Name: Going Postal
ISBN: 9780552149433

Terry Pratchett

Con artist and fraud Moist von Lipwig is faced with a life choice: be hanged, or put Ankh-Morpork's ailing postal service back on its feet.

Going Postal

What kind of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of government? Apart from, say, the average voter.

Suddenly, condemned arch-swindler Moist von Lipwig found himself with a noose around his neck and dropping through a trapdoor into ... a government job? By all rights, Moist should be meeting his maker rather than being offered a position as Postmaster by Lord Vetinari, supreme ruler of Ankh-Morpork. Getting the moribund Postal Service up and running again, however, may prove an impossible task, what with literally mountains of decades-old undelivered mail clogging every nook and cranny of the broken-down post office. Worse still, Moist could swear the mail is talking to him. Worst of all, it means taking on the gargantuan, greedy Grand Trunk clacks communication monopoly and its bloodthirsty piratical headman. But if the bold and undoable are what's called for, Moist's the man for the job -- to move the mail, continue breathing, get the girl, and specially deliver that invaluable commodity that every being, human or otherwise, requires: hope.

Sarah Sammis

Love this book.

http://www.pussreboots.pair.com/blog/...

Jay Harris

The first Terry Pratchett book I've read. Filled with creative ideas and wonderful characters.

Vanessa Arenas

I started not loving it, but by the end I was completely into it, into the fantastical world. This book is sarcastically funny, and has a little of evertyhing. Great read.

Pavonini

Very funny. Some nice touches. Exactly what I'd expect from Pratchett. Partner heard me constantly snorting in amusement as I read. Would recommend.

Fraser Simons

This was better than I expected. Admittedly the humour was hit and miss for me, but did hit more so because it’s often pretty low key, so misses are more inoffensive than usual. 

I also quite liked what it has to say about institutions in general. Identifying a grifter/huckster to con essentially oligarchs? (I have not read any other discworld books, and as such some of the systemic things about the city are still opaque to me) via various intersections of Kafkaesque businesses and companies interacting with the post office said con man was hired to run, into as much of a “win” as you’re likely to get—was all very satisfying to me. 

Also, I liked the golem and was surprised at how much that was gone into, systemic wise as well. I guess it did a good job of showing me things I honestly could not care less about in the first half and then showing me why I ought to in the later. There’s so much humour it was hard to know what was foreshadowing and a jape; it somehow worked in its favour, by the end. 

Not sure I could say I cared about the characters beyond what they did for the story, or that the pacing was to my liking, though exactly as fantasy nerds tend to like it. But it’s very pleasant at a craft or structural level to look at. It also didn’t hurt that in my mind it was all playing out as Disney animation film cross between Ichabod Crane and 101 Dalmatians; ie, excellent line work and very pleasant to have in your head.

Kolle

In-Genre Rating: 8.5
Global Rating: 9
Reading Fun: 7.5


Maybe not the strongest disk world novel, but I did read it twice so I am not complaining. Full of low and high brow parody (mostly of the post office) and awesome obsolete technological rabbit holes like optical telegraphs.

Quite characteristically for the Lipwig books, the tension lingers around for a while, although the humor mostly makes up for it. Worth it for Anghammarad's story alone.

Kate

"Or maybe it was something so big that no one could run it at a profit. Maybe it was like the post office. Maybe the profit turned up spread around the whole of society."

"It was garbage, but it had been cooked by an expert. Oh, yes. You had to admire the way perfectly innocent words were mugged, ravished, stripped of all true meaning and decency, and then sent to walk the gutter for Reacher Gilt, although 'synergistically' had probably been a whore from the start. The Grand Trunk's problems were clearly the result of some mysterious spasm in the universe, and had nothing to do with greed, arrogance, and willful stupidity. Oh, the Grand Trunk management had made mistakes—oops, 'well-intentioned judgments which, with the benefit of hindsight, might regrettably have been, in some respects, in error'—but these had mostly occurred, it appeared, while correcting 'fundamental systemic errors' committed by the previous management. No one was sorry for anything, because no living creature had done anything wrong; bad things had happened by spontaneous generation in some weird, chilly, geometrical otherworld and 'were to be regretted.'"

Doesn't that sound familiar! Still very relevant despite being written over 15 years ago. 

Great audiobook narration by Stephen Briggs.

Loved it! Moving on to the second one in the series.

Brian Alderman

Ben Myers

Terry Pratchett puts his stamp on the new Discworld novel. Moist von Lipwig was a con artist and a fraud and a man faced with a life choice: be hanged, or put Ankh-Morpork's ailing postal service back on its feet. It was a tough decision. But he's got to see that the mail gets through, come rain, hail, sleet, dogs, the Post Office Workers Friendly and Benevolent Society, the evil chairman of the Grand Trunk Semaphore Company, and a midnight killer. Getting a date with Adora Bell Dearheart would be nice, too. Maybe it'll take a criminal to succeed where honest men have failed, or maybe it's a death sentence either way. Or perhaps there's a shot at redemption in the mad world of the mail, waiting for a man who's prepared to push the envelope...

(Discworld Novel 33)

NordicShivers

Riley Young

The post was an old thing, of course, but it was so old that it had magically become new again. Moist von Lipwig is a con artist and a fraud and a man faced with a life choice: be hanged, or put Ankh-Morpork's ailing postal service back on its feet. It's a tough decision. The post is a creaking old institution, overshadowed by new technology. But there are people who still believe in it, and Moist must become one of them if he's going to see that the mail gets though, come rain, hail, sleet, dogs, the Post Office Workers Friendly and Benevolent Society, the evil chairman of the Grand Trunk Semaphore Company, and a midnight killer. Getting a date with Adora Bell Dearheart would be nice, too. Perhaps there's a shot at redemption in the mad world of the mail, waiting for a man who's prepared to push the envelope...