Letters want to be delivered - and if they don't, you can get some nasty surprises. Especially in the post office in Ankh-Morpork where letters haven't been delievered for years and years.. and are starting to talk...So to solve this problem, the Patrician and tyrant Lord Vetinari 'hires' con-artist extraordinaire Moist von Lipwig to fix it. In this case, hires means that after Moist is hanged - and almost died from it - he get offered to fix the postal service - or die. So he has a choice to make ... and after some thought, he decides to go for the postal gig, figuring he can always just escape. Not realizing that he gets a golem as a parol officer - and those never stop... and are not the nicest thing to be carried back to town by.So he exercises his freedom of choice (!) and starts as the postal master general - only to discover that the place is a complete mess and he's up against very hard competition from the Grand Trunk company (which sends messages over great distances in no time at all - and in some ways can be compared to emails since you can 'crack' the system and if you do so, you are a 'cracker'). The trunk company has been taken over by an evil chairman and which is now being run for profit only and therefore breaks down often - which gives Moist a business opportunity.So he dons a golden suit and start getting people to notice him - and the postal office - and it turns out, he's rather good at it. He creates stamps and introduces stamp collecting to the disk (he even turns an avid pin collector into a stamp collector!). But all is not complete before he has had a final facedown with the trunk company - and if possible, also gotten the girl. Because there is a girl - there's always a girl... In this case a chain smoking girl who works to protect the rights of golems - but it's still a girl...This was a hilarious book. I love Pratchett and when he's at his best, it's really amazing what he can think of - and this book is definitely a good one. He has a way of taking things from this world, putting them into the context of the Discworld and then making them seem so silly... Like his definition of Finance: "They'd saved the city with gold more easily, at that point, than any hero could have manged with steel. But in truth it had not exactly been gold, or even the promise of gold, but more like the fantasy of gold, the fairy dream that the gold is there, at the end of the rainbow, and will continue to be there for ever provided, naturally, that you don't go and look."(470) Financial crisis, anyone?And he writes scenes that are so amusing - like when Lord Vetinari establishes the 'limits' of his power:"'You can't do that!' Greenyham protested weakly. /.../'Can I not?' said Vetinari. 'I'm a tyrant. It's what we do.''But there's no evidence!' /,,,/ Greenyham pleaded. /.../'Mr Greenyham,' said Lord Vetinari, 'one more uninvited outburst from you and you will be imprisoned. I hope that is clear?''On what charge?' said Greenyham, still managing to find a last reserve of hauteur from somewhere.'There doesn't have to be one!'This is a great read - and even though it's the twenty-ninth book in this series, I find it highly accessible so one doesn't have to have read the twenty-eight previous volumes to read and get this one.
The length of time it took to read this book is not a reflection upon its quality. I just haven’t been very good at switching between books lately due to a number of distractions.This one includes two things I have soft spots for: a talented con artist and the postal service. As I’ve commented on in other reviews, such as The Lies of Locke Lamora, I’m fascinated by a well-executed con. Moist von Lipwig (one of Pratchett’s most deliberately awful character names) is one grade-A con artist. He brilliantly plays people as if he were a virtuoso and they were violins. But he isn’t, after all, a heartless bastard, which makes him someone to root for. Although Lord Vetinari, the tyrant of Ankh-Morpork, is also a con artist in his own way. The man is a genius, several moves ahead of his opponents; and while he may be ruthless in some ways, I also have to admire him.While I use e-mail and sometimes text messages, I still enjoy writing and receiving old-fashioned paper letters. There’s a personal element to a letter that electronic communication lacks. It makes me sad that a large portion of the current population under 20 years old has never handled a postage stamp. Anyway… The plot hinges on Moist being forced by Vetinari to take over the post office, which has fallen into disrepair, in part due to a new way of sending messages called the clacks. The clacks uses towers and a type of semaphore and light method of passing along messages; the description of the clacks towers at night struck me as quite beautiful. The clacks service is also suffering from problems, due to its unethical owners. Pratchett works his narrative magic yet again, managing to satirise and also humanise. While there is a rivalry between the post office and the clacks, neither is held above the other in the end; both service a purpose, both employ good people. I won’t get into the intricacies of the plot. Elements of it are familiar, but there are some wonderful twists and turns. There is also a satire of fanatical collecting, starting with pins--and represented by young postal employee Stanley--and turning to stamps. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the young woman who catches Moist’s eye. If he has one of the most cringeworthy character names in Discworld, she has one of the cutesiest--Adora Belle Dearheart. Of course, this being Pratchett, she is smart and steely and embittered, chain-smokes, and works for an enterprise that hires out golems. She has a particularly fun scene involving use of her high-heeled shoe to deal with an overly-friendly drunk.Definitely worth reading, whether you’re already a Pratchett fan who just hasn’t gotten to it yet or someone who’s never tried any of his other works. It works well as a stand-alone despite its connections to other Discworld books.
