I enjoyed Thud a lot, though I'm naturally inclined towards any of the Watch books. The murder this time almost seemed to be designed by Agatha Christie: the actual murder was in a group fight; the reported murder was only a set up.

If I was going to sum up this book, I would say it is about different groups or "people" who are forced to look beyond the externals or geneneralizations that they have made about other groups in their world. While they are using their generalizations, things like bigotry, prejudice, and even war are accepted.

This is a common theme in his books, for me. (Jingo, Carpe Jugulum, Men at Arms, Monstrous Regiment) He presents us with a character with predetermined characteristics, and then he begins to show the inner person. Paradigms are shaken and prejudices have to be re-examined. In Thud we've got the obvious ongoing conflict between the trolls and dwarfs, which has been fueled by faulty worldviews on both sides. Interestingly, when young trolls and dwarfs play Thud, and begin to try to think like the other guys, a lot of their assumptions about each other profoundly change.

The subplot involving Angua and Sally, and then also Tawnee and Cheery, was still about understanding and communication coming only after people have looked at the inner person. The girls make a lot of assumptions about Tawnee and then have to rethink their beliefs when they discover how she has been viewing herself and the world around her.

Granted, Sally does come across as rather colorless, but maybe this is because she is always having to keep a tight rein on herself. In some ways she reminds me of the vampire in Monstrous Regiment from that standpoint. I would like to see her developed more three dimensionally.

Angua, for me, has always had these inner struggles going on, including her relationship with Carrot. I'm in the process of rereading the Watch series for the umpteenth time, so I'll keep my eye out for specifics as I read.

Her reaction to Sally, as a vampire, wasn't too surprising, since the feud between vampires and werewolves is pretty longstanding. Her feelings were really heightened by the female thing, though. I finally decided that part of her problem was "hormonal" since it was definitely the wrong time of the month for her! Maybe this also accounts for her reaction at the idea of a S.H.O.W.E.R. She never seemed to mind getting clean before, and her reaction was similar to her family's response to a B.A.T.H. in Fifth Elephant. Maybe during a full moon, she's feeling a lot more possessive of Carrot, too.

Interesting idea about the connection between Where's My Cow and the other traditional stories. I probably should read the book again, keeping that idea in mind. By the way, has anyone seen a copy of Where's My Cow yet?
Edit: I just saw TheJackals comments on Where's My Cow in the Boardania section! Fast answer to my question!

Hm, okay, seen in that light, the "Girls night out" fits somewhat better in the overall plot... Still, it had a different... flavour than the rest of the book.

Another point I'd like to hear your opinions on: I think PTerry did a fantastic job showing how followers of the same belief could come out as different as Ardent and Bashful, and under which circumstances.
And... did the description of how the orthodox dwarfs dress remind only me of some kind of Disc Ayatollahs?
The "recruitment" mechanisms of the orthodox dwafs was interesting, too.
And the twist at the end, the revealing of what Koom Valley had meant to be once... yes, that was... ... ... *sobs*

Just finished it. Highly impressed.

There were some really funny bits, but a bit sparse...

I did like the fact that Vimes finally embraces technomancy (Gooseberry, Bluenose LOL), although he'll be known as "Insert name here" for a LONG time. This is another example of keeping an open mind...

I rushed the reading a bit, so I'm going to reread it next week when I have more time, try and get some of the subtleties.

Tephlon, there have been days when I have felt a bit like "insert name here", like Sam! If I only knew, my computer has been feeling put upon at times, too.

I noticed that resemblance to ayatollahs in Fifth Elephant, too, though it was more pronounced in Thud. The idea that anyone who is not a dwarf, is just a "bad dream" fits the comparison, too. In one of the interviews, Terry said that the book was already written when bombings in England occurred, and it was all a coincidence. I believe him, since he's been coming at some of these ideas from different directions for years.

I was thinking about some of the charateristics we see in the orthodox dwarf religion. Any religion can take a major wrong turn when those characteristics take hold. Declare everyone else as evil, and be sure to not interact with them (or you may find out what they are really like!). Don't think, doubt, or worse yet, ask questions! "Recruit" using any means possible, and the ends justify the means.

So again, we run into the whole discussion of religion versus faith! (I know, it's one of my favorite topics! ) My family and I were discussing how this book is a good one to use as a warning to us Christians, too. We're to live by faith, not by religion!

Just wanted to say my favourite bit of this book was the Watch stopping traffic (closing two of the busiest roads, in fact) for Vimes' race home for the six o'clock story. With two young children of my own, I'd very much like a man who'd do that!

Definitely a new favourite of mine, as all the City Watch books continue to be.

As said, same here...
And yes, child related traffic privileges would be nice from time to time...

By the way, Janible, I also noticed the S.H.O.W.E.R.-thing... I do have to reread the older Watch books in the near future, but I kept asking myself - wasn't that one of the reasons she left her family, because she didn't fit quite that well into those clichés?

I'll post more on this later, but here's one thing for now re the S.H.O.W.E.R. thing. Being around vampires brings out the werewolf in Angua far more strongly than usual. Being around a full moon brings out the werewolf in Angua much more strongly than usual. Despite her best efforts, being around a vampire at full moon made a lot of werewolfy things about Angua far more prominent and less controllable than they would normally be. So no wonder she had an unusually bad reaction to the notion of a shower. But, she still got in - which is why she's still the Angua we know.

Ba found the parallels somewhat interesting. Did anyone else notice this?

I didn't but it is very interesting that he used the exact same words.

I was thinking about how technomancy might improve stuff in A-M, with Vimes positive reaction to the imp's calculation abilities, and how a Hex-like machine might fit in that.

A crimelab with a computer... I think Cherry might be very interested in having an imp rebuild the crimescene in scale or something like that. CSI: Ankh-Morpork here we come.

Heh... Ba, where did your first example come from? It's familiar, but I don't remember what book I saw it in!

The first quote is from Hogfather.

Thud, it wasn't the greates book of Discworld that I've read by a long shot. It completely failed to hook me in the way that almost every other book has.

It wasn't the lack of humour, the last three books equalled it in that regard, but they kept me interested, I was forever wondering what was going to happen next. In Thud, I didn't really care. I never really understood what was so mysterious about it all.

The deep-down dwarves were bad, that was communicated from practically the first paragraph. At the end, they were still bad. I've never seen a set of characters portrayed so one-dimensionally.

Sally was also crap. She seemed to be there only to annoy Angua, when they found out she was actually a spy, it was swept aside in a sentence, what was the point of it?

I did like the scene at the end where Vimes read the book to the cave, that was fantastic.

But overall, not great.

Few extra thoughts (I rushed the last post somewhat because of my time running out in the internet café.)

Thud was far too put-downable for me. Usually I'll have to force myself to put a Discworld book down. This time round it was too easy to do so.

The technomancy... was a a half decent joke for the first reference to Gooseberry, but then Terry overdid it somewhat with his 634 subtle takes on actual product names and the joke became somewhat flat.

As for the following dark... that seemed far too similat to Vimes' struggle with "the Beast". It can rile him up and protect him, but he can control it from going too far. It didn't seem like a new idea, unless Terry was suggesting that the beast was always the following dark. In which case, Vimes is going to be a much reduced character from now on.

Sadly, I have to agree with Ben.

It was good, but.. I dunno. It was lacking something. I agree with pretty much everything he said about it really.

I'll need to give it a reread and see if it's any better second time round.

Also: DAMN IGORS!!!