History Literature / RaisingSteam

* UncertifiedExpert: The engineering genius who brings the first steam trains to Ankh-Morpork runs into bother when the Guild of Artificiers protest that he is self-taught and not a Guild member - so if he has never been apprenticed himself, how can he legally train others to build and maintain a railway system?

* CallingYourAttacks: A rather {{Justified}} example, when Detritus shouts "PIECEMAKER!" when firing the Piecemaker. People need to know when he does that so they can get out of the way.

* ContinuityDrift: In ''Literature/GoingPostal'', Adora Belle displays no particular knowledge or interest in how the Clacks work (at least when she's around POV character Moist.) Now she's an enthusiast who has been up in the towers since infancy. Oddly, the scene which creates this drift is completely extraneous to the plot. She ''did'' have this trait in the [[Creator/{{Sky}} Sky1]] adaptation, though.

** Charlie from ''Literature/TheTruth'' makes a brief appearance.

* CoversAlwaysLie: The UK cover, as seen above, is fine, but the US cover shows a quarter-sized train with a unidentifiable assortment of riders being held up by a young goat sitting on the tracks, with grags lurking in the shadows nearby. A goat-herder does make a brief appearance in the novel, but just as a awe-struck witness as the train whizzes by.

** He's also no fool when questioned by the press, and frequently sidesteps any "gotcha" questions they try to throw at him

** There's also a mention of Reg Shoe getting his fingers caught in a train window, leading to the creation of emergency cable to pull to stop the train

** Moist to Of The Twilight the Darkness, who it is frequently pointed out is essentially a goblin version of Moist

* FreudianTrio: We have Moist, Harry King and Mister Simnel taking the three roles

** Harry King comes off as a sleazy businessman, but he passes up the opportunity to swindle Dick Simnel out of the profits from the steam engine, is horrified when he learns that children were almost killed in a train accident, and goes ballistic when the enemy extremists kill some of his employees. Moist notes that Harry is always grumbling about how much things cost, but simultaneously puts a significant amount of money into ensuring his employees are well taken care of

* ManlyTears: King goes from rage into full InelegantBlubbering when he learns [[spoiler: some of his employees have been murdered.]]

** Later on two unfortunate bands of grags attack two decoy coaches that they think are carrying King Rhys Rhysson. One contains [[spoiler: a whole bunch of Harry King's toughs]] the other contains [[spoiler: Cheery Littlebottom and several well-armed dwarf Watch officers]]. Both groups regret it almost immediately

* PointyHairedBoss: A small business asks for a way to operate two trains on a single track safely, Simnel's crew provides a token system that prevents the train from going if there's no token. Naturally, someone in middle management thinks to improve on this by putting in another token, which results in a railway accident.

* ContinuityDrift: In ''Literature/GoingPostal'', Adora Belle displays no particular knowledge or interest in how the Clacks work (at least when she's around POV character Moist.) Now she's an enthusiast who has been up in the towers since infancy. Oddly, the scene which creates this drift is completely extraneous to the plot. She ''did'' have this trait in the Creator/Sky1 adaptation, though.

** Note that the marriage in question could also be allegorical of a same-sex relationship, what with the consensus in the community that it doesn't matter if they can't have children since they love each other and can always adopt.

* RetCon: Diamond trolls are supposed to be extremely rare, so much so that even most Trolls consider them myths, and non-trolls don't have any knowledge of them, with Mr Shine having to travel everywhere in disguise in ''Literature/{{Thud}}'', but Thunderbolt is a diamond troll and a long-standing and highly visible member of the Lawyers' Guild. [[UnusuallyUninterestingSight His uniqueness goes largely unremarked upon.]]

* SquareRaceRoundClass: Discussed. Just because Golems and Trolls are the best at hard labor doesn't mean they're any more inclined to ''want'' those jobs than anyone else, and members of every race are establishing themselves in every field. Particularly, a troll hairdresser is mentioned, and a supporting character is Mr. Thunderbolt, a troll lawyer.

* AndTheAdventureContinues: The last (main continuity) Discworld novel ends on this note, rather than a GrandFinale. ''Raising Steam'' touches base with many of the Discworld's LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters, definitively blows apart MedievalStasis (which had been crumbling recently anyway), and looks to the future with an optimistic air.

* AdultFear: Harry King, a doting father and grandfather, has an understandable reaction to news of a near-accident involving two children listening to the rails for the sounds of the oncoming train.

* NayTheist: Simnel professes to not believe in magic, but follows up by wondering whether magic believes in [[spoiler: Iron Girder, subsequent to a saboteurs inexplicable death during an attempt to disable Iron Girder.]]

* AbortedArc: Apparently what's happened to the original plot for this book involving Moist taking over the Ankh-Morpork Tax Office, which was foreshadowed by the end of ''Literature/MakingMoney'' and the original working title of this book (see below). Also the Undertaking, a massive civic infrastructure upgrade including a subway system which drove the last Moist book, is nowhere mentioned.

Released on November 7th, 2013. The fortieth ''{{Literature/Discworld}}'' novel (following ''Literature/{{Snuff}}''), and the third in the Moist von Lipwig sequence (following ''Literature/MakingMoney''). The penultimate entry in the Discworld series, and last published in the author's lifetime, due to Terry Pratchett's AuthorExistenceFailure a year and a half later. Followed by ''Literature/TheShepherdsCrown'', published posthumously.

* EndOfAnAge / DawnOfAnEra: Considering the sheer number of continuity nods and call backs, as well as the wrapping up of several storylines (one spanning over the course of 5+ novels) this could be seen as the end of an era of the medieval disc and the start of the modern disc. On a more somber note, this is the last book published during Terry Pratchett's [[AuthorExistenceFailure lifetime]], and the last but one (posthumously published) Discworld book, as his daughter has stated she will not be continuing the series (rather, she will act as guardian of her father's legacy).

* {{Foil}}: Dick to Leonard of Quirm; the latter is a dreamer, while the former is a realist. Though Leonard is likely smarter than Dick by a long shot (Vetinari even mentions Leonard had already figured out how to make a steam engine), Dick is far more focused then Leonard, which lets him develop his ideas far further than Leonard would. Moreover, Leonard is hopelessly naive in the ways of the world (which is part of the reason why he's locked up), whereas Dick turns out to be intuitively savvy when it comes to knowing whom to trust.

** Nobby still has his goblin girlfriend, Shine of the Rainbow, from ''Literature/{{Snuff}}''. People think she's throwing herself away on him. ''Goblins'' think ''he's'' throwing ''himself'' away on ''her''.

** Nobby still has his goblin girlfriend, Shine of the Rainbow, from ''Literature/{{Snuff}}''. People think she's throwing herself away on him.

** When entrepreneurs start making model railways, Sir Harry is delighted to be immortalised as the controller, but his wife complains that the model [[WesternAnimation/ThomasTheTankEngine is too fat]].

** In fairness, Koom Valley was several years ago by this point, and several precious mineral trolls have been mentioned, including the viceroy of the king who is made of BLACK diamond, which is several times much rarer that clear.