Raising Steam: (Discworld novel 40)

Normally I find myself compelled by Discworld novels so much that I quite literally can't put them down, but... oh boy, not this one. It's odd too because while it features some of my favourite characters in Von Lipwig, Harry King and of course Vetinari, they all feel very off and unlike themselves from previous books. The pacing of the whole book is all over the place too, seemingly a hodge podge of ideas stuffed in at random. There's no clear antagonist developed until around two thirds into the book, no protagonist is developed to any meaningful degree. This is comfortably my least favourite Discworld offering. Compared to Going Postal and Making Money - the two other Lipwig books - this is l, pardon the pun, a trainwreck.

It just goes on and on down the track, with no surprises, and never really comes to a head. It's a mystery as to what Pratchett is trying to do here. Is he poking fun at railways? At racism? At the Discworld? No. He's not bothered with any of that. Instead, he's written a boring book about trains.

I brought this from Google books as anyone who reads pratchett knows about the numerous foot notes instead of them appearing at the bottom of the pages where there supposed to be there all grouped together at the end of the book and being an e book you can't flick backwards and forwards for each footnote. it's still a good read but it does feel like he's going through the motions of a disk world book but given his circumstances still an ok read