Going Postal by Terry Pratchett Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Going Postal
Book Review: For Discworld veterans and newcomers alike
Summary: 5 Stars
The charismatic swindler (forced to take on the Ank Morpork Postal System as the only alternative to a hanging) Moist von Lipwigg ("I'm Moist, please don't laugh...) is right up there with Captain of the Night Watch Samuel Vimes in my list of Terry Pratchett's top characters.
The brilliant, narcissistic and ambitious Moist (I still can't get past that name) is saved from the gallows through a lucky--but not altogether uncalculated--reprieve from Lord Vetinari, and soon finds himself trying to shovel the old post office out from its present heaps of undelivered 50-year old mail, and similarly bounteous piles of pigeon guano.His aided by Mr. Groat, descendant of the Olde post office families and with an eye for regulations and knack for natural remedies, and by Stanley, an orphan raised by peas (don't ask) and an avid collector of pins (ditto on the asking). Moist soon finds himself in a bitter rivalry with financial pirate Mr. Gilt and his Grand Trunk Company, a Discworld version of an unreliable internet provider that constantly overcharges. Things come to a hilarious head when Moist challenges the Grand Trunk to race his own post-coach to Genoa ("good luck coding those pictures in binary"). The most quotable quote is when Stanley finally goes "unpinned", and holds much relevance to all collectors of random junk": "Ahh! They're all just pins!"
Terry Pratchett continues his bizarre, hilarious, and above all readable commentary on modern society, blurred slightly through the lens of a parallel universe. Fans won't be disappointed, and newcomers should be delighted as well.
Book Review: From pillory to post...
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the 29th Discword novel, but can be read as a stand-alone.
26-year-old Moist von Lipwig is a talented con artist. Or used to be: this morning he (well actually his "Mr Spangler" identity) was hanged. At least that's what the citizens of Ankh-Morpork witnessed. In truth, Moist von Lipwig was secretly and discreetly "rescued" by the Patrician, Lord Vetinari, and proposed a unturndownable challenge: to become the city's new Postmaster.
The book tells of how he'll get Ankh-Morpork's ancient postal service up and running again, with the help of Mr Groat the old postman, of Stanley the pinhead and keeper of the Rules, of Miss Adora Belle Dearheart of the Golem Trust, and of his parole officer Mr Pump.
Of course he'll face many obstacles, especially in this modern world where clacks can deliver a message in the blink of a shutter tower... yes, but there's been an unusual number of deaths on the clacks lately... Could he outrun them?
Going Postal hooked me right from the start. It was so exciting to explore the Post Office's old building, literally packed with old, undelivered mail, and to witness the invention of stamps... Of course Death makes his usual appearance (or apparition?), and the punny references (to The Lord of the Rings, the Internet, etc) are legion. The final race reminded me of an old film, the title of which I can't for the life of me remember, where some old fashioned service competes against the modern one... oh well. With this book, as well as with Monstrous Regiment and the Tiffany Aching sub-series, it seems to me that Sir Terry Pratchett is finally back on track after some years at half throttle.
Book Review: Fun but sloppy
Summary: 3 Stars
I saw this book at a grab-a-book, leave-a-book cafe. I hadn't read Pratchett before, but I had heard the name around and decided to give him a try.
I thought the author had a basic gift for storytelling - this was basically a fun read, the plot moved along smoothly, the main character was interesting and I wanted to see him succeed, and there were a few funny, memorable turns of phrase. So I hope to have a look at a few more of the Discworld Novels.
However I just have to believe there's other Discworld Novels, better than this one - the story here was often very sloppy. Plot points were just dropped, or were given far too much attention, or just shouldn't have been there - perhaps as a well-established author he feels he doesn't need an editor, but I'd have to strongly disagree.
