Product Description

Koom Valley! That was where the trolls ambushed the dwarfs, or the dwarfs ambushed the trolls. It was far away. It was a long time ago. But if he doesn't solve the murder of just one dwarf, Commander Sam Vimes of Ankh-Morpork City Watch is going to see it fought again, right outside his office. With his beloved Watch crumbling around him and war-drums sounding, he must unravel every clue, outwit every assassin and brave any darkness to find the solution. And darkness is following him. Oh...and at six o'clock every day, without fail, with no excuses, he must go home to read 'Where's My Cow?', with all the right farmyard noises, to his little boy. There are some things you have to do.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #117634 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-01
• Released on: 2005-09-26
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 368 pages

SFX Magazine
'Imaginative, witty and consistent ... Everything that the 30th novel in a fantasy sequence out to be, and more.'

The Times
'He may write benign comedy but he knows how horribly complicated and exciting the Universe is.'

Starburst
'A series that seems to re-invent itself by natural evolution every time.'

Customer Reviews

Thud! It's more than just a sound effect
Terry Pratchett has done it again. With Thud! (I've lost track of how many Discworld books there have been), Pratchett returns to the adventures of the "coppers" of Ankh-Morpork, one of the largest cities on the Discworld. It's been a while since we've had a straight "City Watch" book, with Night Watch being a character study of Commander Samuel Vimes, and the subsequent books being standalones, I've really missed seeing the Watch in action. Thud! delivers on all cylinders, going back to some of the basics that made Pratchett what he is today. You've got your quirky characters, you've got your hilarious footnotes (something which seemed to have disappeared from Pratchett's books, much to my chagrin), and you've got Vimes leading them all, trying to be the best copper he can be, doing what's right despite what everybody else seems to want him to do.

The anniversary of the battle of Koom Valley, an ancient battle between the Dwarfs and the Trolls, is coming up, and tension in the city of Ankh-Morpork is rising. Commander Samuel Vimes can smell trouble, and he'll do anything to keep the city safe. When a rabble-rousing Dwarf from the Dwarf homeland is murdered, the Dwarfs immediately blame the Trolls, and it looks like blood will wash over the city. But not with Vimes and the rest of the Watch on the case. A sinister secret from the depths is working its way into the real world again, planning to use the animosity between the two races as its entry point, but it keeps getting stymied. Will the Watch solve the case and bring the perpetrators to justice? And just what is the secret of Koom Valley, and what does it have to do with this entity? And will Vimes be able to keep his daily six o'clock appointment with his young son to read Where's my Cow?

Previous Discworld books have been very humorous, but not laugh-out-loud funny. They've been good, but while I enjoyed them, I've longed for a Pratchett book of old. That's what I got with Thud!, with the return of beloved characters like the very tall, very human Dwarf, Captain Carrot, along with his girlfriend (and werewolf), Sergeant Angua. Pratchett is the master of making all of these characters funny without really making fun of them (ok, he does make fun of Nobby Nobbs, but that's just too easy). Carrot is earnest to a fault, honest, and very loyal. The scene between him and the Patrician at the end of the book is just priceless. Angua becomes suspicious of the female vampire that Vimes has been forced to accept onto the Watch, and the rivalry between them (the werewolf versus vampire rivalry, I mean!) is fun to watch. The rest of the characters are also extremely well done too. Pratchett has shown that he is the master of characterization, and this is yet another example of it.

The plot is a bit too mystic for my tastes (even Vimes can't force himself to believe it), but overall it worked out fine. I loved the ongoing tension between the Dwarfs and the Trolls, especially as we see it in great detail when the Trolls and Dwarfs on the Watch have to deal with it. Detritus, one of the more prominent Trolls on the Watch, really comes into his own, even forcing Vimes to back down from his prejudices at one point. All of the little plots tie together into one big one, even Vimes' insistence on reading the same children's book to his son every night at six o'clock. This did lead to one of the sequences that I had a problem with. The first time this comes up, Vimes has to make it across the city in record time in order to keep his appointment, and he gets a little help from Captain Carrot. I found this sequence forced and not very funny, feeling very out of place in this book. Yes, it does begin what becomes a prominent part of the story, but I think it could have been introduced better.

That is really the only major fault I can find with Thud!, and it's only a small sequence. There are a few other minor things that bothered me, like the disappearance of A.E. Pessimal, the man who comes to audit the Watch, but ends up being deputized and becoming a hero instead. Vimes does do something to him that ensures he will be back, but it would have been nice to see him at the end too. He was extremely funny, especially his introduction to Vimes where he comes off as a humorless git. I also found that the "girls' night out" dragged on a bit too long, but it did have its moments.

