Going Postal
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| Terry Pratchett The Discworld series 33rd novel – 1st Moist von Lipwig story  |
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| Outline | |
| Characters: | Moist von Lipwig |
| Locations: | Ankh-Morpork |
| Motifs: | Fantasy, Redemption, Post office |
| Publication details | |
| Year of release: | 2004 |
| Original publisher: | Doubleday |
| Hardback ISBN: | ISBN 0-385-60342-8 |
| Paperback ISBN: | ISBN 0-552-14943-8 |
| Other details | |
| Awards: | 2005 Finalist nominee for Nebula Award for Best Novel |
| Notes: | |
Going Postal is Terry Pratchett's 33rd Discworld novel, released in the United Kingdom on September 25, 2004. Unusually for a Discworld novel (other than the children's books and the Science of Discworlds) Going Postal is divided into chapters. These chapters begin with a synopsis of philosophical themes, in a similar manner to some Victorian novels and, notably, to Jules Verne stories. The name comes from the American expression 'going postal'.
The book was on the shortlist for the Nebula Award for Best Novel. It would also have been shortlisted for the Hugo Award for Best Novel, except that Pratchett withdrew it, as he felt stress over the award would mar his enjoyment of the Worldcon[1][2]. This was the first time Pratchett had been shortlisted for either award.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
Moist von Lipwig is a skilful con artist. Nevertheless, he is confined to a cell in Ankh-Morpork and scheduled to be hanged, having stolen a total of AM$150,000. He is saved when his own death is faked and Lord Vetinari offers him a choice: he can walk out of the door (and fall to his death), or he can become Postmaster of the city’s run down Post Office. Lipwig chooses the latter, hoping that a chance to escape will present itself. Lipwig’s first and last escape attempt is thwarted by a golem named Mr Pump, previously called Pump 19, who delivers Lipwig back to the office of the Patrician.
With great reluctance, Lipwig takes up his duties, only to find things are even worse than he had presumed. The Post Office has not functioned for decades, and the building is literally full of undelivered mail. Two eccentric employees remain: the aged Junior Postman Groat, and Stanley, a pin-obsessed boy who was raised by peas. They are more concerned about following the Post Office Regulations than seeing the postal system restored. There's also a Post Office cat, Mr. Tiddles, but it is even more set in its ways than its owners. Lipwig learns that within the last couple of months, while he was waiting to die in his prison cell, a whole string of newly-appointed Postmasters have met their own deaths in the Post Office building. Lipwig eventually discovers that most of the men were killed by failure to safely interact with a "ghost reality" which overlays the physical structure in the Post Office. A wizard at Unseen University explains to him that this phenomenon is caused by the fact that words have power, and masses of them are currently crammed into every available inch of space in the Post Office.
Passing a cruel and dangerous test conducted by the few surviving members of a secret order of postmen, Lipwig "officially" becomes Postmaster, and also learns that the Post Office was once a very efficient operation. Its downfall was when the trans-dimensional letter-sorting machine, created by the infamous inventor Bloody Stupid Johnson, became so highly tuned (owing to Johnson's substitution of 3 for pi in its design) that it was sorting letters before they were written, along with letters which might have been written, but weren't.
Lipwig introduces postage stamps to Ankh-Morpork, hires golems to deliver the mail, and finds himself competing against the Grand Trunk Clacks line. He meets and falls in love with the tough, chain-smoking golem-rights activist, Adora Belle Dearheart, and the two begin a relationship by the end of the book. Dearheart is the daughter of the Clacks founder John Dearheart, though the company was taken away from her by tricky financial manoeuvring. Because of this, she still has useful contacts amongst the clacks operators.
The unscrupulous Clacks chairman, Reacher Gilt, sets a banshee assassin (Mr Gryle) on the Postmaster, but only manages to burn down much of the Post Office building. The banshee dies when he gets flipped onto the space-warping sorting machine. Lipwig makes an outrageous wager than he can deliver a message to Genua faster than the Grand Trunk can. "The Smoking Gnu", a group of clacks-crackers, sets up a plan to send a killer poke into the clacks system that will destroy the machinery, halting the message that Lipwig will race against. Lipwig talks the Gnu out of it, and opts for a more psychological attack on the Grand Trunk, leaving the semaphore towers standing. This plan succeeds, and Gilt ends up walking through a very specific door - the very option that Lipwig avoided.
The novel is filled with references and parodies about computers and the internet, including GNU, crackers (specifically, phreakers), AT&T, Treasure Island (Gilt's cockatoo), The Great Gatsby (Gilt's parties), Lord of the Flies, and The Lone Gunmen ("The Smoking Gnu").
[edit] TV adaptation
Sky One have announced that they will produce a two-part adaptation of Going Postal which will air in 2009.
[edit] Translations
- Пощоряване (Bulgarian)
- Zasl/raná pošta (Czech)
- Posterijen (Dutch)
- Timbré (French, word play with « timbre », French for stamp, for mad, crazy)
- Ab die Post (German)
[edit] External links
| Reading order guide | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by A Hat Full of Sky |
33rd Discworld Novel | Succeeded by Thud! |
| Preceded by None |
1st Moist von Lipwig story Published in 2004 |
Succeeded by Making Money |
