SPOILERS Raising Steam *Warning Spoilers*

[Antiq]

I have just finished reading Raising Steam. I loved it.

I have read a lot of the reviews and criticisms, and I understand some of the consternation many people feel. Initially, my reaction to Vetenari in particular was...woah, wait, what the heck? Vetenari was never that voluble, or expressive except in the most subtle way, and indeed there was some rambling and perhaps dilution of the usual sharpness of satire.

But...there is something very special about this book. It's gentler, sweeter, and, taken as a whole, sadder in that it feels like a "wrapping up" of Discworld, a last hurrah. All the cameos, which to some might seem scrappy or even irrelevant, felt like a cast gathering to take a bow. I don't want this to be the case, I really really don't, but that's what it seemed like to me.

Raising Steam did what every other discworld novel did for me, it made me laugh out loud more than once. From The Colour of Magic to this, Sir Terry has never once failed me in that respect. He has made my life better, and sometimes even bearable, and if he scratched the alphabet on the wall with crayons, I don't think I could love him any less as an author. Not an objective or critically discerning view, I know, but the heck that I treasure every drop of ink from his metaphorical pen, and if all that is left eventually are blots and splatters, I don't really care, it's good as diamonds to me.

Having said all that, I really did love Raising Steam, warts and all.

 

[Penfold]

I've a feeling that he will be paving the way for 'The Watch' tv series with this and the next few books and once that starts it will be the end of writing DW for him. :think:

 

[Who's Wee Dug]

Penners there is still the new Tiffany one to come out this year.

 

[Penfold]

I know and the tv series won't be out for a few years yet.

 

[Who's Wee Dug]

Later this year or early next year or so I'm led to believe.

 

[Catch-up]

Finished it! Thought it was a lot of fun and really enjoyed it. Got a huge kick out of all the cameos/special mentions. It seems the only characters not mentioned were the witches! I am still having a hard time with a chattier Vetinari. Not saying it's bad, just not used to it. Knowing about the double makes me wonder if that's the reason for the chattiness? Charlie is trying too hard? And I have to say that the arrival of the King felt very anti-climatic. All that drama, all those murders, attempted murders, and the vandalism, then when it comes down to it there's only a little scuffling followed immediately by hand shaking and quaffing? That didn't quite seem right. But, still had a lot of fun reading it! I absolutely loved Mr. Simnel!

 

[Slantaholic]

Catch-up wrote:
I am still having a hard time with a chattier Vetinari. Not saying it's bad, just not used to it. Knowing about the double makes me wonder if that's the reason for the chattiness? Charlie is trying too hard?

I think Vetinari's on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He's showing signs of madness, especially staring at the wall and raging over a crossword. His dialogue has always been weird - it's really hard to mimic him in fanfiction. I recall Terry Pratchett mentioning that he's hard to write as he's more intelligent than the author!

He, judging by his attitude towards Vimes, is an irate introvert who loves paperwork yet talks 'high up' about everything really. Some intelligent people mention talking 'high up' inside their heads. Vetinari also has multiple thinking/pausing noises - namely "Ah", "Oh", "Er" and infrequently "Um", as well as shuffling bits of paperwork.

 

[pip]

I think the element of confusion surrounding Vetinari was introduced in the book. Its hard to make a judgement on his character as only on a few occasions can you be sure it is or isn't actually him.

 

[Catch-up]

Catch-up wrote:
I am still having a hard time with a chattier Vetinari. Not saying it's bad, just not used to it. Knowing about the double makes me wonder if that's the reason for the chattiness? Charlie is trying too hard?

I think Vetinari's on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He's showing signs of madness, especially staring at the wall and raging over a crossword. His dialogue has always been weird - it's really hard to mimic him in fanfiction. I recall Terry Pratchett mentioning that he's hard to write as he's more intelligent than the author!

