A tale of grit, grime, and goblins

I have been a fan of the Discworld series for about a decade now.  I was introduced to them through my mother, who had started reading them when they first began coming out in the mid-1980's.  Since then, author Terry Pratchett has penned around 40 books in the Discworld series (not counting a few outside the series).  The man has been knighted by the queen and has gotten so popular he had to trademark his own name.  He's one of the relatively few best-selling writers with great stories and enduring characters to back up his success.

Like most city boys, the grizzled and cynical Sam Vimes is wary of country life and all its trappings.  When his wife insists on taking a holiday for a few weeks to stay in her family's old country house, he knows better than to refuse.  But Sam Vimes is no ordinary city boy: as a duke of the metropolis of Ankh-Morpork and commander of its highly respected Watch, he wields a certain amount of power - if begrudgingly so.  When he sees injustice, though - and being a cynical bastard, he usually does - he'll use a combination of street smarts and clout to get the job done.  And sure enough, trouble raises its head.  First Vimes rankles a local blacksmith.  Then a goblin girl is found brutally slain on his land.  Next thing he knows, the local constable is arresting him on erroneous charges of murder.  But as good as Vimes is at creating enemies, he's also good at making friends: soon the young constable and his butler/unlikely bodyguard Willikins are helping him track down the real perpetrators, and a local writers educates him on the unseen virtues of goblins.  Meanwhile, Vimes has to deal with a scar that literally haunts him whenever he's alone in the dark, a scar that serves as a warning as to what he might become if he chooses not to heed his inner copper.

As Sam Vimes is one of my favorite characters in existence, it may be a little hard for me to step back and criticize this book.  I've known Vimes ever since he was a drunken mess of a man in Guards! Guards!, the first Watchmen/Ankh-Morpork book.  Now he's Sir Samuel Vimes, married to a lovely woman borne into money and father to a cheerful, friendly, poop-obsessed six-year-old (and sober, as well).  But no one is more astonished at Vimes's success than Vimes himself, who is more comfortable chasing after lunatic killers than making small talk at a posh ball.  Vimes uses the law to his advantage, straddling the line only when it is necessary. "There needs to be a law," he proclaims later in the novel, "but before there is a law, there has to be a crime." And he, with his (mostly) strict moral code that one must do what is right, has been training himself to see wrongness when and where it happens.  In addition, he is driven partly out of a fear that he will lose his passion for caring and to quell his deep rage - to channel it to a more constructive outlet.  He isn't a hero because he's heroic, but because he is dead-set against ever becoming a villain.

The story here, I think, is not quite as strong as Vimes's character.  It has many funny scenes, moving scenes, action sequences that are very enjoyable.  But the stakes are so high that some parts of the story don't live up to it.  Much of the plot deals with goblin slavery and illegal drugs - hence the title - and a rescue mission is duly hatched.  Plus we also meet a goblin girl who is able to play lovely songs on the harp and whose role proves to be pivotal.  Most of it comes together at the end.  But there's something a bit out of place here, muted, as if the plot doesn't have enough bite to it.  I think part of it's due to a rather unoriginal antagonist who fails to make an impression on the reader.  I would have enjoyed seeing Vimes enduring some more challenges, display a little more vulnerability.  At some points it seems like things are too easy for him to do. (Having said that, there's a really impressive scene of Vimes and the constable trying to apprehend the bad guy on a boat, on a raging river ...)

This is really the kind of story fans will read to visit their beloved characters again.  The relationships between Vimes and his wife Sybil, and Vimes and his son Sam, are very sweet and written very realistically.  Pratchett has a real knack of illustrating human relationships of all kinds as well as giving us some laugh-out-loud moments; he even has some fun with a young writer named Jane.  Not his most masterful work, but nonetheless vastly entertaining.

Rating: 4 goblin pots out of 5.