I, and I could, to be fair, I could be wrong about that.

Lilly:

I'm sure they mention the Low King, but I don't think he gets as much page time in earlier books, if any.

Sara:

What does the Wikipedia say? Then maybe Maybe this particular low king is first introduced in the fifth elephant. Yeah.

Lilly:

The Fifth Elephant. Duh. So that has to be his introduction as the low king.

Sara:

actually.

Lilly:

Ay, I was right. But as we're introduced to him then, and consistently since then, he's very accepting and socially progressive in a way that dwarves typically are not. Or at least we're told that. Clearly quite a bit of them are, because Quite a few of them are perfectly happy with this change in things.

Sara:

But there is a faction of dwarves that are very regressive, hate any sign of progress think that dwarves are being, their opportunities are being taken away by golems and goblins and people, and they don't like that all of the dwarves, or there are a lot of dwarves in Ankh Morpork, and they don't like that they're friends with trolls now, and they're just unhappy with the way that civilization is going.

Lilly:

They, they throw around the word undwarvish quite a bit. Just like the, the fact that they dare to change and grow makes them no longer dwarves, which is really dickish.

Sara:

Yeah, it, it was, honestly, in this period of time in the U. S., it was hit a little too close to home for me, personally.

Lilly:

yeah, we, we've made a joke in the past that What is it? A Spoonful of Sugar Helps the Political Commentary Go Down? No. A Spoonful of Discworld Helps the Political Commentary Go Down? Not enough hijinks in this book. It was so earnest. There were a couple of lines that, about like, Parents who just want their kids lives to be a little bit better, or how around in rural areas, dwarves and trolls are starting to get along because, I mean, heck, they have the same job as me, what's the difference? Turns out we have more similarities than we thought. And just, things that could have been very sweet. that I think, like you said, I was not in the mindset for.

Sara:

Yeah, I, like, like, I just It was a little sad for me to read a book that has the same kind of conflict we're experiencing in the world and have it turn out well in the book when things are Not so great here.

Lilly:

Interesting. So the opposite of escapism.

Sara:

Yeah.

Lilly:

Because you'd think there's an argument for, isn't it comforting to see everything turn out okay? But I think, like you said, the conflict is too close.

Sara:

Yeah. It's just like, I'm reading it and I'm like, why can't we have that? why can't we have that moment where everything turns out alright?

Lilly:

Yeah,

Sara:

and maybe we will eventually, but we haven't recently.

Lilly:

Currently, the Klax towers are burning.

Sara:

Yes. Ha

Lilly:

Especially coming off of Fourth Wing, which is just such a departure from reality in every sense of the word.

Sara:

ha ha. Ha

Lilly:

It is wild! That Discworld felt like reality crashing down around my ears. That is not typical for a Discworld novel.

Sara:

Yeah. I mean, Discworld always has relevant social commentary, but as you say, I think sometimes it's a little less blunt.

Lilly:

Or not as specific. Because there are, there are concepts of political commentary that You know, on human nature and, and how governments function and stuff like that. But this was so concrete.

Sara:

it felt, it felt like a one to one comparison.

Lilly:

Yeah, yeah. I, yeah, it was a lot. I think now is the wrong time for me to read this book.

Sara:

I, I agree. But it was the time that we did. So,

Lilly:

I did have a couple of words are weird moments from this book

Sara:

like what?

Lilly:

made me giggle immensely. One, I keep forgetting that the shire is like a real word. And and, like, a place that people refer to, and not just in Middle Earth.

Sara:

It's not, it's not Tolkien specific, no.

Lilly:

He didn't just invent that for Hobbits, yeah. So when, in this book, characters refer to visiting the Shires, I was like, Hold on, hold on, where, what are we talking about? What is going on?

Sara:

The Discworld Middle Earth fanfiction crossover I didn't know I needed.

Lilly:

Except it wasn't, that's just a real phrase. Also, the amount of smut in this book was surprising.

Sara:

There's a lot more smut in this book. I mean, nothing explicit, but just, like, referred to. Or hinted at than we normally get in Discworld novels.

Lilly:

Ironically, I was not referring to all of the fade to black moments between married couples. I was referring directly to the word smut.

