The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett

I was just saying that I hoped there would be more novels set in Uberwald and here it is. How pleasing.

Commander Vimes of the city watch is being sent to Uberwald in his capacity as a Duke and being asked to be an ambassador to the coronation of the low king. Vimes is not what one would call a natural diplomat and he is like a bull at high society functions, so his appointment as an ambassador seems eccentric.  Of course the enigmatic Patrician, Vetinari, has his reasons. He always does.

In the meantime, Angua has gone missing. She's a werewolf and this Uberwald business is in her home territory. She's called away by an old friend to deal with some family trouble leaving Carrot without a word. Carrot, being Carrot, isn't angry but when he finds out where she's headed, he heads out after her leaving the City Watch in the hands of Sergent Colon.

Colon does his best to rise to the occasion, which ends up about as well as can be expected. In total chaos.

The Fifth Elephant is a mix of political intrigue, detective who done it, and an adventure story. Faster paced than usual for a Pratchett novel, I blasted through it in about two and a half days on intermittent reading.

This Discworld novel makes me feel like an idiot. As a general rule, a large piece of the joy in Discworld novels is noticing the interplay between the text and things that Pratchett is referencing in that text. Up to this point he's played with Shakespeare, world politics, B horror flicks and everything in between. I heartily enjoyed The Fifth Elephant but I could not spot a single allusion or literary reference. I'm convinced they have to be there....I just can find them. It's frustrating.

Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett

The BBC has an excellent sense of how to turn a book into a movie, but even so, I wouldn't expect that a movie version of a Pratchett novel would go well.  There is just too much going on. Nevertheless, I love the movies. I have all three of them. So far they've done "The Color of Magic," "Hogfather" and "Going Postal."

I mention this because in "Going Postal," which I have not read yet, Corporal Angua shows up to arrest the protagonist Moist von Lipwig, and it is offhandedly mentioned that she's a werewolf which is an intriguing idea. Angua first shows up in Men at Arms but I got the sense that there had to be more about her somewhere. So I've been rather impatient in a vague way to read down the "City Watch" story line.

I finally found her again in Feet of Clay. In fact, she's one of the major characters and develops greatly over the course of the story. The story starts with the bludgeoning deaths of two old men and the poisoning of Lord Vetinari. Angua's lupine nature means that she's got a few very useful skills and an excellent sense of smell, but even she can't track this killer.

In the meantime Captain Vimes, otherwise known as Sir James, is adjusting to his new life as landed nobility. Part of that is getting his very own coat of arms. Except the college of Heralds won't give him one because his several times removed Great Grandfather killed the last king of Ankh-Morpork. It shouldn't matter to him, but somehow it gets right in under the skin.

This is a kind of anti-Sherlock Holmes mystery. Vimes hates cleverness and favors dogged persistence, but the mystery of how Vetinari is being continually poisoned under the noses of the watch just bothers him no end while the city's golems running amok just adds insult to injury. Of course, it all falls together in the end.

I loved this book. I usually enjoy Pratchett's novels, but I rarely get truly enthusiastic about them. This one really resonated. Possibly because it was new ground, but I think it's more that I really like the golems and I like Angua.