Book Review: Terry Pratchett's Snuff

As I sit to write this, it occurs to me on some objective level that there may, in fact, be some of you out there who are unfamiliar with Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series.  I’ve met a few of you and must assume that you simply, though some sort of error in judgment, simply haven’t gotten around to reading them yet and plan to rectify the situation as soon as possible.  I must think this so that we may remain friends, as I like most of you and wish you to remain in my life.  These books are, in fact, so good that I encourage you to leave this article, right now, and go to read them instead.  I can almost guarantee it will be a better use of your time.

For those unfamiliar, Terry Pratchett is often hailed as the most brilliant contemporary satirist currently publishing.  Though I normally bristle at such statements, I can’t argue with this one.  Over the course of the series, and a number of decades, he has dealt with issues as varied as death, tradition, love, warfare, justice and consumerism, all with a deft pen that never resorts to the kind of heavy-handed prose so common these days.  He has created a world that is both familiar and fantastic and populated it with some of the richest, most well-developed characters in contemporary literature. 

In his latest work, Snuff, we rejoin some familiar characters, the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, as they find themselves in some unfamiliar, and disturbingly pastoral, settings.  When Commander Sam Vimes is forced to take a vacation in the countryside, he finds that things there are not nearly as peaceful and pleasant as they at first seem and ends up investigating, with a little local help, a complex mystery involving murder, drug smuggling and a possible slave ring.

While Pratchett’s hallmark dry humor is in fine form, so too is his talent for weaving a compelling narrative which leaves the reader somehow both satisfied and vaguely unsettled.  Beneath the façade of a roaringly entertaining mystery lie explorations of deeper issues, such as institutional racism, courage and the old adage, so important these days, that all it takes for evil to triumph is for good to do nothing.  He even, if you’re paying close enough attention, slips in a deeply thought-provoking debate about stem cell research, addressing both sides of the decidedly difficult issue.

I would be the first to admit that his last outing, Unseen Academicals, was not a favorite of mine, though I realize that may have more to do with my lack of interest in the sports culture which it satirizes than any fault on the part of the author.  My only real complaint was that it seemed to lack the depth and brilliant characterization of his previous work.  Snuff was, to me, a fine return to form on both of those counts and I heartily recommend it to any fan of the series, which I imagine includes anyone who has read it.