We’re back to the Disc with the surest sign of the industrial era: the steam engine.
Summary
Dick Simnel, whose father died in a steam explosion when he was a baby, has learned mathematics and engineering, and figured out how to build a steam engine. Lord Vetinari goes to visit Lady Margolotta and they talk of progress in service of maintaining peace, namely that war is always coming eventually and how they must both do their utmost to prevent it while not standing in the way of new ideas. Young Magnus Magnusson gets beaten up by Bonk dwarves for looking too “Ankh-Morpork” and is rescued by Bashful Bashfulsson, who tells him not to looks so different next time he comes home to visit his granny. Harry King ruminates on his legacy and his wife, Effie, wishes that he could make their sizable fortune on something other than feces and urine. Moist and Adora Belle are married and very happy together, particularly because they are both so busy—she running the clacks system and he running the Post Office and the bank and the Mint. They employ a butler and his wife (Crossly and Mrs. Crossly) as well as a handyman named Crisp and a league of goblins who are now the primary employees of the clacks system.
Simnel comes to Harry King and tells him that he’s got an incredible opportunity for him, if King will give him money to develop the idea. He brings the steam engine to show Harry and asks to lay track around his yard to show him what it can do; Harry gives him two days to do this. He winds up giving them another week, taken with the scent and the look of the thing. Adora Belle works with the goblins at the clacks and worries over the fact that they never want to stop working. Harry King tells Dick Simnel that they need to draw up their business properly with lawyers because he doesn’t want anyone saying he took advantage of the lad. They find him a lawyer in Mr. Thunderbolt—a troll lawyer who is nephew to the Diamond King of Trolls—who suggests that he work out the deal for both of them because he can see their desire to be fair to one another. Moist is brought before Vetinari who is beside himself at being rumbled by the crossword and trying to come to terms with the fact that he himself allowed the steam engine to come into existence. He brightens up and demands Moist follow him. In Llamedos one half of a marrying couple in killed when grags arrive with weapons.
Vetinari brings Moist to Sir Harry’s yard and tells him that he and Drumknott will be the ones going aboard for the demonstration of the Iron Girder. Moist is instantly taken with the concept, knowing this will change the world. He and Vetinari begin to ask questions about who has vetted the machine so far and how it might be used; Vetinari is particularly interested in how it might transport people to places far away more comfortably. He lets Simnel know that he plans to speak to the Times tonight about the project, and Harry wants to charge city denizens to ride the very first locomotive. The clacks toward at Sto Kerrig has been left in ruins by dwarfs, and Angus is on the scene to learn all about it from Adora Belle. Vetinari hears about this and puts out a message that anyone destroying clacks towers is to be put to death, including those who order it. The Low King of the dwarfs is having a meeting where all the dwarfs and angry and fighting, but he insists that they must work together and stop the grags in order to protect their people, and Albrecht Albrechtson agrees with him, though Ardent is still causing trouble. Maelog Cheeryson warns his son against siding with the grags just because his brother has, and reminisces about what happened at Koom Valley.
Vetinari takes the pleading notes from Cheeryson to heart and decides not to execute his son, since he was being ordered about by older men. He sends Moist to go look at the train again the next day (Drumknott is also there, and obsessed with the thing). Moist has a talk with Harry and meets Mister Thunderbolt, who suggests that the railway have a third partner, being the city, to break any disagreements between Harry and Simnel in the construction of the railway project. Harry has Dick come in and tell him the plan, agreeing to bankroll whatever he has in mind. Simnel wants to run track for the first locomotive to Swine Town where his workshop is, just outside Sto Lat. Harry has a few of his men head up to the workshop to protect their assets. Moist brings Drumknott back to the palace and tells Vetinari that the railway is going to work and could probably create armored cars and such to transport important dignitaries. The Patrician is intrigued, but still not sold. Moist then begins the work of convincing landowners to allow railway track to be built through their lands, being plied with drink by wealthy folk, but always being clever enough to stay sober and secure the best deals for the railway.
Commentary
Dick Simnel is a Discworld counterpart to Richard Trevithick, the British inventor and engineer from Cornwall who invented the first high-pressure steam locomotive. It took forty entire books to push the Disc into the Industrial Age, and I’m genuinely heartbroken that we didn’t get to see it push further, but it does force one to wonder how much the tone would have shifted with the advent of so many new technologies. It’s one thing to have a magic computer that likes a piece of cheese, but laying tracks across the world is another matter altogether. Even more so than a printing press.