Sara:

Oh. Well, there's that too.

Lilly:

For exactly that reason, though. Pratchett uses the word smut to refer to the soot from the working on the train and engineering and everything. All the time. And so he's constantly talking about smut on people's faces and I'm like, whoa!

Sara:

You know, funnily enough, that didn't like, that didn't bother me. Bother is not the right word. That didn't stand out to me.

Lilly:

Well, when I used the word smut just now, you immediately went to sex scenes and not

Sara:

I did. I did. I think that's because of the context, right? Like, it, when he uses the, the actual term smut in the book, it's always, it's always In the context of soot or grime, and I'm used to seeing the word in that, like, in that environment.

Lilly:

I never hear the word used that way.

Sara:

But when, when it's without that context, I do think of smut as in, like, sex, because I think that's how I see it used more frequently.

Lilly:

Yeah, I, obviously, I know that the word is used that way, but I don't think I've seen it, oof, it, to my memory, although I'm sure that's wrong, but it was jarring every time and made me giggle because words are weird.

Sara:

I I wonder if it's because my father made me read a lot of Charles Dickens,

Lilly:

Mmm,

Sara:

and I feel like that word would have come up in that kind of grimy context in Dickens. I don't know if that's true or not. But he, my father did have a period of time where he was desperately trying to get me to read and enjoy Dickens.

Lilly:

What a weird project for your father. The Hobbit, I understand. Charles Dickens, though?

Sara:

he would pay me like 20 a Dickens book, and eventually, he started paying me in advance, and that was, did not work out well for him.

Lilly:

Uncle Frank hopefully learned more about business between then and now. He needed a crash course from Moist von Lipwig.

Sara:

I mean, he only did that once, because I don't think I read any other Dickens after that. But yeah, that didn't, it didn't work out all that great for him.

Lilly:

Okay, so the timing of this book was bad, like, in general for us as specific readers, except that Pratchett's Goblin era has clearly lined up with ours in a very cosmic way. It's perfect. That part is pretty perfect.

Sara:

There are a lot of goblins in this book, which was delightful. The world needs more goblins.

Lilly:

And they're great. They were part of the plot on both sides of this weird plot schism. So maybe the goblins were the true thing holding this book together.

Sara:

I would believe that.

Lilly:

We see them working on the clacks, working with the trains, the dwarves. One of the, the things about the regressive dwarves is that they're mad that goblins are seen as people, because that apparently diminishes dwarves in some way, which, I mean, doesn't make sense, but it's nothing we haven't heard before. And so it is sort of an interesting follow through from Snuff, Because that is the book where goblins attain personhood at the end. And, we kind of see the repercussions of that, or the backlash from that. Most of the repercussions are, goblins get murdered slightly less. Is it still a repercussion if it's a good thing? Consequence?

Sara:

I mean, I don't actually think that we see a lot of the repercussions or consequences. Except in these very regressive dwarves. But everyone else just kind of Seems like they've accepted goblins wholesale. Which is great! That's how it should work.

Lilly:

Well, I was, I was, More commenting on the use of repercussion to refer to both good outcomes, not just negative ones.

Sara:

Right.

Lilly:

yeah, I don't think it counts as a repercussion if it's a good thing. Consequence, I think you can still use. Positive consequences, I think that's a thing. Moist goes to the neighboring country of Quirm and is like, Hey, all of you goblins! Wanna stop being hunted for food? Come to Ankh Morpork! And so, that was a good outcome, I would say.

Sara:

That is a good outcome. So one of the main characters in this book, and Actually, one of the main plot drivers is Dick Simnel, who basically invents a steam engine and thus creates locomotion and trains. And I was reading through this book and I was like, Simnel, Simnel. I know I've read that name before, and right before we started recording, I looked him up. And he is indeed related to Ned Simnel, who creates the combination harvester in Reaper Man. And that made me happy, except that then I realized that At the very beginning of this book, we learn that Ned Simnel has blown himself up in a steam accident, and that made me sad.

Lilly:

Yeah. And I mean, that was sad. I did not make that connection. Because it's been years since I've read that book.

