erastes

Well, that was… interesting.

90% of the book was wonderful. There was so much to love: Sam, of course, not realising until right at the end that he’d been micro managed—AS USUAL, by Vetinari with a big dollop of help from Sybil, Sam’s darkness and his real fear that it might take over, The Summoning Dark and the way it may—or may not—be living with Sam. Young Sam is just glorious and he made me tear up once or twice, he’s a copper (or will possibly be, as essayel pointed out) Ankh’s Sherlock in years to come) to his boots. He’s going to have an Interesting Life, that’s for sure. Lesbian couples, “the poo lady,” marvellous snobby country people and honest country folk… so much to love.

But…

I felt that part of the book was simply MISSING. There is so much that is introduced and then left up in the air that all the way through I was expecting an explanation, and simply never got it. This isn’t like Pratchett, he doesn’t always expound everything about a people—we’ve learned much about trolls and dwarves and other races over the course of the books, but generally we are told What We Need To Know At the Time. And I didn’t feel that we were told all we needed to know about the Goblins. I EXPECT a mystery and a half with Pratchett, things are usually vague in the beginning (like, for example in Hogfather where we are gradually given glimpses of events happening but much doesn’t make sense until after the Tooth Fairy's house is breached.) But there are things in Snuff that are simply never explained—other than “oh that’s Goblin Magic” or something.

I didn’t understand the correlation between smuggling Troll Drugs and tobacco and Goblin pots – unless the pot was put into the tobacco as a desperate measure like a message in a bottle? But then if that was the case, how did they think that they’d be found?

And I found the ending part to be—odd. Rushed, and that’s not something I’ve accused Pratchett of before. I didn’t really get what he and Sybil were doing, and why they had to do them seperately, and as for Vetinari’s last talk with Vimes, it was SO Out of Character it seemed to be written by someone else.

I guess I’ll have to read it again, just in case i’m being incredibly dim.