Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett

Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I would dearly love to have loved this book. Terry Pratchett has been one of my favourite authors for almost as long as I can remember.

Regrettably it didn't feel up to par. I'm not the biggest Moist von Lipwig fan anyway, so this being another story about him possibly doesn't help.

It just felt less polished than much of his work, even his reference to the Railway Children felt forced, rather than his usual subtlety.

I think on the whole I am not so keen on the general storyline of the modern world catching up with Ankh Morpork and converting it gradually into a city we might see on Earth. It was a nice idea to touch on every now and then, it just seems to have been done a bit too much. We've resurrected the police force, the postal service, introduced the clacks, football and now the railways. Somehow it feels a bit like we've already been here, many of the themes have already been explored. Even the Iron Girder taking on a life of its own just feels a bit too familiar.

The other recurring theme is the racial theme with the various species from the Disk all living and working together. I kind of feel like I got the point quite a few books ago and I don't know that it needs raking over again and again.

That's all very negative, but there was still enough there for me to enjoy it enough to consider it worth a read, but will it get the re-reads that many of the earlier books have had? I'm not so sure.

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