Thud! (Discworld) [UNABRIDGED] (Audio CD)

~ (Author), Stephen Briggs (Reader)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The 31st Discworld novel begins with a thud-the sound of a club crushing the skull of influential dwarf leader Grag Hamcrusher. Tensions between dwarves and trolls has been high for centuries, so when a troll club is found lying nearby the murdered Hamcrusher, a villainous troll is the obvious suspect. But the dwarf's death is not so simple, and Commander Samuel Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch must investigate the murder and discover the truth...lest renewed tensions between the dwarves and trolls tear his city apart. While some of these characters have appeared in previous Discworld volumes, newcomers to the series should have no trouble following and enjoying this audiobook. Like all of Pratchett's work, Thud! is infused with wit and good fun throughout. Briggs, a 2004 Audie Award winner, enlivens the humor with his exuberant and masterful narration, and his pleasant British brogue is a joy to listen to. A man of many voices, Briggs flawlessly handles the wide variety of characters, which range from slow-witted trolls and gruff dwarves to arrogant lords and non-blood-sucking vampires. Canon reading for fantasy-fanatic audiophiles.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post

One problem with writing a comic series is that the later books have to include all the brilliant inventions from the earlier books, leaving less room for new brilliant inventions, which are, after all, the reason for writing the series in the first place. Terry Pratchett wrestles with this problem in his latest Discworld novel, Thud!, and mostly pins it to the mat.

Just how many Discworld novels are there by now? I would guess at least 30, though the actual number seems to be as difficult to locate as Unseen University, a magician's college founded in Ankh-Morpork, principal city of the principal continent of Discworld, about 15 years before Hogwarts and a much tougher place in which to matriculate.

The problems inherent in an amassed back story -- very like, I think, those clanking boxes Dickens's Marley had to tow through the afterlife -- are best shown by a comparison between the current installment and the first book to introduce Discworld, The Color of Magic. There the basic structure and what we might call the rules of engagement were laid out. Discworld, in a universe not quite parallel to ours, is, as the name suggests, a giant disc, containing continents and oceans and many populations, and resting on the backs of four elephants, who in turn stand on a giant turtle, who is swimming steadily, relentlessly, across the universe.

If this picture seems familiar, you have seen it in some art from the Indian sub-continent, but Pratchett purloins the concept and goes his own way with it. In The Color of Magic, Ankh-Morpork is a dangerous, seedy, bloody city, whose rulers learn that a tourist has come from some other part of Discworld to take in the sights. Once the disbelief dissipates -- Ankh-Morpork never had a tourist before, nor ever expected one -- the city fathers realize that, if they can keep this tourist alive, they just might have the beginning of a new industry. With this wisp of a hope, they hire a failed magician, a dropout from Unseen University, to follow the tourist around and, if possible, keep him from being slaughtered. That's the setup, and the whole novel is ingenious, brilliant and hilarious.

Terry Pratchett himself is still ingenious, brilliant and hilarious, but by now he has a lot of baggage to lug along. The hero of Thud! is Sam Vimes, an earnest young man who in an earlier book married a wealthy aristocrat, Lady Sybil, which would make him Duke of Ankh-Morpork if he were willing to accept the role. For now, though, he is the local police chief or, to give him the proper nomenclature, Commander of the Watch. And the Watch, instead of the ragtag, corrupt, defeated few hopeless cases who, way back in The Color of Magic, wouldn't even be asked to help keep a tourist alive, is now a serious modern police department suffering from, as so many police departments are these days, political correctness.

An equal opportunity employer, the Watch contains, in addition to Sam Vimes and a few other humans and sorta humans, an array of trolls, dwarfs, golems and one girl werewolf, and is about to integrate their first vampire, a shapely lady named Sally, whose elegance appears to be borrowed from Bela Lugosi's tuxedo.

The primary tasks of this cleaned-up Watch are two: forestall a riot-cum-war between the city's dwarfs and trolls, and solve the murder of a dwarf in a tunnel under the city. The looming riot, if it occurs, will be yet another re-enactment of a battle between the two groups hundreds of years ago, up in the wild country of Koom Valley, a battle out of which both sides emerged feeling betrayed and thirsting for revenge. If an echo of the Balkans comes to mind, I don't think Pratchett would object.

