★★★★☆ Thud! by Terry Pratchett
Sam Vimes doing his best to preserve racial harmony
Thud!
Terry Pratchett
Sam Vimes doing his best to preserve racial harmony
Thud! (the exclamation point is part of the title) is the 34th novel in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, and the seventh in the City Watch subseries. The City Watch novels are among my favorites in Discworld, mainly because they center Sam Vimes, the commander of the watch, and I like Sam a lot.
This one is mostly about the Battle of Koom Valley, but only as a historical event. Dwarfs and trolls, who historically hate each other, fought at Koom Valley centuries ago. No one knows why -- of course the dwarfs claim the trolls attacked them, and the trolls claim it was the other way round. Nevertheless, the anniversary of the Battle of Koom Valley is always a nerve-wracking day in Ankh-Morpork, with trolls and dwarfs on edge, just looking for an excuse to fight. This year a Grag -- an old and holy dwarf -- is killed in the days before the anniversary, and the dwarfs claim a troll did it.
This presents Sam with two problems: the police problem and the political. The police problem is, in principle, straightforward: it is to find out how Grag Hamcrusher died and to bring his killer to justice. The political problem is to avoid the outbreak of a war between dwarfs and trolls in Ankh-Morpork.
Preserving harmony among races, or really, species, is an old theme of the City Watch series. Under Vimes's leadership the Watch has become an integrated force, comprising members of the various species that live in Ankh-Morpork -- humans, dwarfs, trolls, werewolves, goblins, gargoyles, gnomes and Igors, as well as some that reside in Ankh-Morpork without precisely living there: zombies, golems, etc. There is one missing from the list: vampires. Sam can't stand them and has, until now, managed to resist allowing one to serve in the watch. The Überwald League of Temperance (whose vampire members swear off drinking blood) has been agitating for a vampire watchman, and in Thud! Sam finds himself compelled to accede.
The new watchman, "Salacia 'Sally' von Humpeding" is paired with Sergeant Angua for training purposes. Angua is a werewolf, and there is an ancient antipathy between werewolves and vampires. This is not so much a hatred like that between dwarfs and trolls as a personal antipathy.
So, that's the set-up. I won't say anything about the plot, since you can easily imagine it based on what I've already told you.
To be honest, I didn't love this one. It felt a bit too much like more of the same. Sam is who he always is: an honest man and cleverer than he gives himself credit for. He's splendid, but he's the same Sam we know well already. And the theme of races learning to get along with each other is one that has been explored before in the City Watch novels.