Sara:

I mean, beginning of the podcast.

Lilly:

Yeah. But! It was sad anyway, because we meet Dick Simnel and his mother, and we're like, Oh, poor guy.

Sara:

It, it is sad anyway, but there's an additional layer of sadness knowing that it's a character that we have met before.

Lilly:

Yeah, Dick Simnel was an interesting character from a novel perspective. I mean, I really liked the guy. I mean, him as a person in the book. He acts like a foolish country boy to see who will take advantage of him, which I thought was brilliant. And he attributes his mother for that strategy, which is also great. I really liked his mother, too. She doesn't show up a lot, but very good character. He's very

Sara:

she did seem great. And I appreciated the care that he took of her too.

Lilly:

yeah, that was sweet. He's like a nice guy, he's very straightforward. There are a couple of scenes where journalists are trying to get some scare quotes because trains are new and exciting, and he's just so level headed they can't do it, which is great.

Sara:

He disarms them with his earnestness.

Lilly:

Yes, this book is so earnest! I'm clearly correct. He loves his work, and he gets a crush on a girl, and is just kind of a lovely guy. Oh, he takes care of his employees, is a good business partner. But I hesitate to call him the main character of this book, despite the amount of page time he gets, because he doesn't really change at all. Dick Simitle on page one is the exact same guy on the last page.

Sara:

I also wouldn't call him a main character because, although yes, we get a lot of him in the beginning he kind of fades away. from, I don't want to say the importance of the story, but he becomes much more of a background character by like, by the end of the book, where he's just kind of tinkering in the background, not actually driving anything.

Lilly:

Well, and you said earlier that he drove the plot forward by creating this steam engine. But, really, the plot of this book is not about the creation of the steam engine, it's about the social repercussions around it. And he has nothing to do with that!

Sara:

Yeah I guess he, he is the inciting incident or, or creates the inciting incident, but beyond that he doesn't actually have any plot relevance.

Lilly:

Which is wild that he gets so much screen time in the first half of Like, the first half of this book is his story! And it goes nowhere!

Sara:

It's just the, the pacing, it comes back to the pacing of this book is really weird. Laughter.

Lilly:

is part of why it feels so disjointed because I'm like Dick you sound like a great guy I'm not sure why I know so much about you We did get to see Adora Bell again. One of my absolute favorite characters and She doesn't have a huge role in this book, but I would say that her character is very consistent. And so that was nice, because Lady Sibyl did not have the same experience necessarily as Vimes wife.

Sara:

Yeah, Lady Sybil is not consistent as a romantic love interest, necessarily, and by that I mean, before she's really a love interest, she starts out great, and then as a love interest, she becomes less great and,

Lilly:

She wraps around by the end, but

Sara:

yeah, but there, there is that, yeah, there, there is that struggle and it's not because of anything inherent to Lady Sybil, per se, it's just because Pratchett fails at writing her but Adorabelle does have a consistency to her that I appreciate.

Lilly:

I know, you don't love her as much as I do,

Sara:

I, I don't. I don't. I don't dislike her.

Lilly:

Yeah. But I was a little nervous going into this book, and you can imagine why. Her and Moist Von Lipwig have gotten married, they are now living in marital bliss. So I was like, alright, let's see what's in store for Miss Adorabelle Dearheart. And the answer is, nothing and everything! She is in charge of the clacks, which there, we get a lot of sort of hints about lady programmers, which was a really nice reference by Pratchett. how women invented coding and

Sara:

Yes, that was, that was fun.

Lilly:

There was the visual, it wasn't her because they don't have children, but there was the visual of a woman with her baby in a bassinet up at the top of a clax tower, just like coding along.

Sara:

It was her mother.

Lilly:

It was her mother, thank you.

Sara:

Yes, and she was the baby.

Lilly:

I guess she did have siblings, but yes. And we kind of get to see her as a businesswoman, because we hear about how she handles her employees and welcomes in the goblins and takes, not takes care of them, that's diminishing and maternal, but respects them and,

Sara:

I mean, she treats them well. She is a good employer.