Vetinari’s layers of self-audit are charming as all get-out in this one, particularly as we watch him reel himself in multiple times in the introduction of the steam engine. I respect it, is what I’m saying. I respect it more when his response to being upset by all this news is “I’m angry; get Vimes. He’ll hate it, and that will level me out.” He’s allowed himself simple pleasures, like torturing his favorite employee (who is, not coincidentally, his best accountability meter).
We’ve got dwarfish fundamentalism on the rise, and perhaps my only quibble is that we don’t get to see said rise building from the inside. Pratchett generally prefers to write his stories this way, and while it gives the reader a perspective more aligned to your average citizen, confused about the attacks being perpetrated across the world, we are robbed of the mounting fundamentalist thought process. We don’t see how this group formed itself over time into something large and/or mobile enough to cause this kind of damage. I have to assume it simply wasn’t that interesting to Pratchett as a writer (which is fair), but I’d love just a little bit more there at the beginning.
The setup of this one is fun because Moist doesn’t have to be convinced much of anything this time around. He doesn’t need to be told what his next great opportunity is because he can smell this one. It’s gaining momentum all on his own, and he’s happy to be shoved right to the front of the line. It’s new and exciting and he can already see how it’s going to cause trouble and reshape the world.
There’s talk, of course, of who will be displaced when trains start becoming a primary transporter of goods (and people), but not much is being said yet aside from the fact that it always happens this way. Which is true, of course, new technologies put old ones out of business and certain groups lose their livelihoods, but it’s never so cut and dry as all that. And using that as juxtaposition against the dwarfish incursions is an interesting place to begin a tale of unmitigated progress.
Well. It’ll be a little mitigated. But that’s to come.
Asides and little thoughts
- Lagniappe being the word Vetinari got hung up on in the crossword is perfection.
- This is the book where we learn that dwarfs have their own word for the “lawn ornament” insult. I’m assuming this entered their language as a form of reclamation, and I’m very curious as to when.
- I just have feelings about how often Vetinari’s reactions are described as something a fancy old lady does? (See below.) It makes his relationship with Margolotta make more sense—they’re kinda in lesbians with each other.
Pratchettisms
He was widely known as the King of the Golden River because of the fortune he had made minding other people’s business.
There was a difference between a banker and a crook, there really was, and although it was very, very teeny Moist felt that he should point out that it did exist and, besides, Lord Vetinari always had his eye on him.
The villains of the storybooks had found their place in society, at last. All it needed was technology.
Moist looked at the Patrician’s grey expression. He had articulated the term “rail way” in something like the voice of an elderly duchess finding something unmentionable in her soup.
But, if you watched the weather of Lord Vetinari, and Moist was an expert in the Patrician’s meteorology, you would notice that sometimes a metaphysical cloudburst might very shortly turn into a lovely day in the park.
Moist turned to Vetinari and said, with a flat face, “Yes, how about it… gaffer?” And got a look like a stiletto. A look that said, we’ll have words about this later.
Moist groaned. It was the crack of seven, and he was allergic to the concept of two seven o’clocks in one day.
Next week we’ll read up to:
“It’s easy, Dick, you’ve just got to be yourself. They can’t ever take that away from you.”
Thoughts
Mr. Slightly Damp returns (and the crossword lady departs).
After the codas to the witches and Vimes, and skipping the self-indulgent Dodger, this is a lighter romp and a coda for the lesser characters.
I think Pratchett didn’t want to explore further into the Industrial Revolution because he knew it would destroy Discworld. The next steam development would be steam cars and eventually he would have to address electricity (which was mentioned, possibly by mistake, in Hogfather, as the Electric Drill Chuck Key Fairy).
Notes
I refuse to accept that Vetinari’s tone of voice has anything to do with his sexuality. The high pitched tone implies “take it away” while a low pitched growl implies “kill it” which, as he explains to Moist, he can’t do.
Pratchettisms
Mad Iron Simnel and his men had found something more interesting than women and apparently it was made of steel.
The bystanders, most of whom were now byrunners, and in certain instances bystampeders, fled.
Peace is what you have while incubating the next war. (Vetinari)
Malignity – The official collective noun for a bunch of goblins.
Old dwarf proverb which, translated, said “Any three dwarfs having a sensible conversation will always end up having four points of view.” (Rhysson)
Earth, air, fire, and water, the sum of everything! The goddess had found her worshipers. (Moist)
The clerk stared at Drumknott and looked askance at Moist, as Lord Vetinari himself stood up in surprise leaving Moist impaled between two askances.
Shoutback
The history of Simnel’s father can found in Reaper Man.
Like Vimes in the last book, Moist is also “allergic to the concept of two seven o’clocks in one day.” I wonder if Pratchett had been introduced to them because of his condition?
