->''[[ArcWords A lie can run around the world before the truth has got its boots on.]]''

The 25th ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' novel and the first standalone since ''Discworld/SmallGods''.

Building on the the themes of change started in the previous book ''Discworld/TheFifthElephant'', another of the Disc's previous MedievalStasis principles is broken: no movable type. There's a rumour that dwarfs can turn lead into gold - and they can, by making the lead into typeface and undercutting the engravers. William de Worde, a young scribe who makes his living writing for the illiterate and sending letters of news to distant nobles, encounters the dwarfs and ends up writing the first newspaper, ''The Ankh-Morpork Times'' for them, with the help of engraver's granddaughter Sacharissa Cripslock and the photography-obsessed vampire Otto Chriek.

Meanwhile, a plot against the Patrician takes shape. The shadowy organization from ''Discworld/FeetOfClay'' returns, now named as the Committee to Unelect the Patrician. They've obtained a lookalike for Lord Vetinari from Pseudopolis, and hired [[ThoseTwoBadGuys Mr Pin and Mr Tulip]], the "New Firm" of hired thugs, to help them achieve their devious ends. It's up to William de Worde, with the help of Gaspode the Wonder Dog, to get to the bottom of their nefarious plot.

Preceded by ''Discworld/TheFifthElephant'', followed by ''Discworld/ThiefOfTime''.
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!! Contains examples of:
* AddictionDisplacement: Otto replaces blood (and menacing well-endowed young women) with the capture of light, an odd choice for a vampire.
* ArcWords: "The Truth Shall Make Ye Free!" (from the [[Literature/TheBible King James Bible]]). Initially appears to be a simple RunningGag as the printers keep misspelling it - successive editions having "... shall make ye fret" and "... shall make ye fred", yet it turns ominous when the edition that melts over Tulip and Pin reads "The Truth Shall Make Ye Fere"...
** Also "A lie can run around the world before the truth has got its boots on" (which in RealLife was coined by James Watt, and used by MarkTwain and WinstonChurchill among others)
*** Dog Bites Man.
* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: From the blurb - "William de Worde is the accidental editor of the Discworld's first newspaper. Now he must cope with the traditional perils of a journalists life - people who want him dead, a recovering vampire with a suicidal fascination for flash photography, some more people who want him dead in a different way and, worst of all, the man who keeps begging him to publish pictures of his humorously shaped potatoes."
* AskAStupidQuestion: [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] when William goes into the palace kitchen and asks a man handling a tray of bread loaves whether or not he's the baker.
-->'''Man:''' What does it look like?
-->'''William:''' I can see what it ''looks'' like. I'm still asking the question.
-->'''Man:''' I'm the butcher, as it happens. Well done. The baker's off sick.
* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: Interestingly, even though it's specifically said that BigBad [[spoiler:Lord de Worde]] never gets his hands dirty with violence--he has men for that--he seems to be pretty good with a sword in the final confrontation. Of course, facing [[spoiler:a vampire]], that doesn't help him very much...
* BadDreams: Tulip has them.
* BegoneBribe: William [[spoiler:pays his father a generous estimate of what it cost to raise him in order to get him to go away. The money isn't the thing, as Lord de Worde has gold in his DNA, but instead is based on the Dwarven tradition in which betrothed dwarves buy one another from their parents to symbolize their independence.]]
** Foul Ole Ron and his crew are the masters of collecting Begone Bribes.
* BerserkButton: William drops a scent bomb in front of Angua to throw her off his trail. As Gaspode informs him, "Vimes will go around the twist. He'll going to go totally Librarian-poo[[hottip:*:ape-shit, the Unseen University librarian is an ape, long story]]. He's going to invent new ways of being angry to try it out on you."
** We see Vimes looking after Angua as she recovers. Gaspode was not wrong. However, by the time of ''Discworld/NightWatch'', the practice (although using less... potent substances) is almost commonplace.
* BewareTheNiceOnes[=/=]BewareTheSillyOnes: Otto spends most of the book speaking in a VERY thick accent (even lampshades it by speaking cockney for a sentence), remenisces about Uberwäld and complains about shirts being ruined as they're covered in blood. Even in his CrowningMomentOfAwesome he's taking boxing stances and kissing people on the forehead.
** A later novel strongly suggests that this is a deliberate act on Otto's part, intended to keep people from being frightened of him.
* BigDamnHeroes: Near the end of the novel William realizes that running off alone to confront the villain of the piece was maybe not his brightest move, [[spoiler:even if it is his father]]. Fortunately for him, that's when Otto shows up.