Lilly:

advocates for them the way she advocated for the golems in previous books. There was a scene with her and Angua where they're both defending goblins. I don't remember the exact thing that happens. I just know that they were on the page and defending goblins from some besmirchment, and I was like, I can die a happy woman. This is everything I ever wanted. I got Adorabelle, I got Angua, and I got goblin defense. Pro goblin propaganda. That's all I need. Anyway, I quite enjoyed. And then the moments that she pops up with moist was delightful of her just going, Oh still alive. That's nice. So that was a really fun matrimonial dynamic that we haven't seen before. But a little bit more, hmm, I mean they're partners, but we don't see a lot of tenderness between them on the page. There's a lot of Fade to Black that who knows, who knows. But we also see a lot of Harry King and his wife. And Harry King is a character that we have definitely met before.

Sara:

He's shown up from quite early on, I think, just as a mention, like, not as a proper character, but he's, he's been mentioned in a lot of Discworld novels, or at least a lot of Ankh Morpork novels.

Lilly:

right. One of the richest Ankh Morporkian businessmen who made his fortune with

Sara:

Excrement?

Lilly:

Yeah, six of one, half a dozen of the other. We see him and his relationship with Effie, his wife, and they were very sweet and supportive of each other, and at one point they have a disagreement, and we just, like, see them have a conversation about it on the page, and then they're, like, come to a understanding, and I was like, wow!

Sara:

They were a cute couple. They're not I wouldn't necessarily call them partners the way that Adorabelle and Moist are because I think Adora and Moist work together just as much as they have a romantic relationship.

Lilly:

Mm hmm.

Sara:

But I think that Effie and Harry King are like life partners. They, they work together in a, in a romantic sense, even if they don't, they aren't in business together.

Lilly:

But I like that even more, because then we get these two very different relationship dynamics. that both work very well for the people involved, but in very different ways from each other.

Sara:

Yes. It's, it's nice to have that diversity of relationship.

Lilly:

Yeah! Although I am gonna argue, because Effie absolutely is involved with the railway, in that she comes up with the concept of first class, and has the like, women only train cars, and von Lipwig about like, Oh yeah, cafes at every train station. So, and then there are several moments when Moist is on the train and he's like, Oh, I can definitely tell that Effie had a hand in this. So, it's not as explicit as Moist and adorable, but I do think there is a little bit of, of influence there. She participates, if not as a full, like, business partner. I

Sara:

She does participate. It's true. Someone this book is not great for is Vetinari, which makes me really sad. Because I love Vetinari, and he's just kind of an ass in this one.

Lilly:

was really curious if you were going to agree with me on that point or not.

Sara:

Oh yeah, I I'll agree with you.

Lilly:

He does not look good in this book.

Sara:

Yeah, and again, it makes me really sad, because I love Vetinari, and it's not that the behavior we see in this book is that different from some of his previous behavior, but I think he's a lot more explicit about I'm a tyrant and you have to do things my way.

Lilly:

He calls himself a prince a lot in this book, which I don't think we see very much before.

Sara:

No, no, it just, it, it feels like the veterinary that we get in these later books is far removed from the veterinary that we see in the earlier ones, and it's the earlier veterinary that I like most.

Lilly:

Well, part of it I wonder, until you said that, I was going to suggest that it was because It's his dynamic with Moist is so different from his dynamic with Vimes. I mean, it's still, I'm in charge and you have to do what I say, but with Vimes it's more of two titans respecting and working against, but also kind of with each other. Whereas Moist is a criminal, basically in indentured servitude, although he does get paid. And Vetinari does not let him forget it. In this book. But, like, in any of Moist's novels.

Sara:

That's true too. And it really is the moist novels that I don't like veterinarian.

Lilly:

Just his very, like, Well, you have to do it because I saved your life. And if you don't do it, I'll just have you martyred. Like, that is,

Sara:

it's not subtle enough for veterinary.

Lilly:

no, there's no manipulation there, he's not pulling the levers of human reaction, it's just a straight up threat, which is very out of character for him, at least what we've seen in especially the Vimes books, I would say,

Sara:

yeah,

Lilly:

who he spends a lot more time negotiating with, and yeah.

Sara:

So I just, I don't have as much fun with Vetinari in the later books.

