A seemingly routine day in the life of City Watch commander Sam Vimes is abruptly interrupted by an unsolved murder, an impending war, an unwanted new recruit, and a pesky government inspector. By the author of Going Postal. It's a game of Trolls and Dwarfs where the player must take both sides to win. It's the noise a troll club makes when crushing in a dwarf skull, or when a dwarfish axe cleaves a trollish cranium. It's the unsettling sound of history about to repeat itself. THUD! It's the most extraordinary, outrageous, provocative, insightful, and keenly cutting flight of fancy yet from Discworld's incomparable supreme creator, Terry Pratchett. Commander Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch admits he may not be the sharpest knife in the cutlery drawer. He might not even be a spoon. But he's dogged and honest and he'll be damned if he lets anyone disturb his …
A seemingly routine day in the life of City Watch commander Sam Vimes is abruptly interrupted by an unsolved murder, an impending war, an unwanted new recruit, and a pesky government inspector. By the author of Going Postal. It's a game of Trolls and Dwarfs where the player must take both sides to win. It's the noise a troll club makes when crushing in a dwarf skull, or when a dwarfish axe cleaves a trollish cranium. It's the unsettling sound of history about to repeat itself. THUD! It's the most extraordinary, outrageous, provocative, insightful, and keenly cutting flight of fancy yet from Discworld's incomparable supreme creator, Terry Pratchett. Commander Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch admits he may not be the sharpest knife in the cutlery drawer. He might not even be a spoon. But he's dogged and honest and he'll be damned if he lets anyone disturb his city's always tentative peace, and that includes a rabble-rousing dwarf from the sticks (or deep beneath them) who's been stirring up big trouble on the eve of the anniversary of one of Discworld's most infamous historical events. Centuries earlier, in a gods-forsaken hellhole called Koom Valley, a horde of trolls met a division of dwarfs in bloody combat. Though nobody's quite sure why they fought or who actually won, hundreds of years on each species still bears the cultural scars, and one views the other with simmering animosity and distrust. Lately, an influential dwarf, Grag Hamcrusher, has been fomenting unrest among Ankh-Morpork's more diminutive citizens with incendiary speeches. And it doesn't help matters when the pint-size provocateur is discovered beaten to death, with a troll club lying conveniently nearby. Vimes knows the well-being of his smoldering city depends on his ability to solve the Hamcrusher homicide without delay. (Vimes's secondmost-pressing responsibility, in fact, next to being home every evening at six sharp to read Where's My Cow? to Young Sam.) Whatever it takes to unstick this very sticky situation, Vimes will do it, even tolerating having a vampire in the Watch. But there's more than one corpse waiting for him in the eerie, summoning darkness of the vast, labyrinthine mine network the dwarfs have been excavating in secret beneath Ankh-Morpork's streets. A deadly puzzle is pulling Sam Vimes deep into the muck and mire of superstition, hatred, and fear, and perhaps all the way to Koom Valley itself.
Avviso sul contenuto
Spoilers for Night Watch and Thud!
After the break from the present in Night Watch, Thud! returns to the present in a wonderful way, striking a newfound balance between side characters, sensibly presented politics and introspective reflections not always present in former books of the series.
The addition of Sam Jr gets the stakes higher for Vimes, and once more he gets into his typical chase, but with more regard for his colleagues and family.
Review of 'Thud! A Novel of Discworld' on 'Goodreads'
5 stelle
Nella saga siamo arrivati a quota trenta libri (più i cinque definiti "for young readers", probabilmente perché qualcuno si lamentava della troppa prolificità del Nostro). Nel Discworld questa volta ci si trova a rischiare una guerra tra troll e nani, e solo il Comandante Vimes potrà trovare una soluzione, sempre che riesca a venire a patti con il suo Disorganizer con la tecnologia Bluenose™ e a raccontare ogni sera la storiella "Dov'è la mia mucca?" a suo figlio. Ah sì, dovrà imparare a giocare a Thud!, il gioco da scacchiera favorito dalle varie specie che vivono ad Ankh-Morpork. Rimettendosi a leggere i primi libri della serie, si vede come le trame siano completamente cambiate: molta meno magia - tanto per i nostalgici dello stile per il momento c'è ancora Harry Potter - ma in compenso ci si lancia a improbabili paragoni col Codice da Vinci. Il guaio, si fa per …
Nella saga siamo arrivati a quota trenta libri (più i cinque definiti "for young readers", probabilmente perché qualcuno si lamentava della troppa prolificità del Nostro). Nel Discworld questa volta ci si trova a rischiare una guerra tra troll e nani, e solo il Comandante Vimes potrà trovare una soluzione, sempre che riesca a venire a patti con il suo Disorganizer con la tecnologia Bluenose™ e a raccontare ogni sera la storiella "Dov'è la mia mucca?" a suo figlio. Ah sì, dovrà imparare a giocare a Thud!, il gioco da scacchiera favorito dalle varie specie che vivono ad Ankh-Morpork. Rimettendosi a leggere i primi libri della serie, si vede come le trame siano completamente cambiate: molta meno magia - tanto per i nostalgici dello stile per il momento c'è ancora Harry Potter - ma in compenso ci si lancia a improbabili paragoni col Codice da Vinci. Il guaio, si fa per dire, è che la lettura è sempre piacevole, e Pratchett ormai si diverte a far vedere le cose di oggi con la lente del Discworld. Il guaio (più serio, ma nessuno ti obbliga a spenderci su soldi) è che il merchandising è assurdo: hanno stampato il libro Where Is My Cow?
