Terry Pratchett: Going Postal

Reviewed by JOHN GARDNER

And still they keep coming. After more than 20 years, here just in time for the Christmas buying season is another Discworld novel.

Going Postal is Terry Pratchett's 33rd offering in this particular seam of his prolific output, because he knocks out other books as well, and, as he told an Auckland audience this month, there are already more Discworld offerings on the stocks.

For those who know his work it will come as a reassurance that the now-familiar Pratchett weaponry is on display.

There is the ludicrous name play. This starts with the characteristic first paragraphs in chapter one in which it is revealed that the hero is called Moist von Lipwig aka Albert Spangler. My particular favourite this time is a lady of a certain age called Iodine Maccalariat.

There are the footnotes where he can't bear to let a joke escape as in the explanation of Dimwell Arrthymic Rhyming slang. Then there are the new additions to the formidable Discworld cast, which over the years, has accumulated numbers matching the extras in a Peter Jackson movie.

This time we have a compulsive con man, an unforgettable anorak who elevates himself from pin collecting to stamps, a chain smoking super-cynical heroine who devotes herself to the plight of an oppressed minority, an old-style public servant imbued with

civic tradition and many more.

Not all of the characters are human, as befits the extremely multicultural world of Pratchett, an equal opportunities employer if ever there was one. The golems, Anghammarad and Pump 19, have significant roles, as does a memorable banshee.

But the pick of the new characters is human, or almost, being the villain Reacher Gilt, a piratical capitalist irresistibly reminiscent of the larger-than-life (much larger) Robert Maxwell, and whose fictional precursor might have been Augustus Melmotte who sprang from the pen of Trollope, another writer of industrious work habits.

For those who pine for old favourites, there is an appearance by Lord Vetinari, the thinking man's tyrant, relishing the intricacies of a role much harder than being "a ruler raised to power by some idiot vote-yourself-rich system like democracy". There is a substantial part for The Archchancellor of Unseen University, Rustrum Ridcully, and there are walk-on roles for the likes of relentless reporter Sacharissa Cripslock who turns up from The Truth.

But the jokes don't disguise Pratchett's real subject, the state of contemporary life. Like the best science fiction writers his fantasy is a parallel world, only half a dimension away from our own. His eye for absurdities is unfailing but the indignation is unfeigned.

In this particular case his main theme is the clash of cultures, between the neglected public service of the post office and the rise of a new technology that escapes from its creators into the hands of shortsighted money-makers.

Pratchett's observation of the characteristics of the computer-besotted is typically accurately observed, but his distaste for the hypocrisies of corporate culture leaves good nature behind.

All of this will come as no surprise and as some comfort to the regular — shall we say addicted — visitor to Discworld.

But for new readers the question is rather different. "Is this the one?" the fan asks — the one worth giving to the unconverted in the certain knowledge they will be lured in.

I'm not sure it is. As the old joke goes: "If you want to get there I wouldn't start here." Surely the best place to start is with a novel that feature Vimes or Carrot, Pratchett's nearest approaches to the conventional hero. But then there are those firmly wedded to the witches of Wyrd Sisters.

Some fans, according to Pratchett, still hanker for the return of Rincewind, the ineffectual wizard, and I have a soft spot for Cohen the Barbarian. Then there's the most overtly serious work Night Watch.

Oh, I don't know. Perhaps, as the latest, Going Postal is the best way for a new reader to start. Get hold of a copy, give it half an hour and see if it takes. If it does you've another 32 to go. By the time you've finished them the next one will rolling off the presses.

* Doubleday, $49.95