Thud!

Discussion in 'THE WATCH BOOKS' started by Buzzfloyd, Aug 25, 2005.

  1. Buzzfloyd Spelling Bee

    Just reiterating the known info about Thud!, which I got from here.


    Thud!

    Date due: 1 October 2005

    Series: Adult Discworld novel / City Watch

    Details: An old-fashioned murder mystery with political overtones.

    The first line will be: "Thud! That was the noise the body made when it hit the ground."

    It stars the City Watch, particularly Vimes, and takes place in Ankh-Morpork while a civil war is going on between the dwarfs and the trolls and barricades are going up around the city.

    Vimes' life is being made difficult by a government inspector looking into the Watch's efficiency. The inspector keeps sending Vimes memos along the lines of: there were two policemen in Sator Square all morning but no crimes were committed there - what, then, was their purpose? Vimes eventually drags him out onto the streets for a taste of real policing.

    Lady Sybil is worrying about Vimes' health and trying to make him eat several portions of fruit and vegetables a day. In one scene, she makes a constable promise to make the Commander eat the apple she gives him, much to the constable's discomfort.

    It features a scene where the Patrician persuades Vimes to hire a female vampire as a Watch officer. The vampire is 51 years old but looks about 16.

    Vimes is trying to get home on time every evening to read Where's My Cow to his young son. He puts an Ankh-Morpork twist on the story by including as characters some of the people he has met during his day:
    Where's my cow?
    Is that my cow?
    It goes 'Buggerem! Millennium hand and shrimp!'
    That is not my cow. That is Foul Ole Ron.

    Nobby gets a pole dancer girlfriend called Tawny - very classy, even has her own pole - whose physique is best described by saying that when Nobby stands in front of her, he's sheltered from the rain. She was once Miss May and two weeks in June. Their eyes meet when Nobby slips an IOU into her garter.

    New information added 1 May 2005:

    The female vampire's name is Sally. One scene involves her, Cheery and Angua having a girls' night out in a bar. Cheery, still shaky on a few fundamentals, keeps ordering Screaming Orgasms in the hope that one of them will work.

    Sally is apparently able to transform herself into several bats - presumably at the same time, since killing off one of the bats is described as a quick and easy weight-loss system.

    Also appearing in the book will be a hideous-sweater-wearing reformed vampire who obsessively overpronounces the letter W when he speaks, and a stoned urban troll named Brick who has had too many Worst Nightmares, a kind of trollish cocktail containing Slab.

    One scene in the book will describe a stand-off between Chrysoprase, Vimes and Detritus in the Pork Futures Warehouse, complete with Godfather-esque overtones.

    Transworld summary: Koom Valley? That was where the trolls ambushed the dwarves, or the dwarves ambushed the trolls. It was far away. It was a long time ago. But if he doesn't solve the murder of just one dwarf, Commander Sam Vimes of Ankh-Morpork City Watch is going to see the battle fought again, right outside his office.

    With his beloved Watch crumbling around him and war-drums sounding, he must unravel every clue, outwit every assassin and brave any darkness to find the solution. And darkness is following him.
  2. sleepy_sarge New Member

    Seems to be out on pre-release in the USA (or someone at Amazon is breaking a press embargo!), as there is a kind of review of the book by "Publisher's Weekly"

    Looks like it goes on sale earlier there too!

    Anyway, read for yourselves (and admire the cover art ?? ) here
  3. Buzzfloyd Spelling Bee

    Cheers, Sarge!
  4. hermes New Member

    Did everyone get the excerpt from Thud from author tracker?

    (If not, I'll be happy to post it)
  5. Hex New Member

    Yup, got it in my inbox yesterday :eek:

    I was enjoying it, and am sad that I didn't get to read more :(

    But I will be waiting until my UK version arrives, though something tells me I will crack and go buy a US version anyway, since my Dad wants to read it too.

