Going Postal: A Novel of Discworld by Terry Pratchett (MOBI)

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Ebook Info

  • Published: 2009
  • Number of pages: 484 pages
  • Format: MOBI
  • File Size: 1.19 MB
  • Authors: Terry Pratchett

Description

A splendid send-up of government, the postal system, and everything that lies in between in this newest entry in Terry Pratchett’s internationally bestselling Discworld series. Convicted con man and forger Moist von Lipwig is given a choice: Face the hangman’s noose, or get Ankh Morpork’s ancient Post Office up and running efficiently! It was a tough decision . . . Now, the former criminal is facing really big problems. There’s tons of undelivered mail. Ghosts are talking to him. One of the postmen is 18,000 years old. And you really wouldn’t want to know what his new girlfriend can do with a shoe. To top it all off, shadowy characters don’t want the mail moved. Instead, they want him dead—deader than all those dead letters. (And here he’d thought that all he’d have to face was rain, snow, and gloom of night . . .)

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐I love Terry Pratchetts books, all of them but part of the fun is the absurd footnotes that run through the book. Unfortunately, the Kindle version doesn’t permit access to the footnotes in Going Postal. I know it can be done because the Kindle version of Guards Guards allows you to read the footnotes as you go. Going Postal is a great book in the hard copy. Whoever was responsible for putting out this edition should be ashamed of themselves for presenting this as the full work by Terry Pratchett!

⭐One of Pratchett’s best Discworld books, imho! Moist von Lipwig, aka Albert Spangler, has been snatched from the jaws of death at the gallows and given one last chance: reopen the post office, or face certain death. It has been out of business for years, and the last 4 postmasters before him have died under suspicious circumstances. His parole officer, a golem named Pump 19, is relentless in forcing him to do his duty. Another snag is the evil new owner of the Clacks, Reacher Gilt, who is determined to see that Moist becomes Dead Postmaster #5. Along the way, Moist has to reckon with his past. The ripple effects of what he thought were “victimless cons” extended far from the center, including to Adora Belle Dearheart, the woman he loved. Her pursued her despite the fact that she usually met him with a crossbow aimed at his head. When he discovered that his fake bond scheme had been the ruin of the Dearheart family and caused Adora’s father’s suicide, he began to feel like he deserved that crossbow arrow. Does Moist succeed in resurrecting the post office? Does Adora fall for him? Does Reacher Gilt get his comeuppance? I won’t spoil it for you, but this is Discworld, so you can pretty well guess. Finding out how it happens is the fun part.

⭐If you’re not familiar with Discworld, you should know that the overall series can be broken down into different sub-series (e.g. Witches, Guards, DEATH…). Going Postal is the first Moist Von Lipwig book, sometimes considered part of the industrial revolution series. Meaning? You can absolutely read this as your first Discworld book, where the only drawback is that a couple of the supporting characters started off in different sub-series. (Personally, I’d probably recommend Guards, Guards as your first book instead.)Discworld is a humorous fantasy setting and is so good that it was the 2nd best selling book series in the U.K., after Harry Potter. (The author has since passed away.) Many of the books are set in the city (or twin cities, now combined) of Ankh-Morpork.(warning: spoilers for first couple chapters)Moist is a con man who is caught and pressed into service to re-open Ankh-Morpork’s postal service. Well, after he’s failed to escape prison, and was sent to the gallows to be publicly executed, that is. If I tell much more about the story, I’d be revealing serious spoilers, so I won’t do so.This is one of the best books in the later Discworld books, and Moist is one of the better characters. Great supporting cast, and the Moist books really help the city advance as a civilization.

⭐Moist von Lipwig, that is. Pratchett brings another cast of misfits, weirdos, con men and several golems to life in this Discworld book. Lipwig is given the choice between dying and resurrecting the Ankh-Morpork post office. He chooses, for obvious reasons, to become Postmaster, hoping to be able to escape at some point. Not with a golem as a parole officer. So Lipwig puts his clever mind to work on the Post Office. There’s so much to do! But he manages to not only bring the Post Office back but to make it better than ever. Even with the clacks as competitor.Pratchett has never not delivered on a Discworld premise. This book is one of my favorites. It’s not easily classified in the Discworld sub-genres, however, as the Watch and Wizards both appear. Lipwig is a new character who reappears a few more times. As his introduction, “Going Postal” fires on all cylinders. Highly recommended.

