After the agonizing moralization of Snuff, it is refreshing to see the series make a return to a more free-spirited setting, with the return of Moist von Lipwig as the leading character. There are a lot of callbacks to older Discworld novels such as Reaper Man and The Fifth Elephant, but the setting and presentation are very much like the contemporary novels.
Moist von Lipwig is very much wasted for the purposes of the story. There are no enemies to confound, nor there are many obstacles that truly require daring or sleight-of-hand. There may be a jolt here and there, but for most part things go smoothly. There is never really a sense of urgency from the threats that our heroes face, with the story's only antagonists coming across as laughable caricatures of conservative extremism.
It is therefore unsurprising that the climax is not particularly climactic. There are a surprisingly large number of altercations and struggles throughout the story, but the "good guys" always come out unharmed and completely intact. For a story that centres on progress, it is downright baffling to see that the plot or characters undergo almost no development at all.
Moreover, the story tends to rush through a lot of places without really describing them with the same level of detail as most other Discworld novels. Oft-mentioned but unexplored locations like Quirm are mentioned, but only touched upon for no more than a few pages. For a story that is so heavily centred on how we get from point A to point B, lack of attention in this area is somewhat disappointing.
Overall, Raising Steam is possibly the only Discworld novel that I would actually avoid putting on my shelf. For all the complaints leveled at recent Discworld novels, they deal with serious issues while convincingly exposing them as evil as they are farcical. In this case, the issue happens to be conservative idealism, but the story does not effectively link this to the main engine of the plot, nor does it address the matter with credibility.
On and Off the Rails
After the agonizing moralization of Snuff, it is refreshing to see the series make a return to a more free-spirited setting, with the return of Moist von Lipwig as the leading character. There are a lot of callbacks to older Discworld novels such as Reaper Man and The Fifth Elephant, but the setting and presentation are very much like the contemporary novels.
Moist von Lipwig is very much wasted for the purposes of the story. There are no enemies to confound, nor there are many obstacles that truly require daring or sleight-of-hand. There may be a jolt here and there, but for most part things go smoothly. There is never really a sense of urgency from the threats that our heroes face, with the story's only antagonists coming across as laughable caricatures of conservative extremism.
It is therefore unsurprising that the climax is not particularly climactic. There are a surprisingly large number of altercations and struggles throughout the story, but the "good guys" always come out unharmed and completely intact. For a story that centres on progress, it is downright baffling to see that the plot or characters undergo almost no development at all.
Moreover, the story tends to rush through a lot of places without really describing them with the same level of detail as most other Discworld novels. Oft-mentioned but unexplored locations like Quirm are mentioned, but only touched upon for no more than a few pages. For a story that is so heavily centred on how we get from point A to point B, lack of attention in this area is somewhat disappointing.
Overall, Raising Steam is possibly the only Discworld novel that I would actually avoid putting on my shelf. For all the complaints leveled at recent Discworld novels, they deal with serious issues while convincingly exposing them as evil as they are farcical. In this case, the issue happens to be conservative idealism, but the story does not effectively link this to the main engine of the plot, nor does it address the matter with credibility.