    I am also feeling like Unhappy Bob because pTerry is going to be signing books in Denver in two weeks, and I'm too far away to go. :(
  6. Buzzfloyd Spelling Bee

    I haven't seen it, Hermes.
  7. Mimiru New Member

    Vimes rocks. I love the Watch! I want to get Thud! really badly.
  8. Bob New Member

    Cool, I've just read the last 4, just in time for the new ones.. :)

    Since when has the-man-with-the-stupid-hat released books in USA first ?

    Any dates for UK booksignings ? (in the north especially)

    ~BoB~
  9. Buzzfloyd Spelling Bee

    Jackal posted a list here.
  10. Bob New Member

    Ah, Thanks :)

    ~BoB~
  11. Mimiru New Member

    The books have been out here for a while. A friend of mine told me about them and told me I had to read them. I went to the public library...and got a LOT of books. Okay, fine, they only had eight, but that's completely beside the point. I just read Jingo. I read all the watch books out of order. First Men at Arms, then The Fifth Elephant, then Guards, Guards! and Men at Arms. Gah. I really, really want Thud!
  12. Buzzfloyd Spelling Bee

    The books have been out here for longer, Mimiru! But Thud! hasn't been released anywhere yet.
  13. Buzzfloyd Spelling Bee

    Are we ever going to get to see this? :(
  14. Saccharissa Stitcher

    Pretty please? :(
  15. hermes New Member

    Very sorry for the delay... Completely forgot about this thread, then my host decided to lock my account (Including e-mail!) So I searched and found it online, but unfortunately it's missing a little at the end:



    Chapter One

    Thud ... that was the sound the heavy club made as it connected with the head. The body jerked, and slumped back.

    And it was done, unheard, unseen: the perfect end, a perfect solution, a perfect story.

    But, as the dwarfs say, where there is trouble you will always find a troll.

    The troll saw.

    It started out as a perfect day. It would soon enough be an imperfect one, he knew, but just for these few minutes, it was possible to pretend that it wouldn't.

    Sam Vimes shaved himself. It was his daily act of defiance, a confirmation that he was ... well, plain Sam Vimes.

    Admittedly, he shaved himself in a mansion, and while he did so his butler read out bits from the Times, but they were just ... circumstances. It was still Sam Vimes looking back at him from the mirror. The day he saw the duke of Ankh-Morpork in there would be a bad day. "Duke" was just a job description, that's all.

    "Most of the news is about the current ... dwarfish situation, sir," said Willikins, as Vimes negotiated the tricky area under the nose. He still used his granddad's cutthroat razor. It was another anchor to reality. Besides, the steel was a lot better than the steel you got today. Sybil, who had a strange enthusiasm for modern gadgetry, kept on suggesting he get one of those new shavers, with a little magic imp inside that had its own scissors and did all the cutting very quickly, but Vimes had held out. If anyone was going to be using a blade near his face, it was going to be him.

    "Koom Valley, Koom Valley," he muttered to his reflection. "Anything new?"

    "Not as such, sir," said Willikins, turning back to the front page. "There is a report of that speech by Grag Hamcrusher. There was a disturbance afterwards, it says. Several dwarfs and trolls were wounded. Community leaders have appealed for calm."

    Vimes shook some lather off the blade. "Hah! I bet they have. Tell me, Willikins, did you fight much when you were a kid? Were you in a gang or anything?"

    "I was privileged to belong to the Shamlegger Street Rude Boys, sir," said the butler primly.

    "Really?" said Vimes, genuinely impressed. "They were pretty tough nuts, as I recall."

    "Thank you, sir," said Willikins smoothly. "I pride myself I used to give somewhat more than I got if we needed to discuss the vexed area of turf issues with the young men from Rope Street. Stevedore's hooks were their weapon of choice, as I recall."

    "And yours ... ?" said Vimes, agog.

    "A cap-brim sewn with sharpened pennies, sir. An ever-present help in times of trouble."

    "Ye gods, man! You could put someone's eye out with something like that."

    "With care, sir, yes."

    And here you stand now, in your pinstripe trousers and butlering coat, shiny as schmaltz and fat as butter, Vimes thought, while he tidied up under the ears. And I'm a duke. How the world turns.

    "And have you everheard someone say 'let's have a disturbance'?" he said.

