getting a bit tired? (The Fifth Elephant - Terry Pratchett)

Member Name: indigo

Product:	The Fifth Elephant - Terry Pratchett
Date:	16/02/01 (25 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: more discworld if you've run out of books

Disadvantages: formulaic and uninspired

First off, I have to admit that i have read every single book Terry Pratchett has ever written. This does not necessarily meant that he's a good writer - I have a lot of spare time and I can read a thickish book in a night. However, some Discworld novels (especially Pyramids, Carpe Jugulum and Men at Arms are faves at the moment) are definitely better than others. Inventive, funny, well written, absorbing, mad footnotes that go off on impressive tangents and genuine characters. Other books seem to take themselves too seriously, and the dull humour is interrupted by jarringly repetitive cliched takes on society that you will have read in a Pratchett book before, or parodies that are as subtle as a brick through a window.

Unfortunately, the Fifth Elephant is one such book. It centres around Vimes, one of the worthier (and therefore duller) characters, who is utterly predictable in his "defiance of authority", "monosyllabic conversations with Vetinari" and "tolerance of a loving but rich wife that he hardly understands". If you have read any of the Watch books (Men at Arms, Guards Guards, Jingo or Feet of Clay) before, there is nothing new. The werewolves are not treated nearly as inventively as vampires were in Carpe Jugulum, and this book came as a real disappointment after reading that. I think that if this was the first Discworld novel I had read, and not the 23rd or 24th, I may have tolerated the lumpen cliches better, but I probably would not have bothered to finish the book.

About the only new ideas are the introduction of a new setting (a cross between Iceland and Russia, with an obvious and unfunny reference to various Russian plays at one point) and some bits of new technology like telegraphs. In all, a very disappointing book, that is too formulaic and dull, and just not funny enough. In fact, it put me off going straight out and buying the new Discworld as I would normally do.

Summary: