Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Pratchett turns out another master work, 28 Oct 2004
I've been reading the Discworld novels since about 1989, and I believe that Going Postal is the 33rd book in the series - and honestly there hasn't been a bad book in the lot, and in many ways Terry Pratchett improves as a writer with every book he releases. GOING POSTAL is in some ways a throw-back to his earlier books, being the first book for quite a while that's divided into chapters, and with more of the hilarious footnotes that were a favourite feature of his earlier books. However, it still maintains the deeper characterisation and depth of his more recent works, and the very strong story-telling. Pratchett's great gift is using his fantasy world to make wry satirical observations about our everyday world, and the nature of human existence and weakness - without being at all heavy going to read. A true British institution, and I look forward to many more Discworld books :)
|
|
|
20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Pratchett at his best, 30 Nov 2004
I love Terry Pratchett books, I really really do. They're brilliant. Pure, unadulterated genius.This book follows the story of a con artist as he tries, with the flair of a natural showman, to get the Ankh-Morpork post office up and running against the competition: the clacks, semaphore towers which can send a message across country and next to no time, but are run by a bunch of money grabbers who don't care about the clacks themselves, only what the towers can do for them. Old favourite discworld characters make small appearances. Vimes is seen, but not heard. Carrot and Angua pop in briefly for a chat, Colon loiters outside a building, the librarian is seen in the background. But the patrician....ahh...gotta love that man. Many of Ankh-Morpork's inhabitants seem to forget that he is actually a tyrant, and therefore doesn't have to justify himself to anyone. And there are the golems, and they always make me smile. You've got the fantastic clash between the bad guy and the bad guy. The bad guy who really is a good guy, just not interested in honest work, and the bad guy who appears to do honest work, but really is a bad guy.
|
|
|
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
People skills..., 28 Nov 2004
To be a non-violent successful conman, people skills may be the greatest asset. But will they be enough of a talent to succeed in reviving the moribund postal service of Ankh Morpork? Moist von Lipwig, aka. Albert Spangler, had run out of luck in his "business" and was sentenced to death. And Albert died. Moist, however, was transported to the palace of Lord Vetinari, the city's powerful ruler. There, he was given a second chance at life in the form of a job with a few strings attached: Get the ancient postal service working again! Given the decades of accumulated mail filling the Post office and a rather dubious collection of helpers, this task seems almost insurmountable.
To add to his problems, the postal services have been replaced by an ingenious new communication system, based on semaphores and "clacks towers", a Discworld version of the Internet. The Grand Trunk Company, created by some shady characters to take over the message sending system, has started to suffer from monopoly symptoms. The Lord is not amused! Responding to his investors' jitters, company director, Reacher Gilt, has been applying several time-proven capitalist schemes... ever so costly, and not only for the consumers. If these fail, he is prone to rely less on people skills than force, usually indirectly. It becomes quickly apparent that Gilt and Moist, competitors at some level, are bound to get into some form of dispute over the postal services... As Moist delves deeper into the intricacies of the Post Office and unearths its many secrets, his resolve becomes difficult to shake. To find out how the two protagonists match up in their battles, you have to read the book.You can find pearls of wisdom on the human condition or satirical comment on the business affairs of our "round" world. Pratchett has outdone himself in wit and satire with this tale. Terry Pratchett's imagination knows few limits. At the same time, there is a gentle touch and his characters are very much alive. A great advantage for newcomers to the series, you can jump right in as the main characters are new. Old-timer Lord Vetinari, the benevolent, self-declared tyrant, comes into his own and in a new way. Enjoy it! If you have not done so already, you will want to read more books in the series. [Friederike Knabe]
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
Show more editions and formats
Show fewer editions and formats
by Terry Pratchett
by Terry Pratchett
by Terry Pratchett
by Terry Pratchett
by Terry Pratchett
See all Product Description
With an Amazon.co.uk Gift Certificate, you can get them what they want (even if you don't know what that is). 
Amazon Home