A few examples: the whole bit about letters talking didn't fit and was embarassing, really, and then he ditched that in the middle of the book by having a fire wipe out all the old letters anyway. The whole part about GNU and crackers needing to crack and so forth was probably appreciated by his target audience of nerds, but wasn't funny and felt forced. The clacks system was basically an interesting idea, but he concentrated on its details way more than I cared to read about. And after setting up the climax very well, it didn't really amount to much, and the story just sort of quickly petered out.
Junior High School students, who would probably best enjoy this novel, may find the satire of the novel very insightful - basically, he calls businessmen and politicians liars and crooks a thousand times. But there's no meat behind any of this, because the bad guys are all somewhere between one-dimensional and character sketches. So it comes off as prattling, more than anything.
Oh, and the fact that the author has a website where he sells Discworld fanboys Discworld postage stamps is truly pathetic, on too many levels to properly discuss here.
Book Review: Fun with postage stamps
Summary: 4 Stars
It's been some while since I actually looked forward to reading a book. I think it's probably because I spend a great deal of time down at the post office, to the extent where the staff actually knows me and greets me when I walk in...
Alfred Spangler, con-man extraordinaire, finds himself in a bit of trouble. He's been caught. And hanged. And then brought to the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork...to be given a choice. He can walk out of the door, or he can take charge of the post office and make it what it once was. The insitution has fallen by the wayside, playing second fiddle to the "clacks," a system of line-of-sight towers where semaphore messages can be transmitted rapidly and reliably. Astutely, Alfred chooses the post office, then makes an attempt to escape. His personal golem, Mr. Pump, fetches him back. This is the death of Alfred; he must use his own, unfortunate name henceforth: Moist von Lipwig. In doing so, he finds out what he really is. He is not sure that he likes it.
Thus begins a bizarre inner adventure: the discovery of corruption at the heart of the clacks system. His two colleagues are the ancient and crumbly Junior Postman Groat (none of the other postmasters ever survived long enough to promote him) and the perfect nutjob Stanley, pin collector and future stamp collector. They are hiding secrets. Dark secrets.
In search of information about golems, Moist meets a severely dressed, chain-smoking lady, Miss Dearheart, working in a charity to help golems gain their freedom. In her he finds True Love and a bitter twist that he can overcome only be admitting what kind of a person he really is-something he has never done before. This book works on so many different levels that it's almost breathtaking-it's humorous, poignant, and gives deep glimpse into human nature and how it can be manipulated. It is a story of inspiration, finding oneself, and the nature of freedom-both for Moist and for the golems he hires to deliver letters.
With shades of Brin's "The Postman" (the uniform turns the character into a different person, a symbol of hope), and perhaps a nod towards "The Matrix"-Groat certainly believes that Moist is "the one" who can restore the post office to its former glory-it is a tale of starting from rock bottom, of finding good where there seemed to be none. Moist turns his con-man skills towards winning the game, and he discovers that it is actually fun. "Going Postal" is funny, clever, and very, very enjoyable.
Book Review: Fun with the Postal Service (Really!)
Summary: 4 Stars
My friends in the Amazon.com reviewing community love this English author, so I decided to give him a try. Pratchett has written dozens of books about Discworld, an Earth-like place populated by bureaucrats, benevolent despots, and wizards, among many wondrous creatures (including golems in this story). Going Postal is the exciting story of the rejuvenation of a moribund postal service (really), led by a young swindler who's been given the choice of taking the job as Postmaster, or being executed for his previous crimes.
Pratchett's tone reminds me of Mark Helprin in Freddy and Fredericka, or Philip Roth in The Great American Novel - farcical and mischievous with language, but with a more than a smidgen of truth behind the farce. He's also done a great job of imagining all the pieces of Discworld and how they fit together into a whole. I'm sure that this impression would be reinforced by reading other Discworld books. Here, we met only one city and a few of its denizens.
In Going Postal, science fiction (or more accurately, alternate universe fiction) meets British cultural satire, a la Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Recommended to all readers with social awareness, a love of language and enjoyment of a good laugh, though younger readers may not get all the references to the foibles of adult society. On the other hand, British readers might enjoy the satire even more.