I recently returned to the Discworld novels - a set of 41 books from the late, famous and humorous English author Terry Pratchett. It had been a long break - much longer than I intended - since I had read Pyramids way back in 2008! But I was glad to be back, and very much enjoyed my outing with the setting and characters this time around.

Welcome Back!

The Fifth Elephant was published in 1999, and is the 24th Discworld novel (and the 5th about the City Watch). I started reading the series around the turn of the century 25 years ago, and read several of the books within a few years, but had since taken an unexpected and extended break from them. I don't know why - especially since I have several unread Discworld books on my bookshelf - because I have really liked all the previous ones that I have read. Anyway, better to get back on that bandwagon now than never again... um, right?

Regardless, I had read the first eight books of the series in order, and then skipped to Small Gods (which is novel #13 and also great!) before eventually reading this one. And even though I read it wildly "out of order" I don't feel like that diminished the experience or enjoyment I felt while doing so. Sure, there are lots of characters from previous books, but now that we live in the magical internet-and-Wikipedia age it was easy to refresh my memory of said characters.

You know what did help my enjoyment of this book though? The fact that I have been to England in the intervening 17 years! That and I am also much more interested in English stuff - like cricket and British royalty yeah. So that helps, but definitely isn't required for enjoyment of the series.

Anyhow, this book is a good mix of fantasy and dry British humor (sorry, I mean "humour"), with lots of clever and biting social commentary. What's not to like?! And even though there is a lot of parody of things both real and fantasy-related, it placed 153rd on the The Big Read - a BBC survey in 2003 to find the nation's best-loved novels.

Non-Spoiler Teaser

In the infamous and illustrious city of Ankh-Morpork the great Dwarven Scone-of-Stone has been stolen! Not to worry, though, because the captain of the city watch, Samuel Vines, is on the case after being sent to Überwald to meet with the dwarves. It is there that he, his wife and several members of his force become involved with many interesting people and crazy adventures. After dealing with teetotalling vampires, royal werewolves and gender-less dwarven clans he finally thinks he has an idea of what is going on. But will the citizens of Überwald listen to a foreigner explain the devious machinations that lead to this disaster? Let's hope so, because he seems to be the only sane one around!

My Rating:

• Story:
• Writing:

Where to Get The Fifth Elephant

• You can get both physical and electronic versions of this book at Amazon.com.^†
• You can also try your local bookstore or library - this book has been around for nearly three decades so the chances are good they will have a copy.

† - This is an affiliate link.  Learn more on my Privacy & Disclosure page.