    "Never, sir," said Wilkins, picking up the paper again.

    "Me neither. It only happens in newspapers." Vimes glanced at the bandage on his arm. It had been quite disturbing, even so.

    "Did it mention I took personal charge?" he said.

    "No, sir. But it does say here that rival factions in the street outside were kept apart by the valiant efforts of the Watch, sir."

    "They actually used the word 'valiant'?" said Vimes.

    "Indeed they did, sir."

    "Well, good," Vimes conceded grumpily. "Do they record that two officers had to be taken to the Free Hospital, one of them quite badly hurt?"

    "Unaccountably, not, sir," said the butler.

    "Huh. Typical. Oh, well ... carry on."

    Willikins coughed a butlery cough. "You might wish to lower the razor for the next one, sir. I got into trouble with her ladyship about last week's little nick."

    Vimes watched his image sigh, and lowered the razor. "All right, Willikins. Tell me the worst."

    Behind him, the paper was professionally rustled. "The headline on page three is: 'Vampire Officer For The Watch?,' sir," said the butler and took a careful step backwards.

    "Damn! Who told them?"

    "I really couldn't say, sir. It says you are not in favor of vampires in the Watch, but will be interviewing a recruit today. It says there is a lively controversy over the issue."

    "Turn to page eight, will you?" said Vimes grimly. Behind him, the paper rustled again.

    "Well?" he said. "That's where they usually put their silly political cartoon, isn't it?"

    "You did put the razor down, did you, sir?" said Willikins.

    "Yes!"

    "Perhaps it would also be just as well if you stepped away from the washbasin, too, sir."

    "There's one of me, isn't there ..." said Vimes grimly.

    "Indeed there is, sir. It portrays a small, nervous vampire and, if I may say so, a rather larger-than-life drawing of yourself leaning over your desk, holding a wooden stake in your right hand. The caption is 'Any good on a stakeout, eh?,' sir, this being a humorous wordplay referring, on the one hand, to the standard police procedure -- "

    "Yes, I think I can just about spot it," said Vimes wearily. "Any chance you could nip down and buy the original before Sybil does? Every time they run a cartoon of me, she gets hold of it and hangs it up in the library!"

    "Mr., er, Fizz does capture a very good likeness, sir," the butler conceded. "And I regret to say that her ladyship has already instructed me to go down to the Timesoffice on herbehalf."

    Vimes groaned.

    "Moreover, sir," Willikins went on, "her ladyship desired me to remind you that she and Young Sam will meet at the studio of Sir Joshua at eleven sharp, sir. The painting is at an important stage, I gather."

    "But I -- "

    "She was very specific, sir. She said if a commander of police cannot take time off, who can?"


    Edit: My host problem is also why my avatar is down.

    Luckily, my local Borders may have a copy of Thud! Off I go!

    Second edit: They did have one! :)
  16. mowgli New Member

    ALREADY????????
  17. hermes New Member

    Yep, I'm 20 pages in. Haven't had much time to read it though :cry:
  18. Ravin_Raven New Member

    Yep. It appears that the US release date got bumped up from October 1st to today.

    It'll still be ordering my copy from amazon.co.uk for the (superior, in my opinion) cover art once I have my mail box number for my dorm (and a job to pay for it, but that's beside the point), but I might just have to go to Barnes and Noble to read a bit of it in the meantime.
  19. Hex New Member

    I went and picked up my copy before drivers ed today. I'm going to start it as soon as I finish this post!

    However, Charles is going to send me the lovely UK version when it comes out. He's a sweetheart.

    So yeah, let me know where the spoiler section is once I've finished it :D
  20. spiky Bar Wench

    According to the websaite for Angus and Robertson the release here isn't till 31/10/05... I feel like Bob :(
  21. Saccharissa Stitcher

    Time to place my amazon order. :D

    Hermes, thank you so much for the teaser :)
  22. Buzzfloyd Spelling Bee

    Thank you, Hermes! That was great!
  23. Hex New Member

    Finished it.

    Loved it.

