Just reiterating the known info about Thud!, which I got from here.


Thud!

Date due: 1 October 2005

Series: Adult Discworld novel / City Watch

Details: An old-fashioned murder mystery with political overtones.

The first line will be: "Thud! That was the noise the body made when it hit the ground."

It stars the City Watch, particularly Vimes, and takes place in Ankh-Morpork while a civil war is going on between the dwarfs and the trolls and barricades are going up around the city.

Vimes' life is being made difficult by a government inspector looking into the Watch's efficiency. The inspector keeps sending Vimes memos along the lines of: there were two policemen in Sator Square all morning but no crimes were committed there - what, then, was their purpose? Vimes eventually drags him out onto the streets for a taste of real policing.

Lady Sybil is worrying about Vimes' health and trying to make him eat several portions of fruit and vegetables a day. In one scene, she makes a constable promise to make the Commander eat the apple she gives him, much to the constable's discomfort.

It features a scene where the Patrician persuades Vimes to hire a female vampire as a Watch officer. The vampire is 51 years old but looks about 16.

Vimes is trying to get home on time every evening to read Where's My Cow to his young son. He puts an Ankh-Morpork twist on the story by including as characters some of the people he has met during his day:
Where's my cow?
Is that my cow?
It goes 'Buggerem! Millennium hand and shrimp!'
That is not my cow. That is Foul Ole Ron.

Nobby gets a pole dancer girlfriend called Tawny - very classy, even has her own pole - whose physique is best described by saying that when Nobby stands in front of her, he's sheltered from the rain. She was once Miss May and two weeks in June. Their eyes meet when Nobby slips an IOU into her garter.

New information added 1 May 2005:

The female vampire's name is Sally. One scene involves her, Cheery and Angua having a girls' night out in a bar. Cheery, still shaky on a few fundamentals, keeps ordering Screaming Orgasms in the hope that one of them will work.

Sally is apparently able to transform herself into several bats - presumably at the same time, since killing off one of the bats is described as a quick and easy weight-loss system.

Also appearing in the book will be a hideous-sweater-wearing reformed vampire who obsessively overpronounces the letter W when he speaks, and a stoned urban troll named Brick who has had too many Worst Nightmares, a kind of trollish cocktail containing Slab.

One scene in the book will describe a stand-off between Chrysoprase, Vimes and Detritus in the Pork Futures Warehouse, complete with Godfather-esque overtones.

Transworld summary: Koom Valley? That was where the trolls ambushed the dwarves, or the dwarves ambushed the trolls. It was far away. It was a long time ago. But if he doesn't solve the murder of just one dwarf, Commander Sam Vimes of Ankh-Morpork City Watch is going to see the battle fought again, right outside his office.

With his beloved Watch crumbling around him and war-drums sounding, he must unravel every clue, outwit every assassin and brave any darkness to find the solution. And darkness is following him.

Mrs G
The Garner who cares.

Seems to be out on pre-release in the USA (or someone at Amazon is breaking a press embargo!), as there is a kind of review of the book by "Publisher's Weekly"

Looks like it goes on sale earlier there too!

Anyway, read for yourselves (and admire the cover art ?? ) here

Cheers, Sarge!

Mrs G
The Garner who cares.

Did everyone get the excerpt from Thud from author tracker?

(If not, I'll be happy to post it)

Yup, got it in my inbox yesterday :o

I was enjoying it, and am sad that I didn't get to read more :(

But I will be waiting until my UK version arrives, though something tells me I will crack and go buy a US version anyway, since my Dad wants to read it too.

I am also feeling like Unhappy Bob because pTerry is going to be signing books in Denver in two weeks, and I'm too far away to go. :(

"Because purple spiders are napping on the moon, that's why!"

I haven't seen it, Hermes.

Mrs G
The Garner who cares.

Vimes rocks. I love the Watch! I want to get Thud! really badly.

Cool, I've just read the last 4, just in time for the new ones..

Since when has the-man-with-the-stupid-hat released books in USA first ?

Any dates for UK booksignings ? (in the north especially)

~BoB~

Jackal posted a list here.

Mrs G
The Garner who cares.

Ah, Thanks

~BoB~

The books have been out here for a while. A friend of mine told me about them and told me I had to read them. I went to the public library...and got a LOT of books. Okay, fine, they only had eight, but that's completely beside the point. I just read Jingo. I read all the watch books out of order. First Men at Arms, then The Fifth Elephant, then Guards, Guards! and Men at Arms. Gah. I really, really want Thud!

The books have been out here for longer, Mimiru! But Thud! hasn't been released anywhere yet.

Mrs G
The Garner who cares.

Are we ever going to get to see this? :(

Mrs G
The Garner who cares.

Pretty please? :(

Very sorry for the delay... Completely forgot about this thread, then my host decided to lock my account (Including e-mail!) So I searched and found it online, but unfortunately it's missing a little at the end:



Chapter One

Thud ... that was the sound the heavy club made as it connected with the head. The body jerked, and slumped back.

And it was done, unheard, unseen: the perfect end, a perfect solution, a perfect story.

But, as the dwarfs say, where there is trouble you will always find a troll.