Lilly:

Yeah.

Sara:

Which is a shame, because I really like Vetinari. Like I said, I like early Vetinari.

Lilly:

Speaking of Vimes, he is mentioned quite a bit in this book and then does show up for the sort of climactic sequence at the end. And that struck me partially because after our last conversation about Snuff, we mentioned that it was the last Vimes book and we got an email from Ian Jones who said that, like, not really, you know, I consider Raising Steam to kind of be a Vimes book. And I'm not sure I agree with that.

Sara:

Yeah, I don't, I don't think I agree with that. Vimes does show up, and the City Watch. does show up, but I don't think that they have a large enough part for this to be a Vimes book. Like, I would not characterize this as a Vimes book. I would call this a book in which Vimes I,

Lilly:

degree. Smoking cigars and intimidating people and being commander vimes of great fame and influence. And it was very fun to see him from a sort of outside perspective. Because most of this is more from Moist's perspective. Not perspective, but experience. And I keep almost calling him Vimes, and I think it's because we just did snuff. But I'm going to mess it up at some point, and it's going to be confusing for everybody. then I kind of wrap back around to, it's not Dick Simnel's book. I don't think a Vimes book. Although he is more influential to the outcome of the plot than Dick Simnel. Is it a Moist Von Lipfig book? He doesn't really, I mean, he has to do a lot, of land rights negotiation. But that's

Sara:

I think if I had, if I had to like pin one person down as being the main character in this book, it probably would be Moist because I think that he gets the most page time. And I think that he does the most throughout the various disparate plot points, even if it's mostly ensuring that people get from point A to point B.

Lilly:

But that is the plot of the Or that is the conflict, so

Sara:

that is the conflict. On Wikipedia, it is listed as a moist book, but I kind of think that more than that, it's an industrial revolution book, which is a category. That really doesn't make sense to me because it includes things like monstrous regiment, but this is about an industrial revolution!

Lilly:

it's literally Industrial Revolution.

Sara:

so, I, like, that's what I personally, I think, would call it.

Lilly:

By including Monstrous Regiment, I believe that miniseries is actually the Social Progress books, but they were too chicken to put that name on the miniseries, so they went with Industrial Revolution instead.

Sara:

I mean, I don't know where, where that term comes from

Lilly:

I assumed the

Sara:

for the subseries.

Lilly:

I assume the fans. I don't think Pratchett named them. Did he?

Sara:

I, genuine, genuinely have no idea. It's just what some of the books are listed as on Wikipedia.

Lilly:

Well, my name for it makes a lot more sense.

Sara:

yeah, I, I think, I think the social progress is a better name. Because, like, the first book in the quote unquote Industrial Revolution is Moving Pictures, and then there's The Truth, and then Monstrous Regiment, and those are, those are the Industrial Revolution books.

Lilly:

And ra oh yeah, because not raising steam.

Sara:

Not raising steam.

Lilly:

See,

Sara:

It's just, it's, it doesn't, it's not a category that makes a lot of sense.

Lilly:

really, I think the problem is they've made Moist von Lipwig its own miniseries. Which does make sense, because books that feature him, or at least going postal and making money, makes more sense to me. Because he is so much more involved. Like, those are clearly his story from beginning to end. They are about him doing his reformed criminal thing. and pulling off miracles in a slightly criminal way. And he grows and changes as a person over the course of each novel. In this book, he's involved.

Sara:

I wouldn't say he grows and changes, though.

Lilly:

I think that's where I'm struggling with it being a Moist Von Lipton. Or, okay, it can be under his miniseries. But I don't think that counts as his book.

Sara:

Yeah. Well, if that is your criteria, I don't think any of the characters in this grow and change.

Lilly:

Yeah, I mean, society grows and changes.

Sara:

Society. Well, and that's not true. There is that one dwarf who is, he's not a regressive, he's kind of more of a, like, regressive leaning centrist. And, and he comes to recognize that like goblins are people and he has that kind of moment of truth. But I think he might be the only one who changes over the course of the book.

Lilly:

Is that Albrecht Albrechtsen?

Sara:

Yes.