⭐Moist Von Lipwig is the name of the main character in this 33rd Novel of the Discworld series. That pretty much sets the stage for everything else. Grab hold of your hat and hang on for the ride.Moist is a talented and clever conman who has had a very successful criminal career on a sort of “middling” level. That is to say, he’s a step up from pickpocket but a step down from the clowns running multinational corporations. He’s spent a vast majority of his life playing alter egos that suit his various (and less than altruistic) endeavors. So much so, that you realize a fair way through, that the man does not really know himself. He’s been so busy playing make-believe in order to earn a fast buck that he really hasn’t ever figured out who he really is or what he cares about. And in that, we see the true genius of Terry Prachett’s writing. The story of the protagonist is a redemptive tale that is wrapped up in the polka dotted humor and witticism of a very clever satirist. We manage to care very deeply for Moist and his struggles, which are both outward and inward.The story primarily centers around the city of Ankh-Morpork and its communications system. The book opens with the protagonist being saved from death, by a benevolent tyrant–the city patrician–Lord Vetinari. Although Vetinari is a dictator, he seems to be shrewd enough to care about the well-being of his citizens. Vetinari has identified a troubling problem with the mode of communication in the city; in which the majority of the story takes place. Swift communications between the citizenry are being conducted through a privately run utility known as the “Clacks,” which is basically a system of visual telegraph towers (semaphores) that translate messages across distances using coding. Apparently, the Clacks system was “legally” taken over through a series of questionable financial maneuvers by a collective of investors known as “The Grand Trunk” who are headed by Reacher Gilt (a min of ill repute–and probably a pirate to boot!). Since the takeover, fees have gone up and service has gone down. Vetinari attempts to correct the situation by talking to The Grand Trunk and is rebuked for his efforts. The problem is that the Clacks are now the only game in town and everyone relies on them exclusively to get things done. Too big to fail….So Vetinari schemes to even the playing field by resurrecting the ancient, defunct postal system. To do this, he conscripts our protagonist. Moist agrees to go along with the plan for appearances, until he can bide his time and figure a way to escape and return to his old scamming ways. However, the endearing, odd ball cast of characters which Moist encounters while working in and around the post office slowly start to wear him down and he develops an interest in things beyond his own selfish needs.The cast of characters that Prachett dreams up are brilliant and memorable. Whether it’s the fire-eyed Golem parole officer who must keep tabs on the protagonist; the old-guard of anal-retentive postal workers; the slick zombie-faced lawyer; the mostly-sane former Clacks workers turned code-crackers and rabble rousers; the boisterous and bumbling stuffy-robed wizards of the Unseen University; the sulking and skulking Igor butler henchman; the disturbing pigeon-eating banshee; or the chain-smoking golem-rights activist/love interest–you fall in love with them all. Everyone comes alive. An unforgettable cast. Sometimes there are heartfelt moments of kind and generous acts, other times you revel in the satire that floods through the streets of Ankh-Morpork. Everyone is a character and a caricature and always faintly familiar.Moist is quick-witted and all to willing to up the stakes. A bad habit from his scheming days, but it serves him well in his new career as postman as he finds himself pitted against the biggest conman of them all–the head of the Clacks–Reacher Gilt. This is where we see real character growth as Moist is both awed and repulsed by the story’s chief antagonist. He is facing a distorted and much crueler mirror image of himself in dealing with Gilt. The more he learns, the more he is intrigued, and the more he is distressed. Upon meeting a truly great connoisseur of the trade (i.e. master conman) in Gilt, he sees that it is not so great a thing to aspire to. Then he questions himself and the life he has led and he wonders if there is much difference between him and Gilt. This is great character growth and the stuff of good story making.Another great thing in this book is the inherit magic of the post office (A decidedly untraditional magical reagent). But Pratchett’s description of the place–even in its pigeon-dropping-covered-piles-of-old-letters–have all the intrigue and captivation of a haunted castle. A wonderfully original setting.Other commentators have pointed out how well Pratchett does with word-play (even the title of the book lends itself to this). They also point out how you don’t get tired of it. It’s true. This book has many levels of humor from word-puns to deep satire pointing out the absurdities that are abundant in a capitalistic society. The Clacks system and The Grand Trunk have innumerable alliterations to phone companies and investment banking. Indeed, this book was written before the recent financial crisis that raked the world’s economies and is disturbingly prescient in many of its aphorisms. He makes you think as well as entertains you (as truly great authors do!).Prachett really hits the spot. He is refreshingly funny and a good storyteller. The world can be a very awful place sometimes, when you look at all the problems one can suffer through during a lifetime. Yet, it is books like this one that help to put all the grim things in their proper place of absurdity.Podcast: If you enjoy my review (or this topic) this book and the movie based on it were further discussed/debated in a lively discussion on my podcast: “No Deodorant In Outer Space”. The podcast is available on iTunes or our website.

