Ok, so I got the idea of doing book reviews a little more than 7 months ago, but I never did anything with it. Nothing that I have been reading in the past few months really merited the idea of a book review. That is, until I read Unseen Academicals, the latest Disc World novel but Terry Pratchett. Now I’ve always been a huge Terry Pratchett fan, but this book was by far his greatest novel yet.
Now it’s possible to pick up any Disc World novel and enjoy it without feeling too lost, but most of them fall into a certain story line (the witches, Sam Vimes, Rincewind, Death and Susan, and Tiffany Aching). This particular book is a standalone novel set in Disc World. My favorite thing about this book is the fact that he mentioned some minor characters from past novels (Oats, Lady Margolotta) and of course there are the ever present characters of Archchancellor Ridicully, Lord Vetinari, and the Librarian (who is not a wizard but a orangutan). At first appearance the main character seems to be Mr. Nutt, which is true to a certain extent, but as you continue to read the novel starts to follow more the actions of Glenda than of Mr. Nutt directly. Glenda is a cook in the Unseen University, which, if you are a Terry Pratchett fan, you know is run by wizards, headed up by the magnificent Archchancellor Mustrum Ridicully.
Here is a general outline of the book as done by me:
This book is about football which is played in the streets as American football, where violence is ever present. The wizards have discovered that in order to receive a certain amount of money that they have to play a game of football or as it is called “poor boy’s fun.” Vetinari, who is a tyrant in an odd sort of way, has his hand in basically everything agrees to support the game if the rules are reverted back to that which they originally came (what the rest of the world refers to as football).
Now down on the streets football is almost like law. Certain teams hate each other. This brings about a bit of a Romeo and Juliet story between Trev and, oddly enough, Juliet, who both support different teams. Glenda is Juliet’s next door neighbor, best friend, and basically her conscience. Glenda has gotten so used to making all of Juliet’s decisions for her that she is afraid to let her friend make any decisions of her own. Glenda meets Trev’s friend Mr. Nutt and finds him to be polite and kind. She takes some pity of him and starts giving him the odd pie out (as I said, she’s a cook, and a master at pie making).
As the story progresses there are a lot of odd things that happen (Mr. Nutt is an odd duck and starts training the Unseen University’s team, the Unseen Academicals, Juliet wants to be a fashion model, and Glenda, who is always used to being in the background, grows a spine and starts doing things she normally wouldn’t even dream of doing.) which all leads up to the big game at the end (with the new rules in place.). I won’t tell you who wins the game or how exactly (but Glenda helps), because I actually want you to read this book to find out.
I summed up the whole middle of the book for that very reason. Read the book, it’s worth it! It will make you laugh, and there is an orangutan, a skeleton, one necromancer (*cough* excuse me, I mean Post-Mortem Communications professor), orcs, a vampire, and some really big bullies. It is all very ‘magical.’
That’s about all I can say without giving a majority of the plot away, so read it, enjoy it, and tell me what other books you’d like me to read and then “review.”
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