The Dwarven term for lawn ornament dates back to Wyrd Sisters as a term of endearment vis-a-vis Hwel.
Two points. The Red Army were Golems powered by magic. Also I haven’t read the Science of Discworld but it may very well be that Discworld lightning is strictly magical.
Nevertheless the canon says that the Electric Drill Chuck Fairy exists which implies that electric drills and, hence, electricity are in Discworld’s future.
The Electric Drill Chuck Key Fairy is a Roundworld figure mentioned to explain to readers what types of beings are being described.
I think Roundworld readers could easily identify the
Towel Wasps
Eater of Pencils
Eater of Socks
Hair Loss Fairy
I think Pratchett may have recently lost a drill chuck and I know I used to use a twist tie to attach mine.
Electrical power, as such, may be impossible on the Disc; Ponder Stibbons tried very hard to harness lighting, but it turned out that it is, in fact, a manifestation of divine will and not a phenomenon subject to natural or any other kind of law.
The Red Clay Army was powered by something like electricity in Interesting Times.
Any mention of a three-eighths Gripley?
Not in my ebook version, alas.
For all the good lines (as below), ISTM this is getting serious earlier than previous Pratchett books, which tended to take a while to be clever while setting the pieces up (and there are a lot of pieces being set up in this section). Even Snuff seemed not to get down to critical matters quite so quickly.
I’d never heard of Richard Trevithick; interesting. Looking up his life suggests that Simnel has several ancestors, as others may have had a larger vision of what a railroad would be good for. (Simnel getting this as well as being an intensely effective geek seems uncommon in Roundworld history.) However, I found that Trevithick is credited with inventing safety valves, both adjustable and ~automatic, which seem just as important as getting the locomotive going in the first place.
A few more Pratchettisms:
…as every schoolboy knew, or at least knew in those days when schoolboys read anything more demanding than a crisp packet…
A bit ironic to see snark about how much better the good old days were, from a book generally putting down such attitudes.
…even goblins had finally been recognized as sapient creatures, to be metaphorically treated as brothers, although not necessarily brothers-in-law.
A cute callout of an old cliché.
…trying hard to look respectable despite their extremely old clothing, which, these gatekeepers thought, needed something, possibly a bonfire.
Harry King had indeed come up the hard way and those who got in his way went down the hard way too.
Ardent was a dwarf the king would have liked to see present at a mine disaster, preferably underneath it.
A random thought about one of the opening scenes: how many assassins’ schools are there? ISTM that anybody who graduated from the Ankh-Morpork school, and probably any nearby schools, would know what black-on-black heraldry means and would have more sense than to attack it. (ISTR we were told many books back that the A-M Guild has set some unmeetable price for inhuming Vetinari.) Or maybe the ones who attack Vetinari’s coach are assassins the same way Toshiro Mifune’s character is a samurai in The Seven Samurai….
I assumed that they were just idiots, who were calling themselves ‘assassins’ to sound scary. Which massively backfired when they tried to hold up an actual Assassin.
It’s been mentioned before that there are plenty of folks who will kill someone for money but aren’t Assassins
Well, yes — but Vetinari’s assailants claimed to be assassins as a way of terrifying victims into giving up money; were they relying on nobody noticing that they didn’t pronounce a capital A?
As Drumknott pointed out, his crest is black on black and it was a dark night. One imagines a smile crossed Vetinari’s face.
We’ve never heard of another assassins school and we do know that other countries send people to the Guild so I doubt one exists.
Also I believe the Guild, by now, is refusing to accept any contract on Vetinari rather than just use a high price (like they do with Vimes).
I’d expect an Assassin to recognize an all-black crest just by what they don’t see; even Finity’s End puts a non-black background behind its black sphere.
davep1: what is
in response to?
Emmet’s “I just have feelings about how often Vetinari’s reactions are described as something a fancy old lady does? (See below.) It makes his relationship with Margolotta make more sense—they’re kinda in lesbians with each other.”
I don’t recall whether Vetinari is compared to a duchess in other places (or books), so I can’t argue with Emmet’s premise directly. But on further thought I feel that thinking of them as in lesbians is reducing what they do to a personal level — and so far there has been little or nothing personal in how we see either of these two.
Yes, that’s a lot to hang on a comic fantasy. But it’s been dozens of books since Pratchett was writing simple comic fantasy, and ISTM he’s been steadily raising the stakes; I just reread Going Postal for another book discussion, and in looking over the chronological list of titles I think it’s the first one in which he lets outright rage at the sorry state of Roundworld spill into the book.