The Fifth Elephant (Discworld Novels) [Hardcover]

Terry Pratchett has a seemingly endless capacity for generating inventively comic novels about the Discworld and its inhabitants but there is in the hearts of most of his admirers a particular place for those novels which feature the hard-bitten captain of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch Samuel Vimes. Sent as ambassador to the Northern principality of Uberwald where they mine gold, and iron and fat, but never silver, he is caught up in an uneasy truce between dwarfs, werewolves and vampires, in the theft of the Scone of Stone (a particularly important piece of dwarf bread) and in the old werewolf custom of giving humans a short start in the hunt and then cheating...

Pratchett is always at his best when the comedy is mixed with a real sense of jeopardy that even favourite characters might be hurt if there was a good joke in it. As always the most unlikely things crop up as the subjects of gags--Chekhov, grand opera, the Caine Mutiny--and as always there are remorselessly funny gags about the inevitability of story:

"They say that the fifth elephant came screaming and trumpeting through the atmosphere of the young world all those years ago and landed hard enough to split continents and raise mountains.

No one actually saw it land, which raised the interesting philosophical question: when millions of tons of angry elephant come spinning through the sky, and there is no one to hear it, does it--philosophically speaking--make a noise?

As for the dwarfs, whose legend it is, and who mine a lot deeper than other people, they say that there is a grain of truth in it".

All this, the usual guest appearances and Gaspode the Wonder Dog... -- Roz Kaveney

" 'Precisely balanced...excellent set pieces...a cracking comic thriller' - The Times. 'He would be amusing in any form and his spectacular inventiveness makes the Discworld series one of the perennial joys of modern fiction' - Mail on Sunday" --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

A Discworld novel of dwarfs, diplomacy, intrigue and big lumps of fat.

Sam Vimes is a man on the run.

Yesterday he was a duke, a chief of police and the ambassador to the mysterious, fat-rich country of Uberwald.

Now he has nothing but his native wit and the gloomy trousers of Uncle Vanya (don’t ask). It’s snowing. It’s freezing. And if he can’t make it through the forest to civilization there’s going to be a terrible war.

But there are monsters on his trail. They’re bright. They’re fast. They’re werewolves - and they’re catching up. Sam Vimes is out of time, out of luck and already out of breath . . .

Terry Pratchett has sold over 17 million books, and his work has been translated into 27 languages. The Fifth Elephant is the 24th book in the bestselling Discworld series.

Sam Vimes is a man on the run. Yesterday he was a duke, a chief of police and the ambassador to the mysterious fat-rich country of Uberwald. Now he has nothing but his native wit and the gloomy trousers of Uncle Vanya (don't ask). It's snowing. It's freezing. And if he can't make it through the forest to civilisation there's going to be a terrible war. But there are monsters on his trail. They're bright. They're fast. They're werewolves--and they're catching up. Sam Vimes is out of time, out of luck, and already out of breath...

About the Author
Terry Pratchett has been writing the Discworld novels since 1983. His first novel was published when he was 20, and he continued to write in his spare time whilst working as a journalist for a local newspaper. In his thirties he left journalism to become a press officer for Central Electricity Generating Board. He now writes full-time and is Britain's best-selling novelist, with a fanatical following.

Praise for Terry Pratchett
"Like reading Tolkien but with gags" --Guardian

"Has the energy of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the inventiveness of Alice in Wonderland ... an intelligent wit and a truly grim and comic grasp of the nature of things" --AS Byatt, Sunday Times

"It's hard to think of any humorist writing in Britain today who can match him" --Time Out

"The most breathtaking display of comic invention since PG Wodehouse" --The Times

"If Terry Pratchett were a character from one of his novels, he would be a wizard with a special qualification in alchemy, for everything he touches turns to gold" --The Guardian

"With their humour, terrors and strange and unnerving philosophical reflections on space and time, Pratchett's novels are that paradoxical phenomenon--cult writings that are relished by millions" --Gerald Kaufman, The Express

SAM VIMES IS A MAN ON THE RUN. YESTERDAY HE WAS A DUKE, A CHIEF OF POLICE AND THE AMBASSADOR TO THE MYSTERIOUS FAT-RICH COUNTRY OF UBERWALD.

Now he has nothing but his native wit and the gloomy trousers of Uncle Vanya (don't ask). It's snowing. It's freezing. And if he can't make it through the forest to civilization there's going to be a terrible war.

But there are monsters on his trail. They're bright. They're fast. They're werewolves - and they're catching up.

The Fifth Elephant is Terry Pratchett's latest installment in the Discworld cycle, this time starring dwarfs, diplomacy, intrigue and big lumps of fat.

Terry Pratchett is one of the most popular authors writing today. He lives behind a keyboard in Wiltshire and says he 'doesn't want to get a life, because it feels as though he's trying to lead three already'. He was appointed OBE in 1998. He is the author of the phenomenally successful Discworld series and his trilogy for young readers, The Bromeliad, is scheduled to be adapted into a spectacular animated movie. His first Discworld novel for children, THE AMAZING MAURICE AND HIS EDUCATED RODENTS, was awarded the 2001 Carnegie Medal.