Raising Steam

i guess i don't have a whole lot to say about this novel, it was just kind of a nice send off. it didn't feel particularly compelling from a plot perspective, but being, by definition, a traveling, round-the-disc (or at least round the Sto Plains) type of novel, it was a nice round up of all the funny place names you've heard of over the course of the whole Discworld series, and Vimes was in it, and so was Vetinari, and Harry King, and even some other watch cameos, so it just felt like a nice, nostalgic trip around the Disc. i'm not sure it was as funny as previous Discworld novels, but i'm not sure it needed to be. i do think that reading it in 2025, when every single thing is suddenly LLMs In Disguise made the whole "wow, technology is great! what WILL people think of next!" hit a bit differently than it was intended, but i'm old enough to remember how it felt to think that the internet could bring us closer together, so i can still see the feeling the ending was intended to stir in me, even if it is a bit distant on the horizon. all in all, well worth a read if you've got all your frequent flier miles punched to the Discworld.