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Snuff, by Terry Pratchett
Discworld Series, book 39
My rating: 3/10

Finally, after pressure from his wife, child, the tyrant of the city, and half the City Watch, Sam Vimes takes a vacation to the Ramkin Hall, now belonging to him. The City Watch Commander and a policeman to the bone, he loathes the peace and quiet of the small country community- but that may not be an issue. He soon discovers the game of crocket, the local pub, and- murder?

The premise of this book was fairly original, but still not my favorite. I normally love the Watch books, and as this is the 39th book and the last Watch book, I was looking forwards to it.  

I have several main qualms with this book. A lot of the humour in this book comes from Sam Vimes Jr’s favorite book, “The World of Poop”, and his increasing interest in scatology. This is not my kind of joke; I really don’t enjoy it at all, and in a way it felt like degrading the serious character of Sam Vimes, who has fought everything from trolls, serial killers, and dragons to racial inequity, alcohol addiction, and the demon of Summoning Darkness, which is still inside him. This basic, unfunny, humour seemed to replace Pratchett’s typical, witty humour.

To my eye, this book had some serious dissonance- the layers of humour and seriousness weren’t tied together at all. I don’t recall any other Discworld books having this problem, but it downplayed the extreme seriousness of the plot, which features the murder, mass murder, slavery, and abuse of a sentient species because of racism, by having Sam coming home drenched in the blood of a brutally murdered goblin woman, immediately followed by reading Young Sam his favorite book.


From a noticeably meandering plot and off-pacing, it was hard to keep this post from getting too long. With all of this, the only thing going for it, was the Commander, and one character can’t save an entire book. Hard pass on this one.

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