Raising Steam reviewed

Friday, 29th November , 2013

Review of Raising Steam in the Guardian. The new Discworld novel from Britain’s number one bestselling writer sees the Disc’s first train come steaming into town.

“Laugh-out-loud funny…A chuffing wonderful book.” (SFX)

“Terry Pratchett’s creation is still going strong after 30 years as Ankh-Morpork branches into the railway age…There are sly nods to the history of railways and a cheeky reference to The Railway Children. Most aficionados, however, will be on the look-out for in-jokes and references from previous novels – of which there is no shortage…It is at the level of the sentence that Pratchett wins his fans.” (The Times)

“The genius of Pratchett is that he never goes for the straight allegory. . .he remains one of the most consistently funny writers around; a master of the stealth simile, the time-delay pun and the deflationary three-part list. . .I could tell which of my fellow tube passengers had downloaded it to their e-readers by the bouts of spontaneous laughter.” (Ben Aaronovitch The Guardian)