The troll saw.

It started out as a perfect day. It would soon enough be an imperfect one, he knew, but just for these few minutes, it was possible to pretend that it wouldn't.

Sam Vimes shaved himself. It was his daily act of defiance, a confirmation that he was ... well, plain Sam Vimes.

Admittedly, he shaved himself in a mansion, and while he did so his butler read out bits from the Times, but they were just ... circumstances. It was still Sam Vimes looking back at him from the mirror. The day he saw the duke of Ankh-Morpork in there would be a bad day. "Duke" was just a job description, that's all.

"Most of the news is about the current ... dwarfish situation, sir," said Willikins, as Vimes negotiated the tricky area under the nose. He still used his granddad's cutthroat razor. It was another anchor to reality. Besides, the steel was a lot better than the steel you got today. Sybil, who had a strange enthusiasm for modern gadgetry, kept on suggesting he get one of those new shavers, with a little magic imp inside that had its own scissors and did all the cutting very quickly, but Vimes had held out. If anyone was going to be using a blade near his face, it was going to be him.

"Koom Valley, Koom Valley," he muttered to his reflection. "Anything new?"

"Not as such, sir," said Willikins, turning back to the front page. "There is a report of that speech by Grag Hamcrusher. There was a disturbance afterwards, it says. Several dwarfs and trolls were wounded. Community leaders have appealed for calm."

Vimes shook some lather off the blade. "Hah! I bet they have. Tell me, Willikins, did you fight much when you were a kid? Were you in a gang or anything?"

"I was privileged to belong to the Shamlegger Street Rude Boys, sir," said the butler primly.

"Really?" said Vimes, genuinely impressed. "They were pretty tough nuts, as I recall."

"Thank you, sir," said Willikins smoothly. "I pride myself I used to give somewhat more than I got if we needed to discuss the vexed area of turf issues with the young men from Rope Street. Stevedore's hooks were their weapon of choice, as I recall."

"And yours ... ?" said Vimes, agog.

"A cap-brim sewn with sharpened pennies, sir. An ever-present help in times of trouble."

"Ye gods, man! You could put someone's eye out with something like that."

"With care, sir, yes."

And here you stand now, in your pinstripe trousers and butlering coat, shiny as schmaltz and fat as butter, Vimes thought, while he tidied up under the ears. And I'm a duke. How the world turns.

"And have you everheard someone say 'let's have a disturbance'?" he said.

"Never, sir," said Wilkins, picking up the paper again.

"Me neither. It only happens in newspapers." Vimes glanced at the bandage on his arm. It had been quite disturbing, even so.

"Did it mention I took personal charge?" he said.

"No, sir. But it does say here that rival factions in the street outside were kept apart by the valiant efforts of the Watch, sir."

"They actually used the word 'valiant'?" said Vimes.

"Indeed they did, sir."

"Well, good," Vimes conceded grumpily. "Do they record that two officers had to be taken to the Free Hospital, one of them quite badly hurt?"

"Unaccountably, not, sir," said the butler.

"Huh. Typical. Oh, well ... carry on."

Willikins coughed a butlery cough. "You might wish to lower the razor for the next one, sir. I got into trouble with her ladyship about last week's little nick."

Vimes watched his image sigh, and lowered the razor. "All right, Willikins. Tell me the worst."

Behind him, the paper was professionally rustled. "The headline on page three is: 'Vampire Officer For The Watch?,' sir," said the butler and took a careful step backwards.

"Damn! Who told them?"

"I really couldn't say, sir. It says you are not in favor of vampires in the Watch, but will be interviewing a recruit today. It says there is a lively controversy over the issue."

"Turn to page eight, will you?" said Vimes grimly. Behind him, the paper rustled again.

"Well?" he said. "That's where they usually put their silly political cartoon, isn't it?"

"You did put the razor down, did you, sir?" said Willikins.

"Yes!"

"Perhaps it would also be just as well if you stepped away from the washbasin, too, sir."

"There's one of me, isn't there ..." said Vimes grimly.

"Indeed there is, sir. It portrays a small, nervous vampire and, if I may say so, a rather larger-than-life drawing of yourself leaning over your desk, holding a wooden stake in your right hand. The caption is 'Any good on a stakeout, eh?,' sir, this being a humorous wordplay referring, on the one hand, to the standard police procedure -- "

"Yes, I think I can just about spot it," said Vimes wearily. "Any chance you could nip down and buy the original before Sybil does? Every time they run a cartoon of me, she gets hold of it and hangs it up in the library!"

"Mr., er, Fizz does capture a very good likeness, sir," the butler conceded. "And I regret to say that her ladyship has already instructed me to go down to the Timesoffice on herbehalf."

Vimes groaned.

"Moreover, sir," Willikins went on, "her ladyship desired me to remind you that she and Young Sam will meet at the studio of Sir Joshua at eleven sharp, sir. The painting is at an important stage, I gather."

"But I -- "

"She was very specific, sir. She said if a commander of police cannot take time off, who can?"


Edit: My host problem is also why my avatar is down.

Luckily, my local Borders may have a copy of Thud! Off I go!

Second edit: They did have one!