Raising Steam – Paul Kidby Paperback – Letterbox Edition

The world lives between those who say it cannot be done and those who say that it can. It is just a matter of thinking creatively.

In a shed in Sto Lat, young Dick Simnel puts fire, water and cleverness into one machine and names her Iron Girder. She moves. Crowds come. Lord Vetinari decides that something this large and loud cannot be left to enthusiasts. Moist von Lipwig already runs the Post Office, the Bank and the Mint. He does not want a railway. He gets one anyway.

Track has to go somewhere. Somewhere is always someone else’s garden. The Low King needs a line to Uberwald before the grags pull dwarf society backwards. Goblins, once kicked, turn out to be born engineers. Harry King smells money. Adora Belle smells trouble. Moist does what he always does: sell the miracle, then keep it from killing anyone, including himself. Steam does not care about politics. Politics cares a great deal about steam.

First published in 2013, Raising Steam is Discworld novel 40 and the third Moist von Lipwig book, after Going Postal and Making Money. It is the last adult Discworld novel Pratchett completed, a story about industry, change and the people who get left under the wheels if nobody is watching. You can read it alone. It lands better if you already know Moist when he is almost respectable.

This new Letterbox paperback from Penguin uses Paul Kidby’s original cover painting. Kidby’s railway: iron, smoke and a Disc that has just heard its first whistle.

• Discworld novel 40
• Moist von Lipwig book 3
• Publisher: Penguin
• Cover artist: Paul Kidby
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 480
• Size: approx. 198 mm × 127 mm × 29 mm