Raising Steam

Starred review from February 24, 2014
A brash new invention brings social upheaval, deadly intrigues, and plenty of wry humor to the 40th installment of Pratchett's best-selling Discworld fantasy series. When intrepid inventor Dick Simnel comes to Ankh-Morpork looking for a backer for his revolutionary steam engine, the Iron Girder, entrepreneur Sir Harry King is quick to grasp the possibilities. So is Ankh-Morpork's ruler, Lord Vetinari, who immediately puts master facilitator (and former con artist) Moist von Lipwig in charge of the Discworld's first railway. But while the would-be railway tycoons are busy cutting deals for right-of-ways, supplies, and second class coach service, a group of radically conservative dwarf extremists are determined to stop the railroad, along with anything else that threatens "the truth of pure dwarfishness." In a realm where "even the factions had factions," Moist finds himself cast as Vetinari's agent to help defeat a political coup that could re-ignite ancient hostilities between dwarves and trolls. As always, Pratchett's unforgettable characters and lively story mirror the best, the worst, and the oddest bits of our own world, entertaining readers while skewering social and political foibles in a melting pot of humanity, dwarfs, trolls, goblins, vampires, and a werewolf or two.

May 26, 2014
Briggs, narrator of audio editions of over 30 titles in Pratchett's long-running Discworld series, set in a bizarre fictional world, once again puts forth a vivacious performance in this recording of the 40th installment. As this audiobook demonstrates, selecting Briggs to give voice to Pratchett's characters was not just the obvious choice but the right one. A young man's determination to succeed at harnessing the four elementsâearth, air, fire, and waterâwhere his father catastrophically failed produces the Discworld's first steam engine, a device that can finally solve the pressing question of how to get fish from coastal Quirm to the distant inland city-state Anhk-Morpork. Building a railway between the two will require balancing the needs of an idealistic engineer, a demanding investor, conniving aristocrats, desperate goblins, and political extremists. Briggs gives each character his or her own distinctive voice and uses accents to illuminate Discworld society. A Doubleday hardcover.