While the ploy works, it is touch-and-go for a minute or two--the New Firm's employers neglects to tell Mr. Pin and Mr. Tulip that Vetinari "moves like a snake" and has been trained at the Assassins' Guild. They improvise, stabbing Vetinari's clerk, Drumknott, and pushing their Vetinari look-a-like into the hallway to "confess".

As is often the case with Pratchett, the novel is stuffed with quotable materials. Below are a few quotes I couldn't resist. Prvobitno sam dala knjizi 3 zvezdice, jer jednostavno nije na humorističkom nivou starijih Pračetovih knjiga. Pogrešila sam, jer Pračet, kao i svaki pisac, ima pravo da evoluira; u ovom slučaju krećemo se od specifičnog teripračetovskog humora ka satiri. Ka kritikama modernog društva, sa osvrtima na politička, sociološka i ina događanja.

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Similar qualms on Terry’s part affected the price paid up front for Good Omens, his 1990 collaboration with Neil Gaiman. During 1985, Neil had shown Terry a file containing 5,282 words exploring a scenario in which Richmal Crompton’s William Brown had somehow become the Antichrist. Terry loved it, and the concept stayed in his mind. A couple of years later, he rang Neil to ask him if he had done any more work on it. Neil, who had been spending that time thinking about his series The Sandman, for DC Comics, said he hadn’t really given it another thought. Terry said: “Well, I know what happens next, so either you can sell me the idea or we can write it together.” Neil knew straight away which of those options he preferred. As he said: “It was like Michelangelo ringing up and saying, ‘Do you fancy doing a ceiling?’” And then there's that matter of William and his staff Plot, Many Big Spoilers Ahoy!! The New Firm comes to Ankh-Morpork, entering the city through the Water Gate (setting up multiple allusions to the Nixon Watergate Scandal, Deep Throat (Deep Bone / Wuffles the dog) and taped recordings (the Dis-Organizer files). The New Firm is comprised of Mr. Pin and Mr. Tulip, a duo of criminals hired by the 'Committee to Unelect the Patrician'. Pin and Tulip kidnap a Vetinari-doppelgänger named Charlie, planning to use him to frame Vetinari. However, their original plan goes awry and they are forced to improvise. Soon, Vetinari is arrested, an investigation opens, and new revelations are revealed through the talking dog Wuffles /Deep Bone (we first met Wuffle's translator, Gaspode, in Men at Arms). With the City Watch, Gaspode, and The Times following the leads, the New Firm and The Committee is found out out eventually (especially by the heroic efforts of William the editor and Otto the vampire with "dark light" iconography). The Committee to Un-elect the Patrician is a clear parody of the Committee to Re-Elect the President, although Vetinari is not elected In Dec. of 2007, Pratchett disclosed that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. On 18 Feb, 2009, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.

People like to be told what they already know. Remember that. They get uncomfortable when you tell them new things. New things…well, new things aren’t what they expect. They like to know that, say, a dog will bite a man. That is what dogs do. They don’t want to know that a man bites a dog, because the world is not supposed to happen like that. In short, what people think they want is news, but what they really crave is olds" This, the 25th Discworld book, is a perfect entry point for new Disc-curious readers. It is largely self-contained, with brilliant brand new characters in one-time starring roles. It explores themes of truthiness, public opinion, justice, the role of the media and how it interacts with government and law enforcement, and racial prejudice. It gives us the Disc's best vampire character to date (NB: not shiny). I don't know that I can pin down quite what makes it the best series book to date, other than its fabulous pacing, interaction of characters new and old, and topical material. Vetinari: "Oh, I do hope not. Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny. Free men pull in all kinds of directions.”was the view of Mr. Carney of the Guild of Engravers,' spelled with an e before the y," said William, "'who earlier today tried to put the Times out of business by means of an illegal document.'" William realized that, although his mouth felt full of acid, he was enjoying this immensely. "Asked for his opinion of this flagrant abuse of the city laws, Mr. Slant said . . .'?" William de Worde thinks to himself, "You've got to move with the Times" (capitalized as a reference to both time and his newspaper. We've always looked beyond the walls for the invaders,' he said. 'We always thought change came from outside, usually on the point of a sword. And then we look around and find that it comes from the inside of the head of someone you wouldn't notice in the street. In certain circumstances it may be convenient to remove the head, but there seem to be such a lot of them these days.' Realising that the job is much harder than their employers had initially suggested, the New Firm decides to skip town. Meanwhile, a conspiracy is afoot in the city to depose the Patrician, Lord Vetinari. The wealthy and powerful (but anonymous) Committee to Unelect the Patrician hire Mr. Pin and Mr.

Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique: Lord de Worde was never wrong. It was not a position he understood in relation to his personal geography. People who took an opposing view were insane, or dangerous, or possibly even not really people. [...]After Terry was diagnosed with Posterior Cortical Atrophy, a rare form of Alzheimer’s disease, in 2007, at the cruelly early age of 59, I began to accompany him at public appearances, reading for him when he no longer could, helping him through interviews on stage as “keeper of the anecdote”. We became, of necessity, a sort of double act. This is a very important book as it represents a turning point in the Discworld series in more ways than one. William de Worde had sent a periodical newsletter to influential people all over the Discworld for some time, employing wood engravers to set the words to paper. But when industrious movable type setter dwarf Goodmountain and crew provide an inexpensive and efficient way to mass produce the letter on a daily basis, the Ankh-Morpork Times is born.

I think I liked this least out of all Discworld novels read so far, maybe because it introduces completely new characters (after just getting attached to the old ones), or maybe because it attempts to poke fun at the media/news system, from an outsider perspective of someone justifiably fed up or frustrated with the inconsistencies promoted by journalists.Together, William and the dwarves publish the ‘The Ankh-Morpork Times’, ushering in a new episode of the Industrial Revolution on Discworld. The birth of the fourth estate will make a lot of people ‘fret’ before they correct the spelling to ‘free’, giving us, the readers, one of the funniest adventures in the whole series while on the sidelines we get to debate the nature of truth, of the public as consumers of news and of power hungry little tyrants who dream of hitching this powerful force to their chariots. It’s a big news week: the most powerful man in the city has been arrested, leaving Ankh-Morpork without a leader. And a dangerous criminal organisation will do anything to control the story…