The Turtle Moves! (19 page)

Some of the apprentice witches compete in the Witch Trials; we get a scene relatively early on where Annagramma and company are discussing what they'll do for their entries.

There are amusing consistencies, if that's the right term; Zakzak Stronginthearm's not-really-a-wizard assistant Brian, for example, attended Unseen University, but he didn't study magic there, he studied fretwork—and one of Rincewind's titles, as reported in
The Science of Discworld II
, is “Fretwork Teacher.”

And the theme of story is strong here. Granny explains to Tiffany that people need stories to tell them what to do, stories to believe. “Change the story, change the world,” she says. Tiffany finds an important clue to dealing with the hiver in remembering stories, specifically the story of the three wishes. (Exactly which story of three wishes doesn't really matter, since on some level they're all the same. Except maybe
Eric
.)

There's also stuff about evolution, which is obviously a topic that interests Mr. Pratchett, and which he'll tackle head-on in
The Science of Discworld III
, as seen in Chapter 43.

I consider this book one of Mr. Pratchett's best works; his knack for the telling phrase is well displayed here, as when he describes Tiffany's room in Miss Level's home: “It smelled of spare rooms and other people's soap.”

I was delighted to hear that two more books about Tiffany Aching were planned—and disappointed that it's only two.
I Shall Wear Midnight
, which takes its title from a line in
A Hat Full of Sky
, isn't out yet, as of this writing, but the third one,
Wintersmith
, is covered in Chapter 45.

First, though, it's back to Ankh-Morpork. . . .

T
HE MORIBUND ANKH-MORPORK POSTAL SERVICE was first mentioned in
Men at Arms
, way back in 1993, but it took more than a decade to bring us this tale of the unfortunately named Moist von Lipwig and his efforts to restore the post office to its proper functions.

To do this, of course, he must first survive being hanged. Lipwig is a con man, forger, thief, and swindler who fell afoul of Ankh-Morpork's unexpectedly effective City Watch.

Fortunately for him, Lord Vetinari sees to it that he
does
survive being hanged, and offers him a choice: take over as postmaster and restore the post office to functionality, or die. Not
much
of a choice, but technically, it's still a choice.

Lipwig' s a survivor. He takes the job, and after a few attempts at escape, gets caught up in the challenge. Public relations isn't really that different from fraud, and he's very good at fraud. . . .

There are several problems facing the post office. Its original collapse, decades earlier, was brought about by the use of a temporally complex mail-sorting machine designed by our old friend Bloody Stupid Johnson. The accumulated undelivered mail is responsible for other difficulties; just as the magical properties of books create L-space, all those words wanting to be read are causing distortions in time and space.

Most of all, though, the major clacks company, the Grand Trunk, sees the postal service as a competitor. The Grand Trunk has fallen into the hands of a group of unscrupulous businessmen led by one Reacher Gilt, whose cost-cutting measures have impaired the effectiveness
of the clacks service, leaving an opportunity that Lipwig's postmen leap at.

The clacks, while really just a semaphore system, serve as a Discworld parallel of the Internet, where tech-obsessed young clacksmen are so happy to be playing with hardware and coded data that they barely notice how they're being exploited by ruthless businessmen.

Reacher Gilt is the epitome of all that's bad in venture capitalism; he's taken over the Grand Trunk through financial maneuvers so complex that no actual money was involved. He's a pirate—and that's made explicit in his description. He is, in fact, Long John Silver, right down to his name. He has a bird, a pet cockatoo that says “Twelve and a half percent!” in imitation of Silver's parrot chanting “Pieces of eight!” (I'd have been happier if Mr. Pratchett hadn't felt it necessary to actually explain, in the story, that “Twelve and a half percent!” means “Pieces of eight!”
¹⁴¹
)

Moist von Lipwig recognizes Reacher Gilt as a swindler like himself, and one reason that he sets out to succeed in the job he's been forced to take on is to demonstrate that he's not the monster Gilt is. Lipwig employs golems, invents postage stamps,
¹⁴²
and does everything he can to move the mail and give the public a good show. Where Sam Vimes sees the newspaper as a dangerous nuisance, Lipwig sees it as a tool to be used and a battlefield to be won.

Incidentally, although Lord Vetinari is a major character in
Going Postal
, Sam Vimes doesn't appear at all. He's mentioned in passing, nothing more. We do see that Dr. Lawn's Lady Sybil Free Hospital, established at the end of
Night Watch
, is functioning nicely, and Lipwig does get interviewed by Captain Carrot at one point, but Vimes himself is kept out, probably to keep him from stealing the spotlight.

We are informed of the existence of Anoia, Goddess of Things That Stick in Drawers; we'll get to meet her in person in
Wintersmith
.

Ponder Stibbons appears and makes a punning reference to “phase space,” a concept explained in the previous
Science of Discworld
volumes. Archchancellor Ridcully has a significant role. And there's a small Tolkien tribute, of sorts, in a scene with an omniscope—that's a magical device not totally unlike a crystal ball, or Tolkien's
palantir
.

Oh, the title deserves comment. Every American I've ever spoken with knows what “going postal” means—going berserk, like the handful of postal workers in the 1980s and '90s who went on shooting sprees. In online discussions, though, it appeared that many British or Australian readers had never encountered the phrase until the publication of this novel, and really weren't clear on its derivation. That startled me, since as I've mentioned before, Mr. Pratchett is a very English writer, and clearly
he
knew the phrase, and thought it was familiar enough that his readers would get the joke.