Overall, though, Thud! is worth every penny it costs. Instead of serious books with some good humour in them, we get a book that's funny but has a good serious point as well. The differences may be subtle, but they are there, and they can be seen in the footnotes. In older Pratchett books, the footnotes were some of the best comedy in the books, but he started to move away from them. Now, they're back, and with a vengeance. "This was a bit of a slur on Nobby, Vimes had to admit. Like many other officers, Nobby was human. It was just that he was the only one who had to carry a certificate to prove it." I loved almost every page in Thud!, and if you're a Discworld fan, you will too. You don't even need to have read any Discworld before, though it certainly helps if you have at least read some of the Watch books. You'll still laugh a lot, though.

David Roy

How Green Was Koom Valley
On June 28, 1389 a combined army of Serbs, Bosnians, Albanians and Romanians waged a fierce battle against an Ottoman army on the Plains of Kosovo. Although details of the battle are obscure and lost in the mists of time the animosity between the parties has lingered. It was no surprise therefore that on the 600th anniversary of the battle President Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia launched his `ethnic cleansing' campaign in Kosovo. Sometimes the oldest animosities burn the brightest.

That is just about the scenario found in "THUD", Terry Pratchett's latest roller coaster ride through Discworld. The origin and outcome of the ancient Battle of Koom Valley between the Trolls and Dwarves has been obscured and the subject of much debate; but, the lingering and long-lasting hatred between them means they are always one spark away from renewed battle.

Grag Hamcrusher is what you might call a Dwarf extremist. Emerging from the depths he rails against those dwarves who have risen close to the surface. He intimates Dwarf residents of Ankh-Morpork who have made accommodations to a life lived above ground. Hamcrusher is a zealot who would like nothing better than to renew a holy war against the hated Trolls. As Thud opens Hamcrusher has just been murdered, thud "being the sound the heavy club made as it connected with the head". The initial evidence, a troll club found near the apparent murder scene, seems destined to bring their historic enmity to a boil. It is up to Commander Vimes and the Watch to find out who killed Hamcrusher and try to avoid a war that could destroy Ankh-Morpork.

The Patrician, not surprisingly, has complicated matters for Vimes. Bowing to pressure to increase the diversity of the Watch, Vimes is obligated to hire his first vampire, a very young, very attractive lady named Sally. This serves to increase the tension in the Watch most notably with Angua, the Watch's werewolf. Sparks fly and the claws are drawn as Angua senses that Sally is more than a bit interested in Captain Carrot. The Patrician has also seen fit to bring in a pencil pushing bureaucrat to audit the Watch's operations. This all serves to make Commander Vimes' own emotional fuse as short as the one keyed to the Trolls and Dwarves.

It is never a good idea to reveal too much of the plot in a review. This is particularly the case for the Discworld books where Pratchett has twists and turns on every page. Needless to say, events race from pillar to post. The furtive nature of the Dwarves, whose emotions are as submerged as the Dwarves themselves and the rather stoic nature of the Trolls (with the exception of Shine who appears to be one droll troll) has Vimes feeling as if he is trying to complete a jigsaw puzzle without any visual image of the puzzle he is trying to solve.

Two elements of Thud put Thud for me in the highest rank of Discworld books. First, we are given very full, textured look at Commander Vimes. The reader is exposed to the growing disconnect between his controlled, outward demeanor and his emotionally charged interior that seem to grow increasingly more uncontrolled as the plot develops. It is both compelling and more than a bit scary. It brought Vimes to life in a very realistic way. Second, I thought the ending was one of Pratchett's best conclusions.

Thud is a great addition to the Discworld series.

One of the darker Discworld tales
The discworld has resurfaced and it's as good as ever. This is very much a Sam Vimes book and like all of the Sam Vimes books, "Thud" is pretty dark (which I like). Pratchett explores deeper meanings in these book than most of the rest of the series and on this occasion he is exploring the mideast conflict. Two groups of ancient enemies are building up hostilities in the city of Ankh Moorpork over some ancient symbols. The dwarves and trolls do not need much antagonism to set them fighting each other. A Dwarf radical is killed and the trolls are blamed, and so the tension builds. Enter Sam Vimes to solve the case, except nothing is as it appears on the surface.

This is yet another classic for Pratchett fans. "Some things are important" is the catch phrase throughout this book, although I won't tell you why because it will ruin the story. Pratchett explores the concept of radical religion and how it affects even the non-religious. He never blames either side, but explores how both sides are right and wrong. The ending is superb as usual, but it is rather sad... to a point. I enjoyed this even more than Pratchett's recent Hat Full of Sky or the equally dark and highly recommended Dante's Last March by Mark Elliott.
The usual cast of characters are here and they are delightful as ever. Highly recommended