{"id":5149,"date":"2020-03-23T05:00:48","date_gmt":"2020-03-23T12:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=5149"},"modified":"2020-03-23T14:10:57","modified_gmt":"2020-03-23T21:10:57","slug":"mark-reads-raising-steam-part-13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2020\/03\/mark-reads-raising-steam-part-13\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads &#8216;Raising Steam&#8217;: Part 13"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the thirteenth part of <i>Raising Steam<\/i>, life continues to change due to the railway, but is it for better or for worse? If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re 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>I appreciate that this remains a complicated situation, one that continues to have ramifications that no one could have foreseen. Well, not <i>every<\/i> ramification, of course. It was not surprising that The Low King was furious with what had happened at the railhead, and it was utterly predictable that Ardent and his followers were suddenly nowhere to be found!!! They were so loud and bold and willing to do anything to support and further their beliefs, but be held <i>accountable<\/i> for them? Never! So the Low King\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fury is understandable. This is all spiraling out of control faster than anyone can keep up with it, and I believe that the grags are not going to stop. More people will die, and they aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t going to cease their attempts at sabotaging the railway because some dwarfs have died, too. (Like the unnamed saboteur in this split.)<\/p>\n<p>Which brings me to the Low King\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s secret. Hi. HELLO. Because I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m pretty sure the wink-wink, nudge-nudge moment from Aeron is the hint that RHYS RHYSSON IS PREGNANT. Yes??? Which would be a first in the world of the dwarfs! They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never had a king have a child! THIS IS A HUGE DEAL, and it makes sense why Aeron thinks this is another card to play. Rhysson makes a fantastic point when they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re angry early in this split:<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Remember, if Tak teaches us anything, he teaches us to be tolerant of all sapient shapes. Let me tell you, the world changes with every generation and if we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t learn to surf on the tide then we will be smashed on the rocks.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a scathing indictment of the grags, but I think you can re-contextualize this using the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153card\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that the Low King can play later. Rhysson knows that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to change the world for dwarfs as soon as he announces this secret.<\/p>\n<p>Will the dwarfs change to accept that child or not?<\/p>\n<p>Some won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. Some will be dedicated to regression up until the very end, which is why I believe it was intentional that Pratchett followed up the secret and the kiss (THE KISS!!!!) with the scene between the dwarf vandal and the Iron Girder. Here, we get a brief glimpse into the mind of one of the grags, who is dead-set (sorry, couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t resist, JUST KIDDING, NOT SORRY) on destroying the Iron Girder. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll touch on the whole \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Iron Girder is alive\u00e2\u20ac\u009d thing in a bit, as what I want to focus on is this vandal\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s determination. They were so certain that they would succeed in damaging the Iron Girder, and they didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t expect to be instantly killed in a blast of steam that tore them apart. Yet even upon realizing that they died, their certainty does not waver. They tell Death:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Oh\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t regret it, you know. I was doing the work of Tak, who will now welcome me into paradise with open arms!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>But <i>will<\/i> he? Death isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t so sure, and Pratchett pokes holes in this entire justification for acts of terrorism. How do you <i>know<\/i> you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be rewarding for such a vile, violent, and hateful act? Well, from the perspective of this vandal, he was doing something that he believed Tak would reward. And I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m guessing that the vandal is about to experience an afterlife that is nothing like what he thought it would be. WHOOPS.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s go back to this notion of the Iron Girder\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s soul, though. I spoke about it on video, but to elaborate: This is a fictional universe in which belief grants an enormous power to ideas, concepts, and things. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a goddess\u00e2\u20ac\u201dAnoia\u00e2\u20ac\u201dof things getting stuck in drawers. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s entirely possible that as this new technology spreads across the Disc and charms other people, people will start to believe in it. Both Dick Simnel and Moist are aware of the almost cult-like admiration that folks have for Iron Girder <i>specifically<\/i>. So: not a stretch of the imagination at all. The railway has become intoxicating to those who have experienced it. Maybe that engine really <i>does<\/i> have a soul, and it fought back against someone who would harm them. If that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the case, I imagine we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll see something else of this nature later on.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>For now, though, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so much more to talk about, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s because there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so much more that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s changing <i>everywhere<\/i>. Dick\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life is nothing like it was at the start of <i>Raising Steam<\/i>, and I know that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an obvious point to make, but I still don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to lose sight of that. None of this would have happened at this point in time if he hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t pursued his ideas. From there, the possibilities branched out, and this book is doing a fine job of showing the big and small things that have come to rise since the beginning. One of those is how Harry King\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the same. His wife seems pretty happy with that; I recall that she desperately wanted him to change the circumstances of his profession. (Or at least the associations with it.) And now look that them! Fancy dinners with aristocrats, which isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t Harry\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s vibe in the slightest. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s very quick to criticize all of this, but I also kinda think he might learn to like it? At the same time, he makes a great point: This isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t who he is. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not fancy, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not a knob, and I think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s possible he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll never fit in with that crowd. So will he fight it? Will he try to convince his wife to stop trying to make him fit in there?<\/p>\n<p>It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a pretty low-grade compared to what follows, though. Harry\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s and Effie\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lives have changed for the better. But not everything is going to be positive or uncomplicated. At the end of this, I felt that the Wesley family was more tragic than anything else. Yes, Jed was reckless, and Jed did not listen to sound advice <i>multiple<\/i> times when Crucible gave it to him, and yes, he should not have messed with that boiler. The text makes it clear that what happens to the Wesley brothers is just\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 awful. The end. I understand why Moist believes it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not going to be damaging to the railway, but I got a sense that his take on all this was starting to change as he got on site to the Effing Forest. (That effing name, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122M DYING.) This is more a feeling than textual evidence, since the split ends so soon after Moist is guided to the spot of the accident by the publican. And it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not like he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wrong! They had not tried to build an engine, and it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like they were working on the railway in any capacity. Still, that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make this <i>less<\/i> tragic, you know?<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>So I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m worried. I think this might be a bigger deal than Moist thinks it will be.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/youtu.be\/rGp_Pq9sZ68<\/p>\n<p><b>Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n<p>&#8211; <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/us.macmillan.com\/books\/9781250169211\">You can now pre-order my second YA novel, <i>Each of Us a Desert<\/i>, which will be released on September 15, 2020 from Tor Teen!<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>&#8211; 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 thirteenth part of Raising Steam, life continues to change due to the railway, but is it for better or for worse? If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re 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":[463,565,248],"class_list":["post-5149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discworld","tag-mark-reads-discworld","tag-raising-steam","tag-terry-pratchett"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5149","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=5149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5149\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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