Lilly:

Yeah, this is an Albrecht Albrechtsen novel. I do really like Moist, though, and I think this is a good book for him. It's just not his. I don't know, I love how he's manipulative and selfish and self serving, but in a way that helps other people instead of hurts them. Because I feel like that's an aspect of manipulation that people forget about.

Sara:

Well, he's like that now.

Lilly:

He's always been like that.

Sara:

He's been like that for all of the books that we

Lilly:

Oh,

Sara:

have seen him in, but that's not what he was like. I mean, he talks a lot about how he's done terrible things, and he has done bad things.

Lilly:

yes. But that's, I mean, that's the characters we know him.

Sara:

But yes, the character is, the character as we know him still has that manipulative core, but he works to better society and himself.

Lilly:

Yeah. And, like, he's genuinely nice and helpful to people. The, the moment that I specifically made this comment on was when Drumnott, Vetinari's assistant, was totally obsessed with the train, which was pretty cute. I thought Drumnott's scenes in this book were fun, because we get to see him more than just a secretary. So he sneaks off to go see the train and like, work with the train in the beginning of the book. And Moist finds him down at the train yard and basically like, gets him cleaned up and sent off to Vetinari before he would get in trouble. And cleaned up so that he would actually be able to like, jump right back into work and not get in trouble. And in his internal monologue, Moist is like, I don't want to make an enemy out of him, like he's a very useful person. And I was like Okay, so you're using this to your advantage, but instead of, like, having a secret that you're holding over his head and blackmailing him with, you're just, like, genuinely helping him. Which is just such a nice, like, I don't know, I liked it. I really like Moist.

Sara:

Moist is not my favorite, but he's, he's not bad.

Lilly:

My last comment is apropos of nothing, but the very first place that the train goes is from Ankh Morpork to Stow Lot. And The only reason, they say, to go to Stolat is to visit Brassica World. Now, I would like to go to Brassica World.

Sara:

It kind of reminds me, the description kind of reminds me of the, there's like a garlic theme park or like a garlic festival or something, yeah, in Gilroy. And that's what it reminds me

Lilly:

think it's called Garlic World. Yeah, it's called Garlic World. It's the garlic capital of the world.

Sara:

Yes. Well, Garlic World, is apparently a gourmet market, but there is a Gilroy Gardens Family Theme Park.

Lilly:

Oh, okay. Fine. They really messed up those names. But,

Sara:

they, they did. Does the Gilroy Gardens Theme Park have anything to do with garlic? Maybe not. Although their family rides all have like food shaped names. There's Apple and Worm, which is a children's caterpillar ride around a giant apple core. There's the artichoke dip, the banana split. But there, there is like a, a garlic festival too.

Lilly:

yeah. Same. But, garlic is edgier than cabbage. I just want the, the goofy wholesomeness of celebrating, well not just cabbage, and bristle sprouts, and cauliflower, and broccoli, and all the other brassicas. It is the best food group. And yes, it is its own food group.

Sara:

it's a good food group.

Lilly:

Yeah, I want to go there. And I was a little sad that it was a fake place in a Discworld novel, and not one that I could actually go.

Sara:

I'm

Lilly:

I think, yeah, if there was one place in Discworld I could visit, it would be Brassica World.

Sara:

not sure where I would visit in Discworld, but as entertaining as Brassica World sounds, it probably would not be there I could only go to one

Lilly:

your loss.

Sara:

Send me postcards.

Lilly:

I will. You know there will be the big, like, cutouts that you stand behind and put your face through the hole to take a picture. Yeah, I'll send you some pictures of that. When I go to this fantasy place that isn't real. I'll

Sara:

Deal.

Lilly:

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Fiction Fans.

Sara:

come disagree with us We're on blue sky Instagram and tick tock at fiction fans pod and we do update our Twitter, but we're not really on there So look for us there. I mean you can I guess but we're not gonna be active there You can also email us at fiction fans pod at gmail. com

Lilly:

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Sara:

We also have a Patreon where you can support us and find exclusive episodes and a lot of other nonsense.

Lilly:

Thanks again for listening, and may your villains always be defeated.

Sara:

Bye!