* BondVillainStupidity: GenreSavvy Mr. Tulip notices something is wrong when Mr. Pin fails to kill Mr. Slant ([[KillItWithFire with fire]], from which even a zombie would be hard-pressed to come back) and mutters something about "I think I shall let you live today."
* BrainsAndBrawn: Pin is the brains, Tulip is the brawn (outside of [[HiddenDepths his encyclopedic knowledge of art]]).
* BreakingAndBloodsucking: Otto, a "[[VegetarianVampire black ribboner]]" vampire, reminisces about his past experience doing this, preying on not-always-unwilling bosomy young ladies in negligees.
* BrickJoke: DOG BITES MAN!
** Also, the (alleged) rain of dogs in Treacle Mine Road. ("It was just one dog!")
* BuxomIsBetter: Sacharissa is apparently extremely busty, and believes that a corset and a plain dress will tone those endowments down. [[FetishFuel They do not]].
* BystanderSyndrome: William is disappointed to learn that stories in "the public interest" (such as the plot against the Patrician) are not the same as stories the public is interested in (unlikely rumours, funny animals and such.)
* CallingTheOldManOut: Eventually done by William to his father.
* CharacterFilibuster: As per usual with later ''Discworld'' books, and evident in the argument between Sacharissa and William before the climax (with William voicing the author's opinion).
* ChekhovsGun: Or rather, [[spoiler:Chekhov's desk spike.]]
* ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve: Mr. Tulip believes, but he doesn't believe in anything in particular, which causes something of a problem [[spoiler:after he dies.]]
* ContinuityNod: William's oafish brother managed to be one of the only casualties in the war with Klatch, which was the subject of ''Discworld/{{Jingo}}''.
** Vetinari also mentions the events of ''Discworld/MovingPictures'' and ''Discworld/SoulMusic'', comparing them with the introduction of the printing press. %%''Soul Music'' had a reset button at the end, but Death did say that people would retain some memory of the events, and this is neither the first nor the last indication that he was right.
** Harry King grouses about how much golems are demanding to be paid these days. The golems' liberation from slavery first got started in ''Discworld/FeetOfClay''.
** When his ominous statment is finally backed up [[EmpathicEnvironment by thunder]] Otto yells "[[Discworld/SoulMusic Music with rocks in!]]" which is the slightly mangled Discworld way of saying "[[HoldYourHippogriffs Rock'n'roll!]]"
** The Committee to Unelect the Patrician appears to be the same group ultimately behind the plot in ''Discworld/FeetOfClay'', judging by their SmokyGentlemensClub description.
* DeathEqualsRedemption: It helps if [[TheGrimReaper Death]] gives you a little post-mortem therapy to help with the redemption.
* DidntSeeThatComing: Vetinari suffers from this twice.
** First, he sees [[spoiler:a perfect double for himself. It is enough to throw him off his game and be assaulted by the New Firm.]]
** Second, [[spoiler:he was stunned to silence when William asks if he will be attending Harry King's daughter's wedding with other members of the city's guild leaders and other elite.]]
* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: Lord de Worde's conspiracy is the source of a lot of references to the Watergate Break-in.
* EmpathicEnvironment: According to Otto, {{Uberwald}}ian weather is obliging enough to provide dramatic thunder after a portentous statement like "zer dark eyes of zer mind," so he's disappointed that Ankh-Morpork's environment doesn't care. It obliges at the climax, and once things are sorted, he invokes it joyfully.
* EvilLawyerJoke: William delivers one deadpan when attempting to prevent a fight between Goodmountain and his dwarfs and Mr Slant and his troll heavies:
-->'''William:''' Hold on, hold on, there must be a law against killing lawyers.
-->'''Goodmountain:''' Are you ''sure?''
-->'''William:''' There're still some around, aren't there?
* FakeHigh: Mr. Tulip [[BeatBag never seems to get his hands on real drugs]], but that doesn't stop him from claiming it keeps his mind sharp.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: After the scene where the New Firm notice the reward posted for finding Vetinari's missing terrier Wuffles, Foul Ole Ron is seen [[spoiler: breaking a sausage into ''three'' pieces instead of the normal two for him and Gaspode, hinting as to where Wuffles went.]]
** Also, one of Otto's dark light photographs hints at [[spoiler: the fire that burns down the original offices of the Times and melts the lead in the press.]]
