Reviews with content warning for Sexism - Feet of Clay

Here's me finally catching up on ancient reading goals from decades past. Set in the Discworld this is a story of the Watch, which is a mystery of who managed to poison the Patrician. It also deals, metaphorically, with discussions of slavery, A.I., racial prejudice, social class, and gender identification.
o.o ... which is not bad for 1996.

This is a story driven by fear. In a city where the worst jobs are done by ceramic golems (ok.. basically magic robots, yoinked straight from Jewish mythology). What happens when you find out that they might be conscious and sentient? Is it a wise idea to give them autonomy when they are much more physically strong than humans, and have suffered centuries of oppression and violence at their hands?

When you have a cast of many you can afford to have characters who are biggoted and upset by change, alongside those who are progressively minded and want to try and right systemic injustices. I think this book is different from many that I have read in that a likeable character is a driving force for Justice and equity, but still holds onto unchallenged toxic ideals and values that cause problems for others. This also provides some scope for character growth and for conflict to be resolved.

This story has one of the weirdest Trans- allegories I have ever encountered, with a character with dysphoria trying to transition in the workplace, with those around them being various forms of helpful, perplexed, affronted and violently offended.

Identity groups are not monolithic, and being a member of a minority group does not stop a person from having their own prejudices. And Pratchett just has a specific form of wit which helps to make the thinking slide in easier, should one choose to engage brain.

Content Warnings

mrkusabi's review against another edition

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adventurous funny reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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smw33's review against another edition

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adventurous funny lighthearted mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

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bluejayreads's review against another edition

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adventurous funny

4.0

The City Watch subseries seems to have only one plot: Preventing people from doing a monarchy. Someone wants Ankh-Morpork to have a king again and start scheming to make it happen, and the Watch has to step in and stop it from happening.

In the first City Watch book, Guards! Guards!, they crowned a dragon king. In the second book, Men at Arms, there was a scheme to replace the patrician with a king (although that scheme did generally fade into the background of the book as a whole). And this one is a murder mystery and, again, another plot to crown a king.

When I first started reading the City Watch subseries, I thought Carrot was going to be the protagonist, or perhaps a deuteragonist with Commander Vimes. But Carrot really took a back seat in this one. He was there and useful, but not a major player. The characters with the most page time in this one were Vimes (expected) and Angua (less expected). Vimes was just Vimes, now with a small taste of married life, but Angua got a lot of development – not growth exactly, but learning more about her inner thoughts and what makes her tick.

She was also the driving force for a couple of the themes this book had going on. One of the bigger ones was workplace sexism, both benevolent and less so. A more minor one, and one that’s run as an undercurrent through the other City Guard books as well, is racism/prejudice against undead people. And there were some non-Angua-related themes as well. There was the question of what people really want from government, which came up a few times. And the more major theme of who gets to be a person was explored through the murder mystery, since that plot involves a lot of golems.

I’m not normally much for murder mysteries, but this one didn’t feel like a traditional murder mystery. Perhaps it’s because there’s so much else going on, perhaps it’s because it quickly ends up being more focused on finding the suspect than determining the whodunnit. But regardless, it was a solid story. The side characters were great, Ankh-Morpork is such a fun setting, and the whole book is entertaining and often funny. It’s a good story all around, and maybe my favorite City Watch book so far.

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crufts's review against another edition

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adventurous lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Feet of Clay is the 19th novel in the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett, and the 3rd novel about the Ankh-Morpork City Watch. I would recommend reading the earlier Watch books first to get the background - at least Guards! Guards! (#8) to have the Watch introduced, and Men at Arms (#9) to meet Angua and Detritus.

A murder has occurred in the city of Ankh-Morpork. No, wait - two murders. Actually, make that two murders plus a poisoning of the city's ruler, Lord Vetinari.
It's the responsibility of Captain Vimes and the City Watch to figure out who did all this, and why - but strangely, there's no trace of anything alive at the crime scenes, and someone is still managing to poison Lord Vetinari night after night. With the help of their newly-hired forensic alchemist, Corporal Cheery Littlebottom, can the Watch solve the mystery?

I came to this novel after reading the later book Thud! (review linked here), which also involves Cpl. Littlebottom, and wanting to see how she was introduced. And I really liked it! For the first time, the Watch has a forensic investigator on their side. This was quite interesting as the book had different kinds of clues which hadn't appeared before (e.g. traces of poisons, clay, or chalk dust), and one of the major reveals of the book (i.e. how Vetinari is being poisoned) is based on Cheery's ability to analyze these substances.

Another theme of the book is freedom of gender expression. Discworld dwarves have a very gender-egalitarian society, with both male and female dwarves having beards, bulging muscles, and a preponderance of axes. But "equal" does not mean "free": they are only free to have the same masculine gender expression as every other dwarf. This idea is challenged and discussed in an interesting way. However, there was one part about this that bothered me, which is

how Carrot was initially so against Cheery expressing herself femininely ("I would have thought she'd have the decency to keep it to herself").
This is immediately called out by Angua ("I think you may have got [your head] stuck up your bum"), but it was a shock to hear the extremely polite and friendly Carrot speaking this way. In retrospect it actually makes sense that he would have the dwarven prejudice against feminine dwarves, because he was raised as a dwarf himself. But I think it would have been clearer if Carrot explained himself as such, referenced what he'd learned growing up, etc

. I was also hoping to see

a male dwarf expressing interest in feminine behaviour/attire, instead of only female dwarves,

but this didn't end up happening. Even so, it was neat to see this theme explored.

Apart from the forensic angle and the self-expression theme, I also enjoyed seeing all those wonderful Discworld returning characters. Angua in particular gets to shine in this book.
However, the actual plot of the story didn't grab me that much. The resulting changes to

golem society, self-ownership, etc

weren't all that interesting to me. Even so, I enjoyed reading to the end and was curious to see what would happen next.

Overall, a good read.

Content Warnings

numerous_bees's review against another edition

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funny hopeful mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Pratchett had hit his stride by this stage of the series, handling the deep philosophical ideas which drive the Discworld stories so casually he makes it look incidental. The core of the Vimes/City Watch stories is class-based injustice, this time contained within a murder mystery story featuring dubious heraldry jokes (Arthur Carry, candlemaker, bought himself the family motto "Art brought forth the Candle", while Rudolph Potts the baker got "Because I knead the Dough") and wry observation ("fire escapes were unknown in Ankh-Morpork and the flames generally had to leave via the roof").

Despite starting to show its age and being a little creaky around the subplots, Feet of Clay remains one of my favourite Discworld books. Highly recommended.

Content Warnings

inka_z's review against another edition

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funny hopeful mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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