He, judging by his attitude towards Vimes, is an irate introvert who loves paperwork yet talks 'high up' about everything really. Some intelligent people mention talking 'high up' inside their heads. Vetinari also has multiple thinking/pausing noises - namely "Ah", "Oh", "Er" and infrequently "Um", as well as shuffling bits of paperwork.

Actually, reading this, all of those things make sense if it IS a double doing them.

 

[=Tamar]

Actually, reading this, all of those things make sense if it IS a double doing them.

I am now convinced that it is Charlie most of the time. The team of Drumknott-and-Charlie are doing rather well except for Charlie's tendency to overact. (I've been sent over here from the other RS thread because of spoilers.) The impressive stoker that other stokers tell about is, I am certain, Vetinari, who has been training as a stoker. Nobody can lay a blow on him in a fight - that's Vetinari, keeping tabs on things in person, and not so incidentally, literally stoking the fires that keep the whole enterprise going.

Hmm. Looking at it again, I am struck by the brief scene in which an unnamed stoker fries eggs on the back of his shovel for himself and the engineer. Eating eggs, especially in company, can in some circumstances have resonances with myths both ancient and modern. Sharing an egg is a Sumerian funeral scene. In some modern fiction, villains will eat hardboiled eggs in a scene in which they are trapping someone and gloating; but this is just a friendly fry-up, isn't it?

 

[Catch-up]

I agree, I think all of those odd scenes with Vetinari are Charlie. And I definitely got the impression by the end of the book that Stoker was Vetinari.

 

[Slantaholic]

Yes, by the end Vetinari told Moist that he was Stoker Blake, but I don't think that those odd scenes are Charlie!

I mean there's no way that he'd get away day after day with such appalling behaviour. He'd be fired if that was the entire range of his acting ability. It's definitely Havelock Vetinari, who's not feeling mentally well. He needs a better holiday than the threat of bandits thee next time he goes to visit Lady Margolotta. As it is, he doesn't go again until Moist and Simnel have built an entire armoured train FOR HIM and fortunately the Low Queen needed it as well.

Why - does Vetinari decide to work as a type of engineer (well, a furnace stoker) when he prefers manipulating people over cogwheels - he doesn't appear to be having the type of fun that he, and we, come to expect when he sends Vimes off to arrest people! I don't think he's having much fun killing grags, and nor does Moist von Lipwig enjoy killing people.

I found it a very immoral book in the killing aspect, when in previous Moist novels, Vetinari tries to teach Moist about politics and get him away alive and without stealing from the city. In Raising Steam, he's encouraged to loot corpses by Terry Pratchett's strange prejudice about goblins!

 

[=Tamar]

It's definitely Havelock Vetinari, who's not feeling mentally well. He needs a better holiday than the threat of bandits thee next time he goes to visit Lady Margolotta. As it is, he doesn't go again until Moist and Simnel have built an entire armoured train FOR HIM and fortunately the Low Queen needed it as well.

Vetinari has been actively attacked, not just threatened, quite a few times in the course of the series. There has been a bit of fan speculation that the Lord Vetinari Ward is not just a place to stash madmen who think they are him; it might be a safe place for him to relax. He is definitely under a strain.

Why - does Vetinari decide to work as a type of engineer (well, a furnace stoker) when he prefers manipulating people over cogwheels - he doesn't appear to be having the type of fun that he, and we, come to expect when he sends Vimes off to arrest people!

For the same reason that he wants an armored train, or even two, one to be a decoy. He is hiding.

I don't think he's having much fun killing grags, and nor does Moist von Lipwig enjoy killing people.

At this point, Moist is arguably more moral than Vetinari. Moist never enjoyed killing; he used to be proud of not having even been in a fight for the most part. His flaws were committing theft for excitement and not thinking about the consequences of his thefts. In the fighting scenes in RS, Moist is acting more or less as a soldier, and he is even given the excuse of being drugged with goblin potion.