* FreudianExcuse: [[NoodleIncident Something very bad]] happened to Mr. Tulip as a child.
* FriendlyNeighborhoodVampire: Otto, at least to his friends.
* GoodThingYouCanHeal: Otto gets decapitated, and it's only a minor inconvenience. His flash also reduces him to ashes several times; eventually he takes to carrying a vial of blood, which breaks on the ashes and revives him.
* GrewASpine: William de Worde relative his father. An example of the ComingOfAgeStory variant of the trope.
* HaveIMentionedIAmADwarfToday: One of the other residents opens his boiled egg... with a precise blow from a very small axe after hearing a racist remark from Mr. Windling. It illustrates how persistently foolish Mr. Windling must be, as there are mentions of the preparations for opening the boiled egg throughout the scene.
* HiddenDepths: [[spoiler:Due in part to his terrible childhood, where the only thing of ''any'' value in his village was the decorations in the church,]] Mr. Tulip has an ''excellent'' knowledge of art history and value. He can also gauge a gem's worth by sight.
* HoldYourHippogriffs: [[Discworld/SoulMusic Music with Rocks In]] = Rock and Roll.
* HypocriticalHumor: A subtle version, but when Vimes asks William who he's answerable to, William answers "The truth," and Vimes pointedly remarks on truth's lack of a fixed address/incentive to smack William in the face if he lies. Coming from Vimes, a man who gets on the nerves of Ankh-Morpork's upper crust mainly because, to paraphrase Rust in a previous book, he sees the law as "some sort of shining thing in the sky", that's pretty rich.
* ImpaledPalm: The Spike.
* InterruptedSuicide: Subverted - the "jumper" was really just seeking attention, and has to save ''William'' when he faints from vertigo after climbing up to talk to him.
* IronicEcho: Once William's got his hands on a recording of "A lie can run around the world before the truth has got its boots on," he replays it, slightly shorter each time until all it says is "the truth has got its boots on."
** He later tells his father "The truth ''has'' got its boots on. It's going to start kicking."
** "Let it fry!"
* KillItWithFire: Mr. Slant is visibly worried when threatened by flames.
* LikeFatherLikeSon: William doesn't appreciate the comparison. They're both arrogant, single-minded, stubborn jerks. But William tries not to be. Most of the time.
* LiteralMetaphor: One possible effect of Otto's dark light-using iconograph is to make metaphors real in the resulting pictures. When he takes a picture of William, it comes out as showing his father standing behind him looking over his shoulder.
* LondonGangster: Pin and Tulip. They fit the archetype, describe themselves as "the New Firm" and Ankh-Morpork is part London in its conception.
* MeaningfulName: William de Worde's name is a {{portmanteau}} of William Caxton and Wynkyn de Worde, two prominent early printers.
* MentalPictureProjector: With a side-helping of SpookyPhotographs: Otto's dark light pictures have... strange results, at various points showing two Vetinaris, silver rain underground, and William's father proverbially "staring over" his shoulder.
* MisterXAndMisterY: Tulip and Pin, as befits ThoseTwoBadGuys (as noted below)
* NamesTheSame: There are brief mentions of two characters named Hermione (one a homeless beggar's dissociative personality, the other a daughter of a [[WeBuyAnything waste management businessman]]). The fourth Harry Potter book was just coming out as this novel was published.
** And the waste management businessman, a product of a life spent up to the elbows in, er, waste, is called Harry...
** Theres also Foue Ole Ron "Bugrit! Millennium hand and shrimp!"
* NarrativeProfanityFilter: Played with. At first it seems as though Mr Tulip's use of "[=----=]ing" is a 19th-century-style censoring of the F-word, but it turns out that he actually is just [[VerbalTic pausing and then saying "Ing!"]]
* NotSoDifferent: William and his father, as noted by more than one character.
* NotSoInvincibleAfterAll: Mr Slant is a zombie and already dead, and has also escaped being involved with other anti-Vetinari plots in the past, so he has previously been presented as having JokerImmunity. Then we have a slowly, lovingly described scene where Mr Pin ties a burning rag to his spring-gonne and the text talks about how ''dry'' Mr Slant is...
** [[spoiler: Still a KarmaHoudini for Slant, as William never actually turns in the recording to the police and Slant's only "punishment" is getting blackmailed into acting as the ''Times''' lawyer. Possibly forever.]]