The working out of these two problems, with many asides for Pratchett's corkscrew brain to riff on the material, is the meat of the book. By the end, the members of the Watch even seem to believe they've solved the murder, though I confess I still haven't. But that's all right; the riot is averted, and the farmers and the cowboys -- sorry, the dwarfs and the trolls -- can perhaps be friends. Sally the vampire is becoming girl chums with Angua the werewolf, and peace temporarily stalks the land.

But the plot of a Discworld novel is never the point. The asides and the general goofiness and the imagination run amok are the point, every time and this time, too. And if, for instance, Carrot, the shy six-foot-tall dwarf (you had to be there), seems by this episode to be overstaying his welcome, that's also okay. All in all the only thing to be said about a Discworld novel is: Read it. You'll like it.

Reviewed by Donald E. Westlake
Copyright 2005, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: HarperAudio; Unabridged edition (September 13, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060823453
• ISBN-13: 978-0060823450
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (115 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #372,421 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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• This is item 32 in The Discworld Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

67 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mr. Pratchett. Him diamond!, September 13, 2005

By	Matthieu Hausig (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Thud! A Novel of Discworld (Hardcover)

The Watch and its ever growing cast of characters have been at the heart of many of the best of the Discworld novels. This one is no exception.

In Thud!, the simmering tensions between dwarfs and trolls begins to spill over and Vimes is charged with preventing an all out war. In a bizarre twist, at least to longterm readers, the romantic thread of the novel is not between Carrot and Angua but instead involves the least likely candidate, Nobby Nobbs . Vimes is once again at the center of the action and continues to be one of the most interesting and complex characters in the series.

As with most of the recent Discworld novels, Terry Pratchett takes a few satirical jabs at elements of our society. In this case, fundamentalism is one of the prime targets. Pratchett's depiction of the deep down dwarfs and their treatment by surface dwarfs is very cleverly put together.

Overall, one of the novel's strongest points is the exploration of the dwarf and troll societies and the struggle between them. Separately, Angua must also struggle when she is teamed up by the first vampire member of the watch and her prejudices and inferiority complex get the better of her. Of course, comedy is a major part of all the Discworld books and once again Mr. Pratchett does not disappoint.

On an interesting note, Thud!, which refers to a board game played with dwarfs against trolls, was converted into a real game which can be bought and which has received good reviews so far. Also, the children's book which Vimes reads to his son thoughout the novel will be released next month.

Finally, for those who have not read any other Discworld novels before, this is not the book to start with. There are numerous in-jokes and the large cast can be overwhelming. Start with some of the earlier Watch novels that provide more background.

64 of 72 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How Green Was Koom Valley, September 18, 2005

By	Leonard Fleisig "Len" (Washington, D.C.) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Thud! A Novel of Discworld (Hardcover)

On June 28, 1389 a combined army of Serbs, Bosnians, Albanians and Romanians waged a fierce battle against an Ottoman army on the Plains of Kosovo. Although details of the battle are obscure and lost in the mists of time the animosity between the parties has lingered. It was no surprise therefore that on the 600th anniversary of the battle President Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia launched his `ethnic cleansing' campaign in Kosovo. Sometimes the oldest animosities burn the brightest.

That is just about the scenario found in "THUD", Terry Pratchett's latest roller coaster ride through Discworld. The origin and outcome of the ancient Battle of Koom Valley between the Trolls and Dwarves has been obscured and the subject of much debate; but, the lingering and long-lasting hatred between them means they are always one spark away from renewed battle.

Grag Hamcrusher is what you might call a Dwarf extremist. Emerging from the depths he rails against those dwarves who have risen close to the surface. He intimates Dwarf residents of Ankh-Morpork who have made accommodations to a life lived above ground. Hamcrusher is a zealot who would like nothing better than to renew a holy war against the hated Trolls. As Thud opens Hamcrusher has just been murdered, thud "being the sound the heavy club made as it connected with the head". The initial evidence, a troll club found near the apparent murder scene, seems destined to bring their historic enmity to a boil. It is up to Commander Vimes and the Watch to find out who killed Hamcrusher and try to avoid a war that could destroy Ankh-Morpork.

The Patrician, not surprisingly, has complicated matters for Vimes. Bowing to pressure to increase the diversity of the Watch, Vimes is obligated to hire his first vampire, a very young, very attractive lady named Sally. This serves to increase the tension in the Watch most notably with Angua, the Watch's werewolf. Sparks fly and the claws are drawn as Angua senses that Sally is more than a bit interested in Captain Carrot. The Patrician has also seen fit to bring in a pencil pushing bureaucrat to audit the Watch's operations. This all serves to make Commander Vimes' own emotional fuse as short as the one keyed to the Trolls and Dwarves.