I think Vetinari is as fascinated with the steam engine as Drumknott is. He also knows that the city will take care of itself for short periods of time. It has before, after all.
Vetinari managed to leave the city of Ankh-Morpork in the hands of whoever took over (and they probably left it to Drumknott for the day-to-day work), when he left the city for most of Jingo. He has been incapacitated by poison for some time in Feet of Clay, by being shot in Men At Arms, and by exhaustion and having been knocked out in The Truth. He's also getting older. He knows that Ankh-Morpork will run itself for a short time without him, and with Drumknott and a double, hardly anyone would even notice. Despite the amount of time we see people in his office, it's likely that he doesn't actually have a continual stream of visitors, and Drumknott has often been shown bringing out the appropriate file folder without being told. Drumknott is capable of telling Charlie what to say on most occasions, and if "Vetinari" behaves a bit oddly at times, who's going to have the nerve to say so in public?

Given that Vetinari really wants a good transportation system and is also angry with the grags already for their attempts to destroy Ankh-Morpork by literally undermining it, I'm not surprised that he is angry enough to be willing to fight them himself. He is a trained killer, after all.

I found it a very immoral book in the killing aspect, when in previous Moist novels, Vetinari tries to teach Moist about politics and get him away alive and without stealing from the city. In Raising Steam, he's encouraged to loot corpses by Terry Pratchett's strange prejudice about goblins!

I suspect that may have been partly plot-determined; in order to protect the engine from falling boulders, something like the protective sort of micromail was needed. To get enough, in secret and at a low price (nobody could afford that much at high-fashion prices), it had to be spoils of war. Within the story, the grags and delvers who were killed were not innocently camping in a tunnel; they were actively attacking and trying to kill the railway workers.

The goblins, as is usual, represent the downtrodden who are beginning to stand up and defend themselves. Given that they are not yet considered to have full rights by many of the people on the Disc, there are clashes.

 

[Bouncy Castle]

https://twitter.com/terryandrob/status/ ... 16/photo/1

The book arrives in the US.

 

[mirandashell]

Vetinari has always been wlling to kill though, if it means the city is safe. That's his whole reason for whatever he does. Apart from the dislike of mime artists which seems to be personal.... Anyway, he's a tyrant. He makes whatever decisions he feels are necessary to protect the city. He's practical and clever and intelligent and farsighted and completely and utterly pragmatic.

He's one of my favourites.

 

[Slantaholic]

mirandashell wrote:
Vetinari has always been wlling to kill though, if it means the city is safe.

i would think that any city, state or country would be unsafe if its ruler was upfront about 'willing to kill'. Unfortunately, Vetinari is a former assassin who legalised his old school and legalised their crimes. I'm not surprised 'Ankh-Morpork suicide' is a city-wide ongoing project.

Can you imagine voting someone in for mayor, then having them legalise theft, prostitution, and assassination? That's Vetinari. He must have made public speeches before 'delivering the verdict' and legalising it all.

(I know, I know. It's fantasy, and Terry Pratchett wrote it that way *parody*)

 

[The Mad Collector]

Get your facts right, Vetinari wasn't elected, no patrician is elected, this is a tyranny although a largely benevolent one.

Ankh-Morpork had dallied with many forms of government and had ended up with that form of democracy known as One Man, One Vote. The Patrician was the Man; he had the Vote.

 

[Molokov]

Actually, the Assassins' Guild has been one of the longest running and most respected Guilds in the city (see Night Watch, for example). The only Guild Vetinari made 'legal' which was previously 'illegal' was the Thieves' Guild (as noted in Guards! Guards!).

 

[Who's Wee Dug]

Actually, the Assassins' Guild has been one of the longest running and most respected Guilds in the city (see Night Watch, for example). The only Guild Vetinari made 'legal' which was previously 'illegal' was the Thieves' Guild (as noted in Guards! Guards!).

Vetinari was in the assassins guild originally, so it may have been a bit of favoritism on his part to make it legal.

 

[Tonyblack]

It was already legal when Vetinari was a student there.