Rating: Summary: Very Good. Review: Excellent. Definatley the best city watch book yet and also one of the best in the series. A good look at the character of Samuel Vimes. MUST READ!
Rating: Summary: A fun read, but not the best Discworld book. Review: This book held my attention so much that I skipped all my classes that day just to finish it! However, even with the incredibly funny lightning-proof athiest, this book didn't quite fulfill my expectations of Discworld. That is, I might read it again sometime, but not as soon as I would pick up "Small Gods" for the tenth time
Rating: Summary: It was really good Review: I think this, along with Soul Music might be my favorite Discworld book. I liked how he portrayed the golems as being capable of life when everyone thougt of them as machines. I also happen to like everyone on the Watch, especially Vimes, Deitrus and Carrot
Rating: Summary: Golems and dwarfs and trolls, oh my! Review: Feet of Clay is Pratchett's eighteenth Discworld novel and is the third one about the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, commanded by the world-weary and recently elevated Sir Samuel Vimes. Pratchett's cheerfully off-kilter fantasy world curiously overlaps our own in some ways---though the "time" is medieval, the characters in the book face problems like gender discrimination and a rising crime rate. This gives the author the chance to be satirical (usually in a funny and effective way) at the same time he spins an interesting fantasy yarn---and, incidentally, to spoof cop movies, most notably the "Lethal Weapon" convention of an older policeman on the verge of retiring but faced with just one more case. . . . This time around, the Patrician of the city, Lord Vetinari, is apparently being poisoned in an "impossible crime" (one devised with some ingenuity), and golems seem to be involved---creatures of animated clay, with no wills of their own. There are plots within plots, wheels within wheels, and dwarfs (including a hilariously named new addition to the Watch), vampires, werewolves, and trolls in the mix as well as humans, actual or dubious (Nobby Nobbs of the watch is nominally human but has been disqualified for shoving). Pratchett cares about his characters, and you find yourself caring, too: will the noble-minded young Captain Carrot's beloved desert him over differences in species? Will Vimes, a reforming alcoholic, backslide in the despair of a thankless job? But even with such concerns, the novel's a fun read, though if you're new to the sub-series dealing with the Watch you might want to begin with Guards! Guards! before reading this one
Rating: Summary: "We may not get all his jokes, but it's funny enough." Review: This novel follows the storyline in "Guards! Guards!" and "Men at Arms". I use 'storyline' loosely, because each novel is a stand-alone volume in quirky, highly sarcastic humor.References range from the classic (Plato's allegory of the cave), to the modern (downsizing). As a Pratchett fan who has been disappointed with the Discworld volumes from the last 5 years or so (U.S. release dates), the storyline is very satisfying. We continue to see the humanness in the characters, with very modern problems we face (well, perhaps not all of us have a vampire toying around with our life, but I'm starting to suspect...). The story centers on new-character Dorfl, an old golem. I won't give any spoilers away, but he reminds me of Brutha, tackling themes of religion, the purpose of life, and basically, what makes us human - Even if a lump of baked clay isn't strictly human. All I have to say is, I alternated between audible chuckles, to satisfying smiles (my favorite), to ohoh, are those tears in my eyes. It's a feel-good book, but lest that turn you off, it's not simplistic Hollywood-style sappy. If you have never read Pratchett before, here's my recommended list: The Colour of Magic. Guards! Guards! -> Men At Arms -> Feet of Clay. and my personal favorite.. Small Gods.
Rating: Summary: A Worthy Addition to the Watch Sequence Review: Someone is poisoning the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, and Vimes must solve the mystery. This is the basic plot of _Feet of Clay_, and it is a serviceable plot; it gives this Discworld book more structure than many of them, ensuring that there is enough of a story to support all the digressions and subplots. These digressions, along with Pratchett's good use of the minor City Watch characters, are the tidbits that make this Discworld book so much fun. I enjoyed especially the College of Heraldry and the bad jokes and Latin puns found on the heraldic devices. This is the kind of comic detail that is hard work, but really fleshes out Pratchett's world. We meet Cheery Littlebottom, a dwarf who joins the city watch and is apprenticed to Angua and whose experience in alchemy makes her a natural as a kind of forensic crime-scene investigator, and we experience some of the details of life in the Patrician's castle. We also meet the golems of Discworld, and face the interesting moral dilemmas inherent in a labor uprising and civil rights movement among beings that are essentially animated pottery.
Rating: Summary: Outstanding reader-actor on audio. Highly entertaining. Review: Thoroughly enjoyable, laugh-out-loud funny. One of Pratchett's best novels. The CD audio version read by Nigel Planer is wonderful! Nigel Planer does an excellent job of giving zany voices to the zany characters. The reading is closer to acting.
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