≫ Libro Free Raising Steam Terry Pratchett 9780857522276 Books

Raising Steam Terry Pratchett 9780857522276 Books

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Raising Steam Terry Pratchett 9780857522276 Books

For those of us growing up with Terry Pratchett as a go to author, there is the knowledge that Terry sets the bar almost absurdly high. I perhaps can best sum it up by saying I stopped reading fantasy books in my early teens, yet here I am in my high forties picking up Raising Steam. I don't remember when I first got the Colour of Magic, I was young, but I was instantly captured. I don't honestly remember if I even picked up on all the humor, but i was pretty well read and while he wasn't one to put on airs, he was a gentleman about it. He made his humor for the most part accessible, but even within that his humor could have nuance and subtlety that you wouldn't get until your second read. Here's the thing: Terry Pratchett's books were so fascinating they stood on their own without the humor. I don't know how many nights I sat totally taken away from this world and reading without laughing even a bit (while still acknowledging in my head, that was funny!).

Alas, with Raising Steam, I have to wonder if Terry's onset of Alzheimer's didn't have something to do with this book. It had all the things you would find in a normal Terry Pratchett fantasy, great characters, great bits, absurd humor and that oh-so-present feel of the UK. However, it didn't have that cohesion or flow I'm so used to - it felt like a bunch of Terry Pratchett bits cobbled together. The story itself is interesting (trains come to Discworld!) and features Moist Von Lipwig, who is an entertaining fellow. However, there feels to me like a lot of meandering passage, which of course Terry did often but this felt too much like it didn't actually meander anywhere meaningful. There were a lot of times when I was left wondering where he was going with it, only to be left holding nothing.

That Being said, there is still enough of this book to enjoy it, to enjoy the humor and to enjoy the visual imagery that occurs in this book. Call it 2 and half stars from me. And if this is your FIRST Discworld book, please, please go look for earlier volumes. He was an incredible author in his prime.


Tags : Raising Steam [Terry Pratchett] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <b>The new Discworld novel, the 40th in the series, sees the Disc's first train come steaming into town.</b> Change is afoot in Ankh-Morpork. Discworld's first steam engine has arrived,Terry Pratchett,Raising Steam,Doubleday UK,0857522272,Fiction Fantasy General

Raising Steam Terry Pratchett 9780857522276 Books Reviews

The thing you must be aware of when reading "Raising Steam" is that Terry Pratchett wrote it after having been diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimer's. At this point in his life, he was unable to read or write, he dictated the entire book, and there was doubtlessly someone who edited it for him. Seen as a novel written by someone with severe brain damage, it is an amazing effort. Compared with the other Discworld books, however, it was a pale echo of what had gone before.

I see this book as Terry Pratchett's way of winding up Ankh-Morpork, largest city on the Discworld. Steam power has finally come to Ankh-Morpork, and this is the story of how this perpetually technology free fantasy world adapts to the coming of the Industrial Age.

The trouble is that it is more an account of what happened, than an actual story. The steam engine is invented, people become interested, tracks are laid, trains begin running. You're taken through every step of the process with no doubt that they will be completed, and no degree of dramatic tension.

There are antagonists, in the form of Dwarven terrorists who oppose the train and all that it symbolizes, and this is one of the strongest parts of the book; however any tension they may generate tends to fall flat. The story isn't boring, it is just told in such a matter of fact way, that there is no doubt that the good-guys will prevail, and no doubt about how they will manage it.

In the end, all the loose ends are tied up, the heroes are given happy endings, roll on the Industrial Age, and a new Ankh-Morpork. It is not the greatest book, but it is still entertaining and eminently readable, and, for me at least, was a warm-hearted farewell to the Discworld we all know and love, and to it's creator as well.

PS I know that Terry Pratchett wrote another Tiffany Aching book after this, but, as they were aimed at younger readers, have never viewed them as fully part of the Discworld mythology, but as something running parallel to it.
Agree with all the other reviewers who said Pratchett did not write Raising Steam. I love Discworld, and the Moist Von Lipwig books are my absolute favorites. It breaks my heart to give this one a negative review. At first I blamed the plodding, tangential plot and the flat jokes on Sir Terry's disease, but I don't think any degree of dementia could prompt an author to so deeply misunderstand his own characters. Moist is dull! Vetinari is unsubtle! Harry King is slow-witted! Death is vindictive!

Also, the body count is weirdly high and the deaths are described in a sort of gruesome detail that's at odds with the tone of most of the Discworld books (there's a difference between body HUMOR and body HORROR). And while Sir Terry may have made a lot of jokes about death, he never treated deaths so carelessly (whoever wrote this book even mocks a mother's grief at the violent deaths of her two sons). Raising Steam centers and lionizes things like industrialization, financial success, and fighting skills, rather than the relationships and personal growth that are centered in most of Discworld. I feel like if this author wrote Jingo, Vimes would have valiantly led a tiny band of Watch to slaughter the entire Klatchian army.

On the deepest level, there's none of the fundamental wisdom that I expect from Terry Pratchett. Whenever I finish a Discworld book, I feel like I have a slightly better understanding of the world - even on re-reads! When I finished Raising Steam, I was like "Finally, that's over."

Ok, now I'm gonna go re-read the whole Discworld series however many times it takes to erase the memory of this thing.
For those of us growing up with Terry Pratchett as a go to author, there is the knowledge that Terry sets the bar almost absurdly high. I perhaps can best sum it up by saying I stopped reading fantasy books in my early teens, yet here I am in my high forties picking up Raising Steam. I don't remember when I first got the Colour of Magic, I was young, but I was instantly captured. I don't honestly remember if I even picked up on all the humor, but i was pretty well read and while he wasn't one to put on airs, he was a gentleman about it. He made his humor for the most part accessible, but even within that his humor could have nuance and subtlety that you wouldn't get until your second read. Here's the thing Terry Pratchett's books were so fascinating they stood on their own without the humor. I don't know how many nights I sat totally taken away from this world and reading without laughing even a bit (while still acknowledging in my head, that was funny!).

Alas, with Raising Steam, I have to wonder if Terry's onset of Alzheimer's didn't have something to do with this book. It had all the things you would find in a normal Terry Pratchett fantasy, great characters, great bits, absurd humor and that oh-so-present feel of the UK. However, it didn't have that cohesion or flow I'm so used to - it felt like a bunch of Terry Pratchett bits cobbled together. The story itself is interesting (trains come to Discworld!) and features Moist Von Lipwig, who is an entertaining fellow. However, there feels to me like a lot of meandering passage, which of course Terry did often but this felt too much like it didn't actually meander anywhere meaningful. There were a lot of times when I was left wondering where he was going with it, only to be left holding nothing.

That Being said, there is still enough of this book to enjoy it, to enjoy the humor and to enjoy the visual imagery that occurs in this book. Call it 2 and half stars from me. And if this is your FIRST Discworld book, please, please go look for earlier volumes. He was an incredible author in his prime.