Raising Steam
by Terry Pratchett · first published 2013
24% recommend41% neutral35% critical
"Change is afoot in Ankh-Morpork--Discworld's first steam engine has arrived, and once again Moist von Lipwig finds himself with a new and challenging job"--
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To me, Lobsang and Sister Agnes (even as they appeared in The Long Cosmos) felt much more Discworld-y than did almost any part of Raising Steam. I have fond memories of the ascendant of the Discworld series, Strata, which is IMO better than the book it’s riffing on (Ringworld). Likewise I enjoyed The Dark Side of the Sun, which riffs off a different…
on “Discworld on Page and Screen, Part 1: Serious Comedy” ↗Discworld: Going Postal, Making Money, and Raising Steam (3 books total) The Lies of Locke Lamora (and sequels, 3 books total so far) The Name of the Wind (and sequels, 3 books total so far) Ancillary Justice (and sequel, 2 books total so far) All of Iain…
on “What are your favorite sci-fi and fantasy books?” ↗The Vimes series is amazing... I think it's a bit above the Moist series but I absolutely love Raising Steam and, to a lesser extent, Making Money - because both characters are coming together. Still, I think my top pitch is somewhere within Night's Watch, Men at Arms & Jingo - I think Guards! Guards! is also…
on “WeWork and Counterfeit Capitalism” ↗I remember reading 'Raising Steam' with more and more alarm and dispair. I loved all the other books, and there was something so obviously going wrong mentally in this book. Dementia sucks. Strangely, 'The shepherds crown' was much…
on “Terry Pratchett's novels may have pointed to his dementia 10y before diagnosis” ↗I got a Kindle for Christmas, and I've been reading through Discworld chronologically. I'm on Raising Steam right now, and I already feel like I'm going to have to reread the series with a list of references open. There were a lot of places where it was apparent there was a reference to something, but it was…
on “Why does a spray bottle work?” ↗I admit there are a couple I've never read (they're sitting on the shelf next to me - Raising Steam, Unseen Academicals, Making Money). That way I'll always have another Terry Pratchett novel to read. I felt that Carpe Jugulum was a retread of Lords & Ladies, and the formula was getting stale by that…
on “Royal Mail to Issue “Terry Pratchett’s Discworld” Stamps” ↗I really liked the first Moist von Lipwig book. The second one is ok. The third (Raising Steam) is just...bad. It's not funny, it's not anything. You can absolutely tell that Pratchett was losing his abilities.
on “Gabriel García Márquez: Sons publish novel that late author wanted destroyed” ↗Since some people seem to have missed it: the final Discworld book, and Pratchett's deliberate "signing off," is the last Tiffany Aching book (The Shepherd's Crown), not Raising Steam. I can't really say much about the central theme without giving away a disc-shaking change to the world, because it's about that event and the next generation (Tiffany) carrying on. It's a very sad story,…
on “I Miss Terry Pratchett” ↗…of Discworld" and some of the loosely related stories such as Mrs Bradshaw's Handbook (voiced by Penelope Keith - a skit on the Victorian era "Bradshaw's" railway travel guide [2] and a spin-off from "Raising Steam", featuring her travels on the Ankh-Morpork and Sto Plains Hygienic Railway), "The World of Poo" (Sam Vimes son's fascination with collecting poo specimens) and, unrelated to Discworld but written in…
on “Discworld on Page and Screen, Part 1: Serious Comedy” ↗…Especially considering the later ‘Industrial Revolution’ stories - the Truth, Going Postal, Making Money all made some incremental changes to Ankh Morpork. The last (and sadly one of the worst) books Raising Steam had the biggest potential to change the fantasy world with the introduction of railway travel.
on “Stories We’ve Seen Too Often” ↗…Watch and first two Moist von Lipwig; I know the ongoing Tiffany Aching series are good, but in terms of writing I found them not as intricate as his earlier books.) I found Snuff harder to read, and Raising Steam, sadly, very difficult. I could tell the genius was there, but my memory of the writing was that it used much longer sentences, had less intricate plotting, and far fewer puns and wordplay. It was this…
on “Detecting Dementia Using Lexical Analysis: Terry Pratchett's Discworld” ↗…are the kids? I.e. I have read Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy as ~13 year old and enjoyed it immensly. Terry Prattchets later discworld books might count as well, i.e. Going Postal, Making Money and Raising Steam is quite a bit about new technology and its influence on the changing world :-) Ah, now I see, 3 to 6 year olds. My daughter is 5, and we haven't really been reading sci-fy, but next time I might ask…
on “Ask HN: Sci-Fi book recommendations for kids?” ↗…opera trained daughter now counts Maskerade as one of her favorites. As others have pointed out, his earlier works are more whimsical (think Monty Python or Hitchhikers Guide). Near the end of his life, Raising Steam was sadly predictable in its plot as a “tying things up” song. Me personally, I didn’t care for the Rincewind novels, until I watched one of the BBC adaptations, the one with Jeremy Irons, and now I even…
on “Yan tan tethera pethera pimp – an old system for counting sheep” ↗It was better than Raising Steam at least, in my opinion. Some characters in that are unrecognisable. His biography _A Life With Footnotes_ by his assistant describe how the last books were made. Pratchett would still have moments of…
on “Ask HN: What's the best book you've read so far in 2024?” ↗Personally I just ignore them(Raising Steam and Snuff). There are too many inconsistencies with how Vimes and Lipwig are characterized in those books, that I can't see them as the same characters. I haven't started the Shepherd's Crown for the…
on “Detecting Dementia Using Lexical Analysis: Terry Pratchett's Discworld” ↗