*** [[spoiler: ''For free'', which must be agony for him.]]
* ObfuscatingStupidity: On the surface, Otto Chriek is a ridiculous FunnyForeigner who speaks in VampireVords. This is part of a deliberate effort to stop people from fearing him because he's a vampire.
* PayEvilUntoEvil: The majority of the protagonists' successful denouement involves [[spoiler:taking the New Firm's payment for themselves and using it to pay all necessary bills, breaking into a rival's pressroom and holding him at crossbow-point, and plenty of blackmail]].
* ProductionForeshadowing: Some of the first chapter's text (particularly the example of the fill-in-blanks letters home that William sells) was first published in ''The Discworld Companion'' nearly a decade earlier, ending in "it seems the future may hold great things for young de Worde". Evidently Creator/TerryPratchett was planning this story for ''a long time''.
* RedHerring: The story introduces a new member of the Canting Crew of beggars, the multiple-personality-bearing Altogether Andrews. On his first appearance his personalities are listed and one of them, Burke, is mentioned with trepidation (the beggars saw him once and never want to see him again), which makes the reader think he will be involved later on. In fact nothing comes of this apparent {{Foreshadowing}}.
* RewindReplayRepeat: William with Mr Pin's Disorganizer.
* RunningGag: Mr. Wintler and his humorously shaped vegetables, Sacharissa's chest size, typos of "The Truth Shall Make You Free", Mr. Tulip's abuse of the phrase [[UnusualEuphemism "----ing"]] and bad habit of getting stuck with {{Beat Bag}}s.
* [[AWizardDidIt A Scientist Did it]]: When Vetinari wonders aloud what makes it so that frozen ink isn't as dark as unfrozen, Hughnon Ridcully waves it off with a vague "science, probably".
* SecretlyWealthy: William, who's become estranged from his wealthy family.
* SelfMadeMan:
** Harry King went from a poor kid who collected trash to sell to the largest trash redistribution centers in all of the city.
** William tries to be one, as he has renounced his father's money.
* ShameIfSomethingHappened: Vetinari at one point uses this phrase about William. Drumknott considers drafting a contract with the Guild of Assassins until he realizes Vetinari is using the phrase literally and isn't intending to cause any "something".
* ShoutOut: Mr Pin and Mr Tulip, being ThoseTwoBadGuys, have a number:
** They call themselves the "New Firm," which has to be a reference to {{Neverwhere}}'s "the Old Firm" (where there's a New, there must be an Old), though the characters themselves and the general idea behind them are based on the archetype not each other.
** Mr. Pin also has [[Film/PulpFiction "'Not a Nice Person at All' done in pokerwork on his purse,"]], Mr. Tulip at one point elaborates on "Get medieval on his arse" (see under NoodleImplements), and Mr. Pin and Mr. Tulip discuss foreign food at one point, including "what they call sausage-in-a-bun in Quirm."
** Besides Pin and Tulip, William's informant calls himself "[[Film/AllThePresidentsMen Deep Bone]]"; Pratchett even slips up at least once and just flat-out says "Deep Throat." The evil plot (by the "Committee to Un-Elect the Patrician," no less) involves sneaking into Ankh-Morpork through the ''Water Gate''...
** The troll Rocky [[Film/{{Rocky}} puts up a boxing pose when fighting.]]
** A possible one to ''Literature/TheHobbit'', as one character mentions one winter so cold the river froze, allowing wolves into the city (swerving from the story when it turns out the wolves were quickly killed and eaten).
** Harry King's name may be a reference to E.G. Kingsford, who made his eponymous charcoal out of scrap wood from Henry Ford's factories.
* SidetrackedByTheAnalogy: Vetinari begins talking to high priest Hughnon Ridcully about what a wondrous thing the Clacks are for communication, using an example with a merchant being able to order a cargo of prawns from Genua via clacks. Ridcully, [[LiteralMinded thinking in a way common to the family]], spends the rest of the conversation trying to figure out how the prawns would travel from tower to tower and starts wondering if possibly the claws allow them to grab on to the towers as they're tossed.
* SirSwearsalot: Subverted with Mr Tulip, who doesn't [[NarrativeProfanityFilter --ing]] swear. He just says [[UnusualEuphemism "--ing"]] [[VerbalTic a --ing lot]].
* SmallNameBigEgo: Mr. Tulip and Mr. Pin, big time. They believe they are the next, greatest generation of criminals and that Ank-Morpork is full of has been amateurs, never mind that Ank Morpork is to evil and corruption what guns are to bullets and the only reason they are so content is because they had found an stability of massive backstabbing and violence that is maintained by the threat of two of the three greatest forces in the Discworld: [[MagnificentBastard Vetinari intelligence]] and [[TheFettered Sam's idealism]].
