The Truth - Terry Pratchett

    2000; 348 pages.  Book 25 (out of 41) in the “Discworld” series.  New Author? : No.  Laurels : 193 in the “Big Read”.  Genres : Humorous Fantasy; Satire; British Humour.  Overall Rating : 7½*/10.

 

    There are two things those Discworld dwarfs love to do.  First and foremost, they love digging for gold and gems.  Second, they love to tinker with new ways of doing things.

 

    Just now, William de Worde has discovered the dwarfs have figured out how to put together a printing press.  With easily insertable and smoothly interchangeable letters.  It beats the heck out of the old way – carving a woodcut for every page you want printed. What a slow process.

 

    The dwarfs aren’t all that impressed with their new methodology, but William de Worde is.  Imagine setting up a page and printing it in minutes instead of spending hours or days carving a piece of wood.  With that kind of speed, doing a print job that requires multiple pages is suddenly doable.  But what kind of business would need that?

 

    They call it a newspaper, William.  And people will pay money to receive one on a daily basis.

 

What’s To Like...

    Although The Truth is Book 25 in Terry Pratchett’s fantastic Discworld series, and is set in Ankh-Morpork, Discworld’s capital city, the two main characters, the editor William de Worde and his ace reporter, the buxom Sacharissa Cripslock, are newcomers to the series.

 

    True, lots of recurring characters also show up, such as the Patrician, Sam Vimes and several of his City Watch guards, a couple of wizards, and DEATH and his companion DEATH of RATS, but for the most part, they are cast in cameo roles.

 

    In a nutshell, The Truth tells the story of Ankh-Morpork’s first newspaper, “The Ankh-Morpork Times”, and the various, and hilarious, challenges it faces.  Will people pay for something recapping yesterday’s news?  Do we send employees out to sell the paper?  Do we send employees out to search for newsworthy tidbits?  What do we do if/when a competing newspaper crops up?  And most importantly, what do we do if someone strongly objects to some headline-worthy item being investigated and reported in the paper?

 

    As always, Terry Pratchett’s wit and puns are in abundance here.  So are his trademark footnotes and his eschewal of Chapters.  Somehow, even Quantum Physics gets some ink, which surprised me pleasantly.

 

    The main storyline involves William de Worde’s investigation into an assault alleged to have been carried out by one of Ankh-Morpork’s leading citizens.  To give more details would be a spoiler. This doesn’t qualify as a mystery novel because the reader is given a key clue early on.  So the fun is following William de Words, with assistance from Sam Vimes, as they attempt figure out the “why” of the mayhem.

 

    The ending is entertaining, despite not being very twisty or action-packed.  The truth eventually comes out, justice is served, mercy is shown, and karma takes its toll.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.7/5 based on 6,996 ratings and 504 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.41/5 based on 25,004 ratings and 1,603 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “I’m not a thief, friend,” said the shadows.

    “Who’s there?”

    “Do you know what’s good for you?”

    “Er . . . yes.  Healthy exercise, regular meals, a good night’s sleep.”  William stared at the long lines of loose boxes.  “I think what you meant to ask was: do I know what’s bad for me, in the general context of blunt instruments and sharp edges.  Yes?”  (pg. 204)

 

    “We still don’t know what we should be doing,” said Mrs. Tilly hopelessly.

    “Go and find out things that people want to put in the paper,” said Sacharissa.

    “And things that people don’t want to put in the paper,” William added.

    “And interesting things,” said Sacharissa.

    “Like that rain of dogs two months ago?” said O’Biscuit.

    “There was no rain of dogs two months ago!” William snapped.

    “But—”

    “One puppy is not a rain.  It fell out of a window.”  (pg. 340)

 

Lies could run around the world before the truth could get its boots on.  (pg. 106)

    As usual, the cussing is mild and sparse.  I counted only six instances in the first 25% of The Truth, all of which were of the eschatological variety.  One of the characters habitually uses a stronger bit of profanity, but Terry Pratchett solves this each time by rendering it “—ing”.  Freaking Fantastic!

 

    I enjoyed The Truth, but wasn’t dazzled by it.  Part of it, I suppose, was the theme itself—running a newspaper is just not all that exciting.  Also, my favorite set of misadventurers, the wizards of the Unseen University, have almost no impact on the storyline.

 

    But I quibble.  The Truth is still a fun, entertaining story.  It’s just a matter of it being more a tale of Intrigue, and less a tale of “Thrills-&-Magical-Spills”.

 

    7½ Stars.  One last thing.  One of my favorite recurring characters who does get a fair amount of ink here, is Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler, otherwise known as “CMOT”.  Take my advice, and do NOT partake of the sausages that he sells.