⭐When I originally read Terry Pratchett, I remembered Going Postal and Making Money as the author at the height of his creative powers. After some disappointment with recent Pratchett books I wasn’t sure what to expect. However, Going Postal still delivers.What we have is a tightly-written story with a very interesting character who constantly pushes the plot forward. This isn’t the case of a character ambling through events like in Small Gods, but instead of cleverly and creatively moving things forward at every turn.For most of the book I would have given it four stars, but the end climax really is clever and well-thought out.Overall, this is one of Pratchett’s best, and it still holds up well after all this time.

⭐Re-reading Going Postal, and as usual every reading reveals something you had missed the first time, some pertinent reference to the Real World, the globe that we live on, not the flat disc pTerry weaves dreams of.This little paragraph near the end is *so* relevant to our Real World today:”They saved the city with old more easily, at that point, than any hero could have managed with steel. But in truth it had not exactly been gold, or even the promise of gold, but more like the fantasy of gold, the fairy dream that the gold is there, at the end of the rainbow, and will continue to be there for ever provided, naturally, that you don’t go and look.This is known as Finance.”

⭐Without revealing my personal details. I work for a certain company very similar to the one in the novel, suffice to say it felt like going home, plus I’m pretty sure I’ve been in that building with the very same staff, Terry Pratchett must have researched it. The story has it’s own discworld logic, and is amusing and full of pathos as the chief character tries to work out how to either make it work or skedaddle as fast as possible. Needless to say he can’t pass up the challenge and gets stuck in. the rest of the story involves the main mission and others attempts to thwart it, Terry has a way to lampoon our world and the way it almost works on a daily basis, I had fun reading this book as I expect most will, now, where did I put my pin collection?

⭐I bought Making Money, which I enjoyed more than any other Pratchett book. Heeding the advice that my enjoyment would be increased if I read them in order, I bought this. It has a similar tone, the jokes seem natural rather than forced (the jokes do come across as forced at times in most of the previous books).Only being 80 pages in, my opinion may change and I hope to edit this review with the wit one would expect from a writer who’s been inspired by the above mentioned.PS: YOU CAN START ON THIS BOOK, YOU WILL NOT SUFFER SPOILERS, JUST THE USUAL AGONIES OF HUMAN LIVING.

⭐Putting aside the fact I am a huge Discworld fan and general fan boy of Sir Terry, I write this as a Brit coming from a postal family.Sir Terry captures the history and sad demise of the GPO and tells of its pomp and grandeur of its glory days, of course in his own inimitable way, is simply magnificent. Naturally there weren’t any Banshees or Golems, sadly, when I was around the Post Office but the passion and pride of a wonderful and great establishment was. I miss the Post Office and remembering it is bitter sweet, but Going Postal always brings it home for me. And Moist is simply brilliant.

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