In the first chapter of The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents<\/i>, we meet Maurice, who is not who I expected. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0You would think that in a re-telling of the Pied Piper folk tale, the main focus would be on the Pied Piper himself, but this is Terry Pratchett we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re talking about. Few things are what we expect, right?<\/p>\n
So as I begin my thirtieth (28th, in terms of the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153official\u00e2\u20ac\u009d count) Discworld<\/i> book, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m impressed that after all this time, I can still be surprised. Now, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know who will be the main point of view throughout The Amazing Maurice<\/i>, but it seems clear that Maurice is the focus. I figured the kid\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe young stand in for the Pied Piper\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwas the main character, and thus, all the talking rats were his titular rodents. But Pratchett twists my immediate take through a clever reveal that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s another<\/i> speaking animal in the boy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s coach, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a CAT. Maurice is a cat<\/i>? All these rats are listening to a cat<\/i>?<\/p>\n
And it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not like Maurice is particularly likable. Indeed, he might be the most immediately unlikable<\/i> main character in a Discworld<\/i> book. Through his narration, we discover that after he was Changed\u00e2\u20ac\u201dgranted sentience and more human-like awareness\u00e2\u20ac\u201dhe set out to make money. Because that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s how the world works around him, right? Yet from this, he builds a complicated con that involves the rats and the boy who plays the flute, and it means they move from town to town, intentionally<\/i> infesting them. Then, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re \u00e2\u20ac\u0153paid\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to eradicate the rats, and they all move on to the next town.
\nIt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s brilliant. IT REALLY IS. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like Pratchett took that tiny aspect of the Pied Piper myth and has made an entire story out of it! Yet it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all the shit between the lines that makes this chapter so interesting. As far as I can tell, the rats are exhausted<\/i>. They aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t interested in doing this anymore, and the boy even remarks that the last few cons barely<\/i> succeeded. But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s that moral objection to theft that I loved the most. I just\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 rats developed a complex consciousness, and they immediately started to wish they hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t<\/i> been stealing things or destroying property. THAT IS SO FASCINATING TO ME. Moral rats! Who just want to get on a boat and go to a deserted island and start their own little society! WHERE CAN I CONTRIBUTE TO THIS KICKSTARTER!!!<\/p>\n
And their names! Dangerous Beans! Peaches! Donut Feed! HAMNPORK. Please, I am already ready to PROTECT EVERY ONE OF THESE RATS.<\/p>\n
But I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know that I trust Maurice. He seems to enjoy this con a lot<\/i>, and I imagine it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s because he doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do most of the work. Plus, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a manipulative asshole, and he outright admits to that within the text. He dislikes Peaches because<\/i> he can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t manipulate her the way he does the other rats. He also doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seem to think highly of the boy, either. To him, these characters are all a means to an end, right? So what happens now that they all want this to be the last job? Will he accept that, or is he going to fight to keep them?<\/p>\n
I AM VERY INTERESTED.<\/p>\n
https:\/\/youtu.be\/HP0mQTiym_0<\/p>\n
Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n
– My YA contemporary debut, ANGER IS A GIFT<\/a>, is now available for pre-order!\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>If you’d like to stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding my books, sign up for my newsletter<\/a>! DO IT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the first chapter of The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, we meet Maurice, who is not who I expected. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[451],"tags":[463,248,540],"class_list":["post-4408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discworld","tag-mark-reads-discworld","tag-terry-pratchett","tag-the-amazing-maurice-and-his-educated-rodents"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4408\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}