Reading Terry Pratchett’s books is a bittersweet experience now. I love the stories. The setting is so rich, and the tone is uproariously funny and smart. But I know now that every book that comes out is one book closer to the end of the series. Sure, the stories are lively enough that you can easily imagine the characters carrying on—but I won’t get to read about them once Pratchett dies. No one can write the way he does.
Snuff is the 39th Discworld novel (and I hope like hell there are more than a few left) and features the terrific Sam Vimes, Commander of the City Watch. Vimes is a copper; he quite literally lives for his job. But in Snuff, Vimes is forced to go on holiday. Vimes being Vimes, however, he sniffs out murder and smuggling and injustice. And Vimes being Vimes, he doesn’t let something like jurisdiction stop him from hunting down the criminals.
Pratchett always satirizes something from the real world in his books, and it was fun to see the “Jane Austen” cameo. But Pratchett really goes after racism in this book. He’s tackled the idea before, but this book has a different angle on the issue. What if there were a group of people who everyone knew was bad, filthy, stupid, and incapable of bettering themselves? In Snuff, that would be the goblins. They’re used to being killed or kidnapped, but they long for justice, for a chance to be treated like the intelligent beings they are. It’s a little surprising that in a world as diverse as the Discworld, there is still anti-any sentient being feelings floating around. But the thing you learn is that people are people everywhere you go and it takes a lot of time for old prejudices to die.
Once I heard about Pratchett’s diagnosis, it was hard for me to not look for its effects in his work. In this book, I thought I maybe detected fewer jokes, maybe fewer cultural references. But the plot is intricate, logical, and a hell of a lot of fun to watch play out–especially the heart-stopping scene on the river. And this book still has enough funny to keep me chuckling and snorting from beginning to end.