{"id":4804,"date":"2018-12-13T05:00:04","date_gmt":"2018-12-13T13:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=4804"},"modified":"2018-12-09T17:37:16","modified_gmt":"2018-12-10T01:37:16","slug":"mark-reads-thud-part-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2018\/12\/mark-reads-thud-part-12\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads &#8216;Thud!&#8217;: Part 12"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the twelfth part of <i>Thud!<\/i>, Angua and Sally learn more about one another as they track down more clues surrounding Hamcrusher\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s murder. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read <i>Discworld<\/i>.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Oh, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m just so HAPPY that these two characters got to spend so much time together, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. I love that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re both part-human characters who have some shared experiences, but who have trouble seeing that because they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re \u00e2\u20ac\u0153supposed\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to dislike one another. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen all of this from Angua\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s perspective, but this long sequence gives us a chance to see things from Sally\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s point of view, too.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>So, let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s start with Angua\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s search. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d been told that there was a strange smell inside the mine, and Angua has tracked it down to a specific high-rent neighborhood in Ankh-Morpork. From here, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re taken on a strange journey, one that suggests a whole new theory as to what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going on by using clues given thus far. Once Angua enters the old well, her skills as a werewolf take her to <i>more dead bodies<\/i>. Actually, before that, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s this:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>There were fresh planks in the bottom. Someone\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand surely it could only have been the dwarfs\u00e2\u20ac\u201dhad broken into the well down here, and laid a couple of planks across it. They had dug this far, and stopped. Why? Because they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d reached the well?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So, this is the first major wrench in the story. See, I assumed that the well was a secret and <i>intentional<\/i> way in and out of the mine that wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t arouse suspicion. But there was refuse covering it up, right? And the well entry doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seem to have been used by anyone <i>but<\/i> Sally. As Angua describes all this, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s clear that the dwarfs were looking for something, not mapping out a deliberate set of tunnels:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>These tunnels weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t built to last; they were there for a quick and definitely dirty job, and all they had to do was survive until it was done.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Okay&#8230; so&#8230; what the <i>fuck<\/i>? What is this? Once Angua finds Sally, the two of them discover more confirmation that this is <i>much<\/i> bigger than they initially thought. But I love that Pratchett doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t focus solely on this. Indeed, some of Sally\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s first words to Angua after she reveals herself echo exactly what we heard from Angua. That the <i>other<\/i> one has things better. Which is so fascinating to me! THIS IS WHAT I WANTED FROM THIS BOOK AND IT IS BEING DELIVERED. Because from Sally\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s perspective, the metamorphosis is <i>easier<\/i> for werewolves, since they maintain only a single body the entire time. (Unlike vampires, who must turn into an equivalent volume\/mass of bats and can only reform once ALL the bats return.) On top of that: female vampires can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t rematerialize clothing??? That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s&#8230; odd, right?<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>As these two women spend time with one another, though, they begin to get used to the presence of the other, and <i>that<\/i> is just as fascinating. While there is a competitiveness between them, what I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m hoping is that they appreciate that they each have skills and talents that make them wonderful on their own. But that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to take time, and Pratchett doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t rush any sort of development. As it stands, while they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re certainly friendlier than they were before, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not best friends or anything.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>They are <i>damn<\/i> good investigators, though, and I would absolutely read <i>their<\/i> body cop series. WOULDN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T THAT BE GREAT. I mean, look at what they discover here because of who they are. They find more dead dwarfs, who were all killed by axe by&#8230; something. I assume it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s that <i>thing<\/i> that frightened off the <i>other<\/i> thing early in the book. So, the dwarfs were purposely looking for something, found it in or near the well, it murdered a bunch of them near the well&#8230; and then what? They brought it back? They brought Hamcrusher back after he died? Why did they even <i>want<\/i> it? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got to do with all those signs, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m guessing. But that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just because I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m assuming Pratchett wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t put them there if they weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t meaningful. Plus, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s that one dwarf who wrote a sign in his own blood as he died. Whatever this thing is, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <i>real<\/i> bad, and they&#8230; set it free?<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>At least there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s some good news here: the fight between the trolls and the dwarfs was <i>barely<\/i> a fight. Only Vimes and A.E. Pessimal were injured. (Though Pessimal\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s injury is kept from us; we only know that he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think it was that bad, others did, and Igor fixed him up.) In short, both parties were just too drunk to do anything? I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d say that this is anticlimactic, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mostly <i>relieving<\/i>. For the moment, this disaster has been averted. Of course, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s only a matter of time. The <i>real<\/i> anniversary of Koom Valley is impending, and I bet something is going to break out then, particularly if the Watch doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t determine what <i>really<\/i> happened in this mine.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/youtu.be\/pfL&#8211;mFTreY<\/p>\n<p><b>Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n<p>&#8211; <strong>My YA contemporary debut, <a href=\"https:\/\/bit.ly\/AngerIsAGift\">ANGER IS A GIFT<\/a>, is now out in the world!\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong><strong>If you&#8217;d like to stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding my books, <a href=\"http:\/\/eepurl.com\/ey636\">sign up for my newsletter<\/a>! DO IT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the twelfth part of Thud!, Angua and Sally learn more about one another as they track down more clues surrounding Hamcrusher\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s murder. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld.\u00c2\u00a0<\/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":[463,248,554],"class_list":["post-4804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discworld","tag-mark-reads-discworld","tag-terry-pratchett","tag-thud"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4804","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=4804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4804\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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