The Truth

Starred review from October 30, 2000
The 25th book (after The Fifth Elephant) in the Discworld series returns to the thriving city of Ankh-Morpork, where humans, dwarfs and trolls share the streets with zombies, vampires, werewolves and the occasional talking dog. Young William de Worde makes a modest living running a scribing business, including a newsletter of current events for a select subscription list. Then he meets dwarf wordsmith Gunilla Goodmountain, inventor of the printing press, who helps transform de Worde's newsletter into a daily called The Ankh-Morpork Times (subhead: The Truth Shall Make Ye Free). While the city's civil, religious and business leaders are up in arms over The Times, Lord Vetinari, the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, encourages the advance--as long as it remains a "simple entertainment that is not going to end up causing tentacled monsters and dread apparitions to talk the streets eating people." In the meantime, as de Worde's staff grows and a type turns the subhead to "The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret", two shadowy characters are hired to remove the Patrician--permanently. Pratchett's witty reach is even longer than usual here, from Pulp Fiction to His Girl Friday. Readers who've never visited Discworld before may find themselves laughing out loud, even as they cheer on the good guys, while longtime fans are sure to call this Pratchett's best one yet.

August 1, 2000
"The dwarfs can turn lead into gold." So says the rumor in the medieval-cum-Victorian city of Ankh-Morpork, and like many other improbable things in Pratchett's twenty-fifth Discworld yarn, it turns out to be true. For a crew of dwarf printers has smuggled a press into the city, in defiance of city ruler Lord Vetinari's edict against such machines, and found a canny newsman-editor in young William de Worde, rebellious second son of a rich, powerful, scheming nobleman. William and the dwarfs' subsequent success is helped immeasurably by the arrival, simultaneously with that of the press, of Mr. Pin and Mr. Tulip, professional thugs, to aid a secretive cabal plotting to replace Vetinari with a more pliant, corruptible successor. In the end, Pin, Tulip, and cabal are foiled, thanks to crusading journalism. Pratchett keeps the thin-gruel plot palatable with his usual array of seasonings--cartoonish characters, screwball dialogue, slapstick action, silly names (some of the dwarf printers' monickers are variants of type-style names), and pop-cultural allusions (horror-movie mavens who look sharp will have a field day). Two of the most amusing Discworldians this time are the chemical-ingesting (anything to get a rush), art-savvy hitman Tulip, and the iconographer (i.e., photographer) Otto Chriek, a vampire who has taken the pledge (no more, uh, you know--the b-word), and whose flash technique occasionally reduces him to ashes. Light-hearted, Monty Pythonish stuff that fans of, say, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," shouldn't miss. ((Reviewed August 2000))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2000, American Library Association.)

October 15, 2000
When he stumbles upon the dwarven secret of movable type, young scribe William de Word discovers a new career and starts a newspaper--the first of its kind in the city of Ankh-Morporp. Pratchett's 25th "Discworld" novel takes on the press and investigative journalism in a hilarious romp that examines the fleeting nature of truth and lies. The author's skill in the difficult art of comic fantasy makes this story of innocence and cynicism a good choice for most fantasy collections, particularly where the series is in demand. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 7/00.]

Copyright 2000 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.