    Let me know when to start the spoiler thread. This one is worth much discussion
  24. Faerie New Member

    I saw Thud at Barnes & Noble yesterday but I'm buying the books in order and I'm only up to Feet of Clay so I will restrain myself and get it from the library first and buy it when it comes out in paperback.
  25. Hsing Moderator

    I'm on page 107...
  26. Freya New Member

    Awwww, stop teasing! I've persuaded His Lordship to pick up a copy while he's in the States. Now I just have to wait until Wednesday to start reading, dagnamit, preferably on the drive home. Obviously not while I'm driving before you all start avoiding the M25.

    Just wondering, why is the artwork so different on the American release of the books? Does the American contingent prefer a more minimalist style?
  27. Maljonic Administrator

    I think it's more a case of Harper Collins making them think they do. No really though, it's probably some stupid marketing person who thinks they'll stand out more on the bookstore shelves or something, a person that doesn't have a clue about what readers actually want. You can spot Discworld novels a mile off in UK bookshops though, so I doubt we'll ever know the real reason behind America's poor deal on the bookcover designs. :)
  28. TamyraMcG Active Member

    The American covers might have been the reason my library had Carpe Jugulum in the wrong part of the library, I shudder to think I might have missed it tucked away with the Mystery books, and I wonder how many diehard mystery fans were turned from the dark side by stumbling across it there. Maybe I should have left it there as my little secret.
  29. Rincewind Number One Doorman

    The Lady in Booketc said it will be out here on the 26th of sept. Not to long now.

    I think the americans have different covers becuase they thought americans would be put off/think it's childish -by the colourful Josh Kidby* style of the earlier books. I'm not sure why they dont use the newer ones, which clearly rock.


    *Or is it Kirby?
  30. Maljonic Administrator

    Could be in Tesco very soon then, have to keep a look out. :)
  31. Rincewind Number One Doorman

    Do Tesco tend to get it before?

    The woman said it was brosjdjs* and couldn't be sold before the 26th




    * I didn't actually hear the word, it began with b, though.
  32. Maljonic Administrator

    Not sure if they get it before, but they might have a special deal on it; I go there quite a lot so it'll be easy for me to check. :)
  33. Faerie New Member

    My book store seems to know that PTerry is fantasy but my library is confused, half the books are considered fantasy and half are considered science fiction.
  34. nicolemrw New Member

    and i'm working on my second read through. when can we start discussing it with spoilers?????
  35. Cynical_Youth New Member

    That's a good question. The discussion threads are my responsibility and I have to wait for October to come around, so there definitely will be a discussion thread then. I don't know how people feel about starting one before that. The only thing I can promise is to read it as quickly as possible once I get it. If someone else is willing to do the introduction for me you won't have to wait long once it's released here.

    I'm not sure how many people have already read it though, or if there are people who really want to discuss it before then. Personally I'd prefer we all discuss it together instead of in seperated groups.
    You Americans are lucky enough as it is. :p
  36. Buzzfloyd Spelling Bee

    How about after it's even been released over here? Gah! :x
  37. Rincewind Number One Doorman

    I don't have a problem with people who've read the book disscussing it as long as they do it in a spoiler thread that I can avoid until I've got the book.
  38. Hsing Moderator

    CY, would it speed things up id I bought and sent you a copy? :)
    We could do a swap instead of a payment... I don't have the Science-of-Discworld-books yet!
  39. Cynical_Youth New Member

    That would be useful. I'd still want to wait till after the UK release date to start the discussion, but it would give me more time to prepare an introduction and some analysis. :)
  40. Hsing Moderator

    Okay, pm me your adress, and I'll buy you a copy and post it tomorrow.
    It is, by the way, this edition:
    Thud!
    Not the Us one.

    Science of Discworld I
    and
    Science of Discworld II
    together equal the expanse, roughly... Do you think that would work? I mean, it seems easier to me than money transfer... and less awkward.
  41. Hsing Moderator

    And I've got a two pages review ready too.... I'm rally looking forward to that disc-ussion...
  42. Cynical_Youth New Member

    Okay, cool. :)

    I won't be able to post 'em until Tuesday. I hope that's all right.

