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4.31 AVERAGE
4.31 AVERAGE
adventurous
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
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:
Complicated
Starts off slow but ends with a bang. And timely message about tolerance.
adventurous
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
There’s a lot going on in Thud! and that doesn’t always make it the easiest book to follow. There’s the top-line plot, of course, which is that the anniversary of the battle that started the animosity between dwarves and trolls is approaching, the dwarvish and troll populations of the city are getting restless, and a major dwarven religious leader (who happens to think trolls aren’t even really sentient) is murdered. But, there’s also a troll who might be the murderer, a stolen painting, a story about a dwarf who found a treasure at the battlesite but died before he could retrieve it, some kind of troll messiah lurking about, lots of talk about a board game named Thud!, the dead dwarf was friends with some other dwarves who have been digging around under the city, a vampire joining the watch (and Vimes hates vampires and is immediately suspicious of her), and an ancient, intelligent curse trying to do… something? It turns out many of these story lines are eventually related, but it’s not clear that they are going to be when they turn up in the story. They’re just facts that arise and aren’t really pieced together until near the end of the story, so you’re left trying to juggle all of them in your head. The author doesn’t do a fantastic job of helping you do this either. As an example, he introduces the missing painting in the second chapter, using new viewpoint characters to do so. That makes it seem like the painting and the characters are going to be important. It turns out that the painting is, in a way, but it takes over half of the book to find out why. The characters, despite seemingly being important viewpoint characters, are rarely used as viewpoint characters again, and never for story-related reasons, only for amusement. Then there are random vignettes from the point of view of the troll that could be the murderer, that serve to introduce some new information initially, but then there are more vignettes that continue following the troll long after he’s served his purpose, and it feels like the author could have introduced the information the troll has without adding another viewpoint character. At least there is some purpose to the vignettes with the troll, though. The ancient, intelligent curse also gets its vignettes, and those are completely obtuse. I was shocked when I learned what the curse had been doing (only at the end of the book, naturally), because I had no idea its vignettes were painting that kind of story. So there’s a lot of information to try to keep in your head while reading this book, and it’s not made any easier for you by the way it’s presented.
Relatedly, there are a lot of characters in the book, particularly on the Watch, which is commanded by Sam Vimes, the main character of the story. Some of them are just kind of throwaway parts, but they recur throughout most of the story, so it’s a struggle to connect where you saw them before and what kind of creature they are with what you’re reading at the moment they’re reintroduced. That makes it difficult to remember what kind of person - and species - the character is, which is more important in a book where interspecies animosity figures large. Perhaps if I had read the earlier books in the series, this would have been easier (this was my first read in the Discworld series). However, the author does a good enough job of reminding you about major characters, and it helps that each major character is its own species (except Carrot, who's human like Vimes, although he’s also Dwarven). Further, most of these major characters are pretty likeable, like the upstanding Carrot and the blunt-but-steadfast Detritus. Amusingly, this is kind of in contrast to Vimes himself, who’s a bit of a blowhard. That perhaps is the author’s intention - he may have felt that the book was more amusing that way.
And the book is written to be amusing. There are times when it is obvious that the author is really going for laugh-out-loud funny, but unfortunately, those times are so over-the-top and eager to be laughed at that they aren’t really funny. That’s not to say the book isn’t amusing - it is, just in a vague, faintly smiling way, rather than ever really achieving comedy.
Despite all the different threads that you have to struggle to keep in your mind while reading this book though, the author does make a valiant attempt to tie them all together at the end. It probably would have helped the story’s cause to tie some of them up earlier and build upon them, so that there’s tension going into the climax, and to introduce little bread trails leading up to the story’s big reveals, so that they aren’t sprung upon the reader in a way that leaves them bewildered, surprised, and nonplussed (like the vampire - it turns out Vimes was right to be suspicious of her, but that’s a total surprise and also it doesn’t really matter in the end, because it’s not a major plank of the story). I think that might have helped the ending gel a little better than it did. If you can get past the surprise and muddle your way through all the explanation that happens at the end, though, the ending has a pleasant, feel-good message that hits the right notes. That, combined with the author’s assiduous tying together of all the ends, makes the ending satisfying enough that, if you’ve made it through the rest of the book, you’ll likely feel like it’s the right kind of capstone to this kind of story. Whether it’s entirely worth the mental effort of getting there is more in question.
adventurous
dark
funny
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
funny
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
funny
adventurous
dark
funny
hopeful
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
Following in the steps of Night Watch, this book has much more of a bite to it, delves into much darker places and ends all the brighter for it. This endless cycle of hatred that in the book seems rather silly until you think about all the times this has happened and still happens in the real world and it makes you just a little sad. I do love the hopeful ending that despite everything, peace can still be made and a new chart can be coursed, freeing itself from the baggage of the past. Sam Vimes and his love for his son and his family are an excellent method in which that cycle of violence gets broken. His refusal to carry out the will of the Summoning Darkness because of his family gives one hope for our own world. Plus it was lovely to follow Sargent Angua without Carrot, seeing her be her own character independent of her relationship to him was great, as well as getting to see more of Cheery and Detritus. Honestly Detritus has become one of my favorite members of the Watch. From starts out just as jokes about trolls to being a mentor figure to others, trying to help combat the troll drugs, ending with him taking Brick under his wing, were all great. Plus seeing the reference to Ruby after just reading Moving Pictures was a fun little reference. Overall a very strong follow up to what is probably the strongest Discworld book, Thud! continues confronting even darker issues head on and brining them to light.
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
tense
fast-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
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-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