One of the more interesting features of
Going Postal
is that it has chapters. Up until now, and excluding the four divisions of
The Colour of Magic
and the four books of
Pyramids
as really being something different, only the “Science of” books and the “young adult” novels featuring the Amazing Maurice and Tiffany Aching have had chapters. Oh, there have been prologues (
Going Postal
has two) and epilogues (there's one of those here, too), but not chapters.
Going Postal
has fourteen chapters, each of them headed by a list of the scenes to be found therein, in the manner of a nineteenth-century novel—for example, Chapter 1 opens as follows:

There's nothing like that in any of the previous Discworld novels.

Each chapter also features (at least in the editions I've seen) an illustration of an Ankh-Morpork postage stamp.
¹⁴³

And unlike the “young adult” novels,
Going Postal
acknowledges the old Discworld idea, much neglected in the later novels, that the number eight has magical significance and should therefore be avoided; the chapter between Chapter 7 and Chapter 9 is Chapter 7a.
¹⁴⁴

Also, I believe (though perhaps I just missed it earlier) that
Going Postal
is the first novel where the men of Ankh-Morpork wear neckties. The faux-medieval trappings of the early novels have given way to something far more modern—though not
exactly
modern, as women's fashions, we are informed, currently include bustles.

In an interview publicizing the Sky One adaptation of
Hogfather
, Mr. Pratchett explained that various aspects of Discworld tend to mirror whatever Roundworld era he thinks most suitable for that particular feature; apparently he sees the Post Office as late Victorian.
¹⁴⁵
At any rate, it's plain that we've long ago left behind the generic faux-medieval setting of traditional fantasy novels.

All in all,
Going Postal
is a bit of a change—and the beginning of a new sub-series featuring Mr. Lipwig, as Moist von Lipwig is also the protagonist of the latest novel,
Making Money
, wherein Lipwig takes over Ankh-Morpork's Royal Mint.
¹⁴⁶
Moist von Lipwig seems to make a habit of taking things over, and has apparently taken over the “Beyond the Century of the Fruitbat” series, as well.

Making Money
has chapters, like
Going Postal
, but
Thud!
, as described in Chapter 44, does not.

The board game of Thud is introduced in
Going Postal
, as it happens—Lord Vetinari is playing a game by clacks. Thud involves a battle between dwarfs and trolls. Again, Mr. Pratchett is hinting at things to come.

But first we have a short story, and then another book with chapters, lots of them, as the Science of Discworld series reaches its third volume.

I
T COULD BE ARGUED that this isn't really a short story at all, but it looks like one to me, so I'm including it. “A Collegiate Casting-Out of Devilish Devices” first appeared in the
Times
Higher Education Supplement for May 13, 2005; that was well after the publication of
Once More* with Footnotes
, which is why it isn't included therein.

It's an account of a faculty meeting at Unseen University where the wizards deal, in their usual fashion, with certain suggestions from the Patrician' s representative, A.E. Pessimal. Readers will see more of Mr. Pessimal in
Thud!
, when he's assigned to review the operation of the Watch, but here he's been sent to see if he can improve the University.

The wizards don't think the University needs improvement, but it doesn't do to simply ignore the Patrician, so they give Mr. Pessimal's questions some attention.

Like many of the scenes at Unseen University, it's a parody of academia, and a good one. It stands on its own as such, but definitely ties into the series as a whole—besides Mr. Pessimal, there are references to Braseneck College, which was introduced in
The Last Continent
.

It's a shame it isn't more widely available.

O
NE MORE TIME, THE WIZARDS of Unseen University descend upon Roundworld to prevent the eventual extinction of the human species. This time an outside force has been tampering with Charles Darwin's history. Instead of writing
Origin of Species
, he's written
Theology of Species
, which results in a more peaceful twentieth century—and slower scientific and technological progress, leading to disaster.

This is really quite a clever idea, and depends on a good understanding of Darwin's life and background. He was brought up in the Church of England and took it seriously, and almost certainly would have preferred to find a theological explanation for the diversity of life he observed, but instead reported honestly what he saw, and what he concluded from that.

In
Darwin's Watch
, something, it would seem, has prevented this.

The cause of the tampering is less obvious this time than was the interference by elves in
The Science of Discworld II
, and is not discovered until halfway through the story, so I'll only name it in a footnote,
¹⁴⁷
so those of you who prefer not to be told can avoid it.

It's the footnote to this paragraph.
¹⁴⁸

There.

Now, moving on, the science in the even-numbered chapters in this volume, unsurprisingly, includes a great deal about evolution, but not merely Darwinian natural selection; it also discusses social evolution and technological evolution, how particular social situations led to certain results. Sociology and history can be considered science, right? There's a good bit about how and why nineteenth-century Britain saw such a tremendous surge of development, compared to most of the rest of the world.

But since you're reading about it here, I assume you're more interested in the Discworld elements, rather than the science.

In the previous
Science
volumes, Rincewind was more or less the hero; in this one it's really an ensemble effort, with Ponder Stibbons taking the lead more than Rincewind. Oh, Rincewind (who has now accumulated a total of nineteen posts on the UU faculty, rather than the mere seven he had in
The Science of Discworld II
) is certainly present and active, but it's Stibbons, Hex, and Archchancellor Ridcully who take charge of dealing with the situation.

They (and we) learn a great deal about the life of Charles Darwin, and about just how unlikely it was that
Origin of Species
actually got written.

Charles Darwin, incidentally, learns far more than he wanted to about the Discworld when the wizards transport him there briefly. His stay includes a visit to the God of Evolution, whom we first met in
The Last Continent
. Fortunately for his sanity and our history, Darwin's memory of this is magically removed before he's returned to his own world, where he does indeed write
Origin of Species
.