It is never a good idea to reveal too much of the plot in a review. This is particularly the case for the Discworld books where Pratchett has twists and turns on every page. Needless to say, events race from pillar to post. The furtive nature of the Dwarves, whose emotions are as submerged as the Dwarves themselves and the rather stoic nature of the Trolls (with the exception of Shine who appears to be one droll troll) has Vimes feeling as if he is trying to complete a jigsaw puzzle without any visual image of the puzzle he is trying to solve.

Two elements of Thud put Thud for me in the highest rank of Discworld books. First, we are given very full, textured look at Commander Vimes. The reader is exposed to the growing disconnect between the controlled, outward demeanor and his emotionally charged interior that seem to grow increasingly more uncontrolled as the plot develops. It is both compelling and more than a bit scary. It brought Vimes to life in a very realistic way. Second, I thought the ending to Thud was one of Pratchett's best conclusions. Although I am never happy to see a Discworld book end, this ending was so well done (in my opinion only) that it almost makes up for the fact that it will be another twelve months or so before the next Discworld is published.

Thud is a great addition to the Discworld series.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pratchett Goes Deeper into Koom Valley, September 24, 2005

By	Shanshad "shanachie_shadowfax" (Discworld) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Thud! A Novel of Discworld (Hardcover)

History tends to repeat itself, even on the Discworld. And the anniversary of Koom Valley is approaching-the ancient battle between Trolls and Dwarves that has been repeated and remembered ever since, creating enmity between the two races. Tensions are high, especially in the city of Ankh-Morpork, where both races live in increasing numbers. As if this wasn't enough for the Commander of the City Watch to deal with, he's got a dwarf murder to solve, a new recruit who is also a vampire and a city Inspector to deal with-and, in true Pratchett fashion, nothing is quite what it seems on the surface.

The Discworld has always included dwarves and trolls as part of its inhabitants, yet in some of the earlier Discworld books, one would hardly recognize those races as they appear in the most recent city watch books. The City Watch books, particularly, MEN AT ARMS, FEET OF CLAY and THE FIFTH ELEPHANT have led readers away from the simple stereotypes Pratchett set down in the earliest books. These Discworld stories have added depth, understanding and complexity to these two races. THUD! takes that exploration and understanding even further by looking at the history of Koom Valley with new eyes, and a new Discworld novel. Of course, Pratchett never just tells a story, as any veteran readers will know. Pratchett is as much a writer of satire, an observer of the human condition around him. And the stories he writes have many echoes in the world around us. THUD! creates echoes many readers will recognize: ancient enmities, racial intolerance, old battles revisited, and the desire of a father to spend time with his son.

I haven't met a Discworld book that I don't like. Pratchett is one of the rare authors I've come across who is consistently a good read. I can't give this book less than 5 stars. That being said, this book was not Pratchett's absolute best. There was some sense that the opening chapters were a bit less streamlined, too much going on. But my biggest issue was with the character of Sally, the vampire. Pratchett spends less time on her than he usually does on setting up a new character. The kind of care he spent introducing previous Watch characters, such as Angua and Cheery just isn't as evident here. While the vampire girl is a part of the plot, her own story doesn't become realized here, and the conflict between Angua and Sally seems to be only touched on, rather than really explored. This is also not the best book for a new reader to cut their Discworld teeth on. Many of the established characters are only given a cameo appearance before we move on to the real story.

That said, the "real story" is very good indeed. The payoff is worth it. And like any Discworld novel, I can't really go into the inner workings of the story itself without revealing too much. You're just going to have to read it for yourselves. If you're new to Terry Pratchett, or the Discworld series, I suggest you backtrack before reading this one and begin with GUARDS! GUARDS! the first book that features the city Watch. While these books are not a full-fledged series and can be read independently of one another, it's still helpful to have a sense of how the characters and settings were built up in earlier stories. If you are a devoted Pratchett fan, you already know the Discworld series, but you might want to check out WHERE'S MY COW? the picture book that Commander Vimes reads to his son in THUD!. I've ordered my own copy and can't wait for it to arrive. The only other downside of THUD! I know of is that it ended, and now I'm stuck waiting for Pratchett to hurry up and write something else.

Happy Reading! ^_^ Shanshad