* StealthPun: Sacharissa's "It gives me the humorous vegetables" (Read: willies).
* StereotypeReactionGag: Otto Chriek is an {{Uberwald}}ian stereotype who gets offended when de Worde assumes he's a vampire. Even though he is.
* SuicideBySunlight
* SupremeCouncilOfVagueness: The Committee to Unelect the Patrician (a reference to the Committee to Re-elect the President from the Watergate affair)
* SympatheticPOV: From William's point of view, Vimes and the Watch are obstructive of free speech and antagonistic.
** This gets even funnier several books later, when [[Discworld/GoingPostal Moist]] considers William "a pompous windbag with a bum stuffed full of tweed." He likes Sacharissa, though. Vimes himself has a rant in ''Discworld/{{Thud}}!'' about how the ''Times'' keeps getting news out almost before ''he'' knows about it.
** Pterry may be deliberately setting up three of Ankh-Morpork's most influential political voices (Commander Vimes, Moist von Lipwig, and William de Worde) to dislike and/or distrust one another, as this is how Vetinari always keeps power-blocks within his city from uniting to challenge his authority.
---> '''Vetinari:''' In return, however, I must ask you not to upset Commander Vimes... ''(cough)'' more than necessary.
---> '''William:''' I'm sure we can all pull together, sir.
---> '''Vetinari:''' Oh, I do hope not. I really do hope not. Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny. Free men pull in all kinds of directions. It's the only way to make progress.
** It helps that none of them want to be the one in charge. Vimes hates dealing with any unrelated to the Watch. William says that there have been far worse rulers than Vetinari and fights to clear his name. Moist throws himself in front of a pie because he would not survive in a post-Vetinari city. So effectively what Vetinari has done is installed powerful figures who want him to stay in the seat.
* ThemeNaming: Many of the dwarf printers (aside from the leader Goodmountain, which is an Anglicization of Gutenberg) are named after fonts - Gowdie for Gaudy and Boddony for Botoni, for instance.
* ThereAreTwoKindsOfPeopleInTheWorld: Parodied with William's ever-evolving take on the glass-half-full/half-empty metaphor.
* TheyCallMeMisterTibbs
* ThoseTwoBadGuys: Mr Pin and Mr Tulip.
* VerbalTic: Mr. Tulip's got a [=----=]ing bad one.
* VillainousBreakdown: Mr. Pin. Big time.
* VillainousBSOD: [[spoiler: Mr. Tulip, after Death shows him his life "as it flashed before other people's eyes".]]
* WellDoneSonGuy: William at first.
--> '''Otto''': You only have to talk to [[VampireVords Villiam]] for any length of time to see that, in a vay, his father is alvays looking over his shoulder.
* WeNeedADistraction: As De Worde notes, a vampire flailing in pain because of his own flashbulb is ''always'' the center of attention.
* TheWorfEffect: Rocky is hired for stopping a barbarian tavern brawler attacking the staff. When Sacharissa goes to the de Worde estate, William tells her to bring Rocky for no particular reason. When they stumble upon the Vetinari double, Rocky gets punched unconscious by Tulip.
** Rocky's lack of martial prowess is set up when he is first interviewed for a job. He tells William that he quit boxing because he kept getting knocked down.
* WrongGenreSavvy: Unusually, Vetinari. At the start (see ContinuityNod above) he confidently predicts that the printing press will have some sort of occult power behind it and will be a passing fad followed by ResetButton. But now the dynamic of the series has changed, and MedievalStasis is slipping away, as noted by William de Worde at the end. Vetinari actually seems subtly disappointed when his predictions were dashed.
** Given that the main question he asked was whether Dibbler had any part in the operation, it's likely that he wasn't so much WrongGenreSavvy as Multiple Genre Savvy: he knows that if Dibbler gets involved, everything goes to hell. If an industry starts up ''without'' Dibbler's participation, as with the clacks, it's probably okay, so his questions about curses could've been asked merely to determine ''which'' genre applied.
* XanatosSpeedChess: How William handles Slant when he shows up to dismantle the press.
* YouKnowWhatTheySayAboutX: Mr. Windling, one of the tenants at the boarding house William lives, likes to use this phrase; William [[RantInducingSlight eventually gets fed up with it]] and angrily demands Windling tell him who "they" are and what it is "they" say.
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