    I have to go to Utrecht to buy it and my next classes are on Monday (I would go earlier but the government hates me*). Also, by the time I arrive home the post office will be closed so it has to wait till Tuesday.

    I'll pm you my home address now.

    *I'm still 17 so I don't get my student's free public transport card till October. Why? Because they hate me. It is the only conceivable reason.

    Edit to add: Two pages! Nice. :)

    Also: UK version is the one I prefer, so that's very good.
  43. Cynical_Youth New Member

    Got them today (I love that store, no time to expand on why but it rules!). Still need your address, though. If you pm me tonight they'll be on their way tomorrow morning. :)
  44. colonesque10 New Member

    I always avoid the M25 wherever possible Freya, as you've probably seen on the Tripod sketches of my journey.

    Ordered the book from Amazon today, can't wait for it now. :)
  45. Electric_Man Templar

    And just because Kenny ordered the book from Amazon, Asda now have it. So I presume Tesco do too.

    Me being me, I bought the Going Postal paperback :)

    I'm still debating whether I should buy my first ever Discworld Hardback book or not.
  46. Hsing Moderator

    What store? :)
  47. Cynical_Youth New Member

    Broese. It's a huge book store about two minutes away from where I study. They always have all the Discworld and other Pratchett books, even the maps, the cookbook and the quiz books. When I went to buy your SoD books I couldn't find any of them so I asked a clerk. He immediately knew what I was talking about, walked over to the Discworld shelf, pulled aside some books to reveal layers upon layers of more Discworld and pulled out the SoD books. I love that store. :)

    The books are on their way, btw. :)
  48. Hsing Moderator

    Yes, that sounds like a bookstore deserving to be loved...
  49. mowgli New Member

    Just finished Thud. It made me teary-eyed. Because I think Terry is trying to save the world, and the world - for the most part - isn't listening.

    ...sorry, still teary-eyed...
  50. jaccairn New Member

    Tesco have Thud for £12.97 but don't seem to have Where's my Cow? They did have a 2 for £20 sticker on the book though the tills weren't registering this. It did mean though that when I went to customer services to get back the extra it charged, they refunded the price of one book :D . My sister was very pleased to get the other one.

    I was up 'til 1.30 finishing it. It's a good thing I'm not working this week.
  51. Hansi New Member

    Just noticed that Amazon.co.uk has it for £10.79 but I'm still waiting till it's out in Paperback until I buy it (don't have much shelf space to spare :p) and I have no time to read for leisure at the time because of school, so I guess I'll get it from the library in December.
  52. Electric_Man Templar

    In Asda it was a shade under £10, unlike Tesco to sell it for that much more than one of their big rivals... but I guess they are trying to draw people in with the offer.
  53. Rincewind Number One Doorman

    I payed 14 pound(my pound sign doesn't work) for it. But I did buy it on the first day of release from Books.Etc thats the price of impatience.
  54. Cynical_Youth New Member

    Thud! has arrived. Yay!
  55. Tephlon Active Member


    I used to shop there. Ah, memories.

    Unfortunately I have no such place here. Although I heard there's a DW fan in Cascais (Near Lisbon) with a bookshop.... Now to find it.
  56. aegron New Member

    broese is in Utrecht right?
  57. Cynical_Youth New Member

    Yes, it is. Right in the city centre.
  58. Buzzfloyd Spelling Bee

    Tesco is too far away from us to go there. We'll just have to wait till Saturday. It will be the reward for the stupid three hour mock exam I have to do on Saturday morning. ::cries::
  59. Freya New Member

    Wheeeee! I've just picked up my copy of "Thud" from WHSmith; one of the last three. Norfolkians love Discworld.
    (For those of you who may remember; His Lordship was bringing me a copy back from the US last week. Long story short; it didn't materialise. :evil: Anyone need a Doghouse? I don't need it now that I've finally got my book.:lol:)
  60. Sinister_the_Pink New Member

    I got it last monday, and finished it last friday!

    I was very surprised to see it on sale so early.

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