The Fifth Elephant
by Terry Pratchett
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Book Summary Information
Author: Terry PratchettEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2001-04-03
ISBN: 0061020400
Number of pages: 400
Publisher: HarperTorch
Book Reviews of The Fifth Elephant
Book Review: "Surely my uncle is Bjorn Stronginthearm"!
Summary: 5 Stars
Regular readers of Pratchett's droll accounts of life on Discworld will be unsurprised to discover that there is, in fact, no literal elephant in this book at all. There are, as we all know, four very large elephants supporting the flat circularity of the world, who themselves stand on the back of an even more immense turtle swimming through space. The extra pachyderm referred to in the title is metaphorical, being the supposed origin of the huge, economically important, fat deposits that lie beneath Uberwald, providing employment for the mining skills of that country's dwarfs (though dwarfs have trouble with metaphors) -- who share the land (very carefully) with aristocratic vampires and werewolves. Lord Vetinari, Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, cognizant of his city's ever-growing need for high-quality lard and candles, sends as his ambassador to the coronation of the new Low King of Uberwald none other than His Grace Sir Samuel Vimes, Commander of the Watch. Sam, a copper's copper, naturally becomes involved in an attempted assassination of the not-yet-installed new king, which ties in with the murder of a rubber condom entrepreneur back in the city. Captain Carrot, Vimes's second-in-command, goes off in pursuit of his lady love (also a werewolf), leaving the Watch in the gloriously incompetent hands of Sgt. Colon and Corp. Nobbs. All of this gives Pratchett the perfect stage to air his opinions on the peerage, social conservatism, fascism, perceptions of race, the difference between officers and noncoms, and perhaps what it really means to be human. As the series goes one, Pratchett just gets better and better.
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