Going Postal
by Terry Pratchett · first published 2004
55% recommend41% neutral4% critical
Why HN recommends it
Comic fantasy about a conman reviving the Post Office against a rival clacks telegraph, with startup-like themes, satire of information systems and bureaucracy, and likable flawed characters. Good for HN readers.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Suddenly, condemned arch-swindler Moist von Lipwig found himself with a noose around his neck and dropping through a trapdoor into ... a government job? By all rights, Moist should be meeting his maker rather than being offered a position as Postmaster by Lord Vetinari, supreme ruler of Ankh-Morpork. Getting the moribund Postal Service up and running again, however, may prove an impossible task, what with literally mountains of decades-old undelivered mail clogging every nook and cranny of the broken-down post office. Worse still, Moist could swear the mail is talking to him. Worst of all, it
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…from other people, but it is a collaboration with Gaiman. Not that its a bad thing, but it is missing the full Pratchett voice. My favorites are all Moist_von_Lipwig books. I recommend starting with Going Postal. Its comes much later in chronological order, but is the first Moist_von_Lipwig book and is enjoyable standalone.
on “Sir Terry Pratchett has died” ↗…actions and realities. I also particularly recommend the Night Watch series, just because Vimes is pretty much Terry's self insert, and as a business minded person I also loved the later Moist series (eg Going Postal). GNU Terry Pratchett. may your timeless stories be endlessly told and retold.
on “Royal Mail to Issue “Terry Pratchett’s Discworld” Stamps” ↗I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir here on HN but if you haven't read Terry Pratchett's "Going Postal", I highly recommend it.
on “The telegraph was the Victorian internet” ↗…that I loved and got lost in 1) The tiger's wife - To me it has a brilliant full universe. Its comprised of a overarching narrative broken up with lots of short stories. 2) night watch/ making money / going postal - terry pratchett Fun stories with full characters. 3) THe pigeon tunnels - john le carre, Again composed of short stories, not overly spy-y just fascinating character studies, with a bit of history.…
on “Ask HN: Recommend one book I need to read this summer?” ↗I can’t speak to real life but if you want to read an enjoyable depiction of how society might react to novel currencies, check out Going Postal and Making Money by Terry Pratchett.
on “Show HN: The Bitcoin Note – Secure, Self-Custodial Bitcoin Wallets in Cash Form” ↗Terry Pratchett. http://www.lspace.org/books/reading-order-guides/the-discwor... Specifically for geeks I would start, perhaps, with "Going Postal".
on “Ask HN: Any book recommendations for Geek Humour?” ↗If you want something a little different, "The Truth" and "Going Postal" by Terry Pratchett both capture a sense of startupness.
on “Ask HN: Fictional books related to startups?” ↗Discworld's Going Postal and Making Money by Terry Pratchett are worth checking out. They are sort-of about startups; the main character has to re-organize the Post Office and the Banking system.
on “Ask HN: Fictional books related to startups?” ↗Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. I'd also strongly recommend Terry P's Going Postal and Making Money. I have a long list of non-fiction books I've read and enjoyed. Most recently, I read Paul Graham's Hackers and Painters. Would definitely recommend it!
on “Ask HN: What is the greatest book you've ever read?” ↗Welp, when I saw the title of the article my thought was "Wait what ?! Terry Pratchett Going Postal was actually based on real facts ?" Those two books are among my favourites, but I was really not expecting that part to be true
on “Post office stamps as currency (1862)” ↗…you want it." So the emergence of TokenA is that someone promises that it's worth some value and that the promise made is trusted by enough people. If you enjoy a good read, I'd suggest you check out Going Postal and Making Money by Terry Pratchett, they discuss (among much hilarity) the emergence of a postal system and stamp trading, along with the eventual evolution into paper money. There are certainly better…
on “Orphaned currency: the odd case of Somali shillings (2013)” ↗Going Postal by Terry Pratchett is a story involving a competition between a traditional post office and a light-based telegraph system called "clacks." You might enjoy the book and/or television adaptation. After…
on “Epistemic standards for “Why did it take so long to invent X?”” ↗Read the Discworld books by Terry Pratchett. They are always funny, but not always light. For the HN crowd "going postal" is probably a good first read. You can mostly read them in arbitrary order.
on “Ask HN: I only read tech/business books – recommend me some fiction?” ↗There is a character that is a wonderful example in this category in "Going Postal" by Terry Pratchett - I'd suggest reading the whole book because it's fantastic but in particular Mr. Pony is the epitome of the pressed on engineer > Pony looked around, a hunted man. He’d got his pink…
on “Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims” ↗Some examples of real world races, including one against an Australian ISP the pigeon won: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers#:~:te... If this tickles you, give Going Postal by Terry Pratchett a read.
on “I raced a homing pigeon against the Internet [video]” ↗