What do You think about Going Postal (2005)?
Absolute pony. I've lived my life up to now in blissful ignorance of Terry Pratchett and the Discworld series. It's only my devotion to Book Club that meant I finally faced my fears and got stuck in to this, my first – and probably last – Pratchett book. The reason I've avoided the series for so long is because I had a strong suspicion I wouldn't enjoy it. I can at least now say I've tried and that my suspicions were right on the money. The lighthearted tone made for easy reading, but I just couldn't get into the story. I couldn't bring myself to care about what was happening and I didn't care for any of the characters. This was mostly down to the humour – it did nothing for me. You can't just give something a silly name and expect it to be funny. You have to try a bit harder than that. Or maybe the problem is that he was trying entirely too hard. Either way, my funny bone was not troubled by this book at all. I get the overall aim of Discworld, i.e. a made up world but with the same problems as this one, but why does everything have to be whimsical nonsense? I prefer my reading a bit grittier, which isn't the late Terry's fault, it was just never going to work for me. I can see why people would like this book and indeed the rest of the series. (Perhaps I picked the wrong book to start off with?) However, my own experience of reading this was dire. I couldn't wait to get it over with and pretty much skimmed the final 100 pages. Truly painful. Come back, Sheltering Sky – all is forgiven!
—Amy Herrington
Als ich vom Tod des Lieblingsautors meiner Studienzeit - Terry Pratchett - erfuhr, zog ich sofort einen der Schmöker aus meinem ansehnlichen Scheibenwelt SUB (Stapel ungelesener Bücher 23 gelesen/ 8 ausständig) hervor, und schwelgte im Andenken an den Autor.Normalerweise ist ein Buch nicht gut, wenn ich allzulange zum Lesen benötige, diesmal stimmt aber meine persönliche Faustregel gar nicht. Mehrere Rezensionstermine und Lesegruppen zwangen mich, diese höchst vergnügliche Lektüre zu unterbrechen und ein paar Mal zur Seite zu legen. In meiner letzten Pratchett Rezension vor ca. zwei Jahren bemängelte ich trotz des Ideenfeuerwerks von Erfindungen und Figuren die flache Story dahinter. "Ab die Post" ist aber ganz anders: Diese wundervolle Geschichte der Post- und Telekommunikationsindustrie, gewürzt mit einer gehörigen Portion Kapitalismuskritik, portiert auf das Fantasy Universum der Scheibenwelt, hat mich restlos begeistert. Es wäre aber nicht die verdrehte Sicht von Pratchett, wenn nicht einiges diametral entgegengesetzt zu unserer Realität laufen würde. :DDie marode, Telekom-Industrie liegt darnieder. Das privatisierte Internet (Klacker) funktioniert mangels Investition und Wartung der Infrastruktur mehr schlecht als recht, die privaten Investoren saugen das Unternehmen und die Mitarbeiter aus. Die wütenden Kunden können sich zwar beschweren, das nutzt aber infolge der Monopolstellung des "großen Strangs" überhaupt nichts. Dem talentieren Gelegenheitsbetrüger Feucht von Lipwick wird durch dubiose Umstände die Leitung der guten alten, quasi stillgelegten Post übertragen, und plötzlich mischt ein alter bzw. brandneuer Konkurrent den Markt auf. Die historische Post fordert das moderne Internet heraus!Das ist so herrlich komisch, verrückt, verdreht und trotzdem auf unsere Zeit anzuwenden, dass es eine Freude ist. Augenzwinkernd werden, Kostendruck, Rationalisierung, Lean Management, feindliche Firmenübernahmen, Finanzblasen, Korruption, Leader Boards, die die Verantwortung hin und her schieben, Bürokratie, Kadergehorsam, Medienmanipulation, Public Relations...auf die Schippe genommen. Irgendwie ist es ein vergnügliches fast schon betriebswirtschaftliches Lehrstück, wohin der Turbokapitalismus auch in der Scheibenwelt die Gesellschaft führen kann.Für mich war die Geschichte besonders witzig, denn ich arbeite seit 1988 in dieser Branche - ich glaub ich werde das Buch meinem Ex-Chef empfehlenFazit: Absolute Leseempfehlung!
—Alexandra
I was reading this to my son when that train crashed and burned in Quebec, destroying so much property and killing all those people. I watched the news and listened to the new owner of the company in question defend his methods of making more money by cutting expenses -- specifically, expenses like having two engineers on a shift when you could get away with only having one. In fact, it was probably safer to have just one person doing the safety check, because if there were two people, they were more likely to distract one another!All of which was creepily appropriate to have as a background to reading this book.
—Deborah Markus
