Hello, it's Reviewsday Tuesday, today we have a new Discworld Discourses
And I am going to be talking about The Fifth Elephant.
This is the 24th book in the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett, first published in 1999.
In this book Sam Vimes, Commander of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch and Duke of Ankh,
Is reluctantly sent to Uberwald on a diplomatic mission.
There he finds himself in the midst of a conflict between the dwarves
With werewolves and vampires adding to the chaos.
This book is somewhat darker than some of the other books
Especially in the early part of the series.
It's less laugh-out-loud funny although there's still plenty of wit.
But there are complex, difficult themes addressed
And there's lots of politics and subtleties at play.
The reader has maybe a little bit more work to do than in some of the books.
And it's a very plot driven book and I love the plot in this book.
We follow a few parallel stories that weave in and out
And I think they mesh really well and it doesn't feel uneven,
I don't feel like there's one plot strand where I was losing attention and wanting to move on.
As I've said before, I love the City Watch.
The City Watch series is my favourite within the Discworld
And in this book the Watch is more condensed,
We just have a few core characters that we follow through the story
And I think the book is better for it, it makes things more simple
And it also gives quite a few characters a bit of a chance to shine.
A lot of the focus is often on Vimes and Carrot
But this book we see a lot of Angua and Cheery and Detritus and Sybil.
They all have an arc, they all have importance to the story.
There's so much character development and relationship development in this book
And to me it's more enjoyable because there are fewer of the City Watch to focus on.
The Fifth Elephant has so many of the things that I love about the Discworld series in it,
And that I personally feel is more prevalent in the latter half of the Discworld series.
It's a smart book, it's on the side of complicated.
We don't always know what's going on, sometimes the reader has to fill in the blanks for themselves,
And I really like that style of Discworld book.
This book has made me really excited to continue this reread.
We're now entering my favourite section of the Discworld and I can't wait.
In my previous reads of the Discworld, I don't remember loving The Fifth Elephant
As much as I did this read,
But this time round it appears to be the start of the golden period of the Discworld for me.
This is of course assuming that I'm not going to suddenly hate one of the next few books
When they were previously my favourites.
I loved reading The Fifth Elephant this time round, there was so much great stuff.
The mystery about the Scone of Stone,
Cheery and the reaction of the dwarves to her,
Angua and her coming to terms with her past,
Carrot and us continuing to peel away a few more of the thousands of layers there are to his character,
Detritus who is one of my favourite characters in the series this time round,
And we get to see more Sybil as well and not just through Sam Vimes's eyes,
The lore of the werewolves I find really interesting,
The history of the dwarves,
The mysterious Inigo Skimmer who is one of my favourite new characters in this book,
The chaos the Watch ends up in when Colon takes charge,
Although that was also the only part of the book where I occasionally found myself getting frustrated,
The increasing presence of Igors, I love the Igors in the Discworld series
And I love how they're becoming more of a feature,
And Sam Vimes continues to be just my favourite fictional character,
The way he sees the world, the decisions he makes,
The whole section of the book where he is on his own and on the run
Is one of my favourite Sam Vimes parts of any of the Discworld books.
I'm just listing things that I loved in this book, I had a great time.
I think this is the first Discworld book in this reread
Where I finished reading it and just immediately wanted to pick it up and start again.
I wouldn't have previously put The Fifth Elephant as one of my favourites
But this time round in Discworld Discourses, I'm giving it 4.7 out of 5.
I would have given it 4.8 which would have made it my highest rated so far
But as I said before I did occasionally get frustrated with the Colon bits.
So it's currently tied with Men at Arms as my favourite.
I'm not entirely sure why I love it more this time round,
It might have something to do with reading it now having read all of the books,
I'm more invested in the characters,
And I maybe just appreciate the book more as a part of the whole Discworld series.
It could be because I'm a little bit older and want to be challenged more,
But then I loved The Night Watch and Thief of Time before
Amd I would say that they are probably more challenging.
Yes, I loved this book, I'd recommend it.
I'd definitely not recommend it being the first City Watch book you read, I'd start with one of the earlier ones,
And I'd really love to know what you think about The Fifth Elephant if you have read it.
I'm not sure I've seen it mentioned before in comments as anybody's very favourite
Unless I'm forgetting which isn't impossible,
So I'd be interested to know if others feel similarly about The Fifth Elephant.
A couple of facts about this book.
This book introduces the clacks which is a semaphore system
Which we will see throughout the rest of the series, it's also very important in one or two of the books.
The title of The Fifth Elephant is of course a take off of The Fifth Element,
The 1997 sci-fi film.
And I'm gonna have to think carefully about this one,
But the Scone of stone is a reference to the Stone of Scone
Which has been used for centuries in the coronation of monarchs of Scotlan
And then of course monarchs of England and Wales, and Great Britain, and the United Kingdom.
If you liked this book, what should you read next?
Night Watch is the next City Watch book so that would be a fun place to go
And as I said before it's similar in style in that it's
Also one of the ones in which the reader maybe has a bit more work to do.
And if you haven't read previous City Watch books then I would definitely recommend reading them.
If you didn't get on so well with The Fifth Elephant then The Truth is the next book in the Discworld series.
I'm continuing my suggestion of just suggesting the next book in the series,
But The Truth is excellent, it is one of my favourites, and it has a different tone.
That is it for today, thank you so much for watching.
My next Discworld Discourses will be on 21st January
And I will be reviewing The Truth. I can't wait to reread it.
And the full list of Discworld books and when I'm planning on reviewing them
Will be linked in the description below.
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I hope you have a fantastic day and I will see you soon!