In the fifteenth part of Raising Steam<\/i>, the railway continues, and the world changes. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld<\/i>.<\/p>\n
So, lemme start by explaining a bit of my reaction at the start of the video for this split. As Chief Constable Feeney Upshot headed towards the caves where the strange metallic sound was emanating, I thought that what he was going to find was the goblins working for<\/i> Harry King. As I had written recently, I believe Vetinari was trying to get Moist to both think outside of the box and<\/i> acknowledge the obvious: that the dwarfs should be working on the railway. But then I doubted myself and became convinced that I had just publicly goofed, as I often do.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Instead, Pratchett introduces yet another unexpected but completely believable ramification of an idea being set loose. We know the goblins are obsessed with taking things apart and learning how they work. In working alongside Harry King and watching this railway system come to fruition, some of them have seen an incredible potential: the ability to collectivize.<\/i>I think about what we saw in the maquis and how the bandits there picked off goblins for their own needs. Would that happen again if the goblins had their own transit system, one that was both underground and built just for them? What if they could help other goblins? Send goblins where work was needed and available?<\/p>\n I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think this is the last we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen of this plot. I think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll significantly play into the narrative later. AND IT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S SO FASCINATING, Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ALL. Raising Steam<\/i>, perhaps more so than a lot of Discworld<\/i> books, feels sprawling. Immense. the scope of it is larger than I expected, and of course, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s literally about the size of the Disc. The line that Vetinari requested will be over twelve hundred miles long, so it stands to reason we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d see more of this fantastical world than usual in this book. But there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also an undeniable joy in how Pratchett writes of the development of this line, and I wonder if he was ever a train spotter himself. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so much glee<\/i> here, not just in what Pratchett depicts, but how<\/i> he depicts it. In a way, I see a possibly unintended parallel between himself and Mrs. Bradshaw. Pratchett writes of the workers with a stunning poetry, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s clear he admires them, much like Mrs. Bradshaw admires the new places that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s visiting:<\/p>\n The smelters worked through the night casting rails, and if you were lucky enough to be in the right place and sufficiently protected, you could see them open their guts and spill the glowing liquid steel: dancing and living like a creature from the underworld.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n And as I said on video: reading this aloud was a delight, as that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s where I could feel<\/i> how much fun Pratchett was having. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also getting the chance to talk about how a world changes and<\/i> does so rapidly. Because there are so many more things I wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have thought of! Like stepladders for dwarfs so they aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t trampled or lost in stations; or train security; or porters! There are so very many new jobs that can be had, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d count Mrs. Bradshaw as part of that, too. Who is going to document<\/i> this new world? Who will explain what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s beyond those ever-broadening horizons? IT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S SO EXCITING TO READ ALL OF THIS. Because I know I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve traveled to places specifically<\/i> because of someone else\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s writing. When I was in Hawai\u00e2\u20ac\u2122i last fall, I went on a hike that was stunningly beautiful that I would not have discovered on my own. It was a travel blogger who turned me on to it.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so fitting, then, that Moist von Lipwig, the man whose brain operates best in times of chaos and unpredictability, is the one pushing others to consider changing their perspectives, too. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s had to do that constantly<\/i> his whole life; it was a survival tactic and a means of exploiting others. But Moist\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s larger character arc now involves him GENUINELY THINKING OF THE WELL-BEING OF OTHERS. For example: when he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s talking to Harry King about the challenges of the Uberwald line, he advocates for the trolls, insisting that they can help as long as they let the trolls \u00e2\u20ac\u0153dig out a home nearby.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I love that Moist thinks of it this way: the trolls can provide an invaluable service that they actually love<\/i> doing. Actually, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more than a love; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s part of their culture, since they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll use the job to teach their children about rocks. In exchange, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s only fair that they get have a home out of all of this.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s growth, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. Before, Moist would only think of what he<\/i> could get out of any situation, but not anymore. He is still a selfish person, but that selfishness has shifted, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s done so in a way that Moist has barely even noticed it. I do enjoy, though, that Pratchett still has time for wackiness when it comes to Moist. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s such a deeply chaotic character, and even though he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s now an important figure in the city, even though he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s won the respect of Vetinari, and even though he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s married, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still PEAK chaos.<\/p>\n Case in point: Moist drinks that goddamn potion that Of the Twilight the Darkness gave him. WHY. LOOK WHAT THE LAST ONE DID. What did he expect? He is literally the personification of that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Dead bird in the bag\u00e2\u20ac\u009d meme from Arrested Development<\/i>. LITERALLY. But hey\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 it worked! And he had a great conversation with his knees! Anyway: WHO ELSE LOVES THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MOIST AND ADORA BELLE? I love that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re openly sexual, that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re playful and funny, that Pratchett lets them have all these fluffy, loving moments. I actually think that, like Vimes and Sybil, he isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ever going to separate them. And I am a huge<\/i> fan of that.<\/p>\n https:\/\/youtu.be\/d9YwiB5VkKo<\/p>\n Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n – You can now pre-order my second YA novel, Each of Us a Desert<\/i>, which will be released on September 15, 2020 from Tor Teen!<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong> In the fifteenth part of Raising Steam, the railway continues, and the world changes. 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":[463,565,248],"class_list":["post-5151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discworld","tag-mark-reads-discworld","tag-raising-steam","tag-terry-pratchett"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5151\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n– 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":"