The Truth.

By Terry Pratchett.

Synopsis:
William de Worde - a nobleman trying not to be - through no fault of his own ends up the editor of the Disc's first newspaper. Dastardly plots, talking dogs and humourous vegetables soon follow.

Review:
It's good. After the dip in quality aroundabout Hogfather/Jingo, the man with the hat is definitely back on track. And speaking of the man and his hat, go here for a beautiful scan of a promotional postcard for The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents.

I got the feeling that this may very well be Mr Pratchett's first (or not, I don't know, it's all just wild speculation) Mary-Suesque character (brief note of explanation for those who don't obsessively seek out poorly-written fanfic, a Mary-Sue is the author writing themselves into the story. In the case of the aforementioned fanfic, generally for the purpose of getting off with one or more of the main characters. It should be added at this point that this did not happen in this book). It was the way William felt about words. And knew a lot of them. I'm probably completely wrong...

Although set in Ankh Morpork, this is a stand alone book. Commander Vimes features fairly heavily, but only as an incidental character; which is cool in one way, but frustrating in another (I wanna find out what's going to happen after the end of Carpe Jugulum... Roll on Thief of Time...) and disconcerting in yet another.

The way the technology of the Disc evolves is nicely consistant. The clacks towers, first introduced in Carpe Jugulum (I think) are now being widely used. Albeit it to flick hypothetical shrimps off, occasionally. Also, fire insurance pops up again, briefly, harking all the way back to the Colour of Magic. Speaking of fire, I'd just like to add at this point that the attitude of the citizens of Ankh Morpork towards the fire brigade is eminantly sensible, and I'm surprised it hasn't occured to anyone before now.

Mr Pin and Mr Tulip reminded me (because they were almost identical) of Mr Croup and Mr Van der Mar (not sure of the spelling... apologies if that was entirely wrong) from Neverwhere. Seeing as how they've written a book together and everything (Good Omens. If you haven't read it, go find yourself a copy. Seriously) one must assume that Messrs Gaiman and Pratchett are aware of one another's work to some extent... Maybe it was on purpose. Maybe he just thought they were really cool, so he pinched them. (Neil Gaiman, in the making-of thingy for Neverwhere, mentions finding a story he'd written when he was really really wickle about Croup and Van der Mar... I know he's a bit younger than Terry Pratchett, but still, I think it's fairly safe to say that they were his first)

All in all, as I believe I briefly touched on earlier, it's a bloody good book. The only way you're not going to like this is if you're not into Discworld. And if you're not into Discworld, I don't know why you'd buy a Discworld book...