Feet of Clay (novel)

Feet of Clay
Author Terry Pratchett
Language English
Series Discworld
19th novel – 3rd City Watch story
Subject

Cop novels, slavery, robots and artificial intelligence

Characters
Ankh-Morpork City Watch, Havelock Vetinari
Locations
Ankh-Morpork
Genre Fantasy
Publisher Victor Gollancz
Publication date
 1996
ISBN 0-575-05900-1

Feet of Clay is a fantasy novel by British writer Terry Pratchett, the nineteenth book in the Discworld series, published in 1996. The story follows the members of the City Watch, as they attempt to solve murders apparently committed by a golem, as well as the unusual poisoning of the Patrician, Lord Vetinari.

The title is a figure of speech from Hebrew scripture (see feet of clay) and the script used in the book to represent Morporkian being written by a golem resembles the Hebrew alphabet,[1] a reference to golems' origins in Jewish folklore.

Plot

Twelve of the city golems, clay creatures forced to obey the written instructions placed inside their heads, decide to create a "king" golem. They fashion a golem from their own clay and place in his head instructions that would fulfill their hopes: "Bring peace to the world", "Treat everyone fairly" and so on. They enroll the help of a priest and dwarf bread baker to write the sacred instructions and bake the clay, respectively; Meshugah, the "king" golem, is initially sent to work in a candle factory.

Around the same time, a cabal of Ankh-Morpork's guild leaders seeks to gradually depose the Patrician, replace him with Nobby Nobbs as the new king and rule the city through him.

To implement this, the cabal orders the golems' newly made king, Meshugah, to make poisoned candles and have them delivered to the palace. Vetinari is successfully poisoned, making him severely ill. Meshugah, however, is "overloaded" by all the different instructions his creators gave him, and goes "mad": he starts overworking and, when he finishes raw materials, he rampages through the city, and goes on to murder the priest and baker who took part in his creation.

At this point the City Watch steps in trying to solve the murders and the poisoning of Lord Vetinari. With the assistance of their new forensics expert dwarf Cheery Littlebottom, Commander Vimes and Captain Carrot slowly unravel the mystery.

Carrot and Dorfl, one of the golems, fight and defeat the golem king at the candlestick factory. Afterwards, Vimes confronts the city's chief heraldry expert, a vampire, who instigated the whole affair. Dorfl arrests him despite tenuous evidence and Vimes burns down all the heraldic record as retribution against the "elite" and "noble" plotters, who had happily and self-righteously sacrificed the lives of several "commoners" in the pursuit of their scheme.

In the end, Vetinari has recovered completely, Dorfl is sworn in as a Watchman, Vimes gets a pay rise, and the Watch House gets a new dartboard. Vetinari reveals to his assistant, Drumknott, that he had known of the plot for some time already. Vimes' rash actions in the pursuit of truth had considerably scared the city elite, which is precisely why Vetinari had let him continue: so that the plotters would know just how much worse off they'd be if Vetinari died.

Reception

Publishers Weekly described the book as "fantasy served with a twist of Monty Python, parody that works by never taking itself too seriously", with "sly puns" and "lively, outrageous characters".[2] The A.V. Club, conversely, emphasized the book's "intelligent wit and wordplay with a notable lack of punnery", praised Pratchett for the "complexity" of the politics and the "three-dimensional" nature of the characters, and noted that the "sword and sorcery" plot "doesn't insult the reader's intelligence" despite involving "the bumbling City Watch" and "a murderous enchanted statue".[3]

At the SF Site, Steven H Silver commended Pratchett for presenting "mysteries which can be solved with the clues provided", and stated that although the book does not have "quite as many laugh out loud moments as [previous Discworld novels]", it shows that Pratchett is "a novelist as well as an humorist".[4]

References

  1. ↑ Feet of Clay The Annotated Pratchett File
  2. ↑ Feet of Clay, reviewed in Publishers Weekly; published October 2, 1996; retrieved December 28, 2017
  3. ↑ Terry Pratchett: Feet Of Clay, reviewed by John Krewson, at the A.V. Club; published March 29, 2002; retrieved December 28, 2017
  4. ↑ Feet of Clay, reviewed by Steven H Silver; at the SF Site; published January 14, 1997; retrieved December 28, 2017
Reading order guide
Preceded by
Maskerade		 19th Discworld Novel Succeeded by
Hogfather
Preceded by
Men at Arms		 4th City Watch Story
Published in 1996		 Succeeded by
Jingo
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.