MUCH like the subject of this, his 40th Discworld novel, Raising Steam, Terry Pratchett seems to be an inexhaustible book-writing machine. Despite suffering from early-onset Alzheimer’s, Pratchett continues to turn out novel after novel in his long-running series, and Raising Steam is a fantastic hybrid of everything that makes Pratchett worth reading.

Despite the fact that most people will think of the Discworld as firmly entrenched in the genre of “fantasy” fiction, its subject matter is anything but. Raising Steam is no exception; a synthesis of futurism and mysticism, the novel addresses the clash of technology and tradition in a world where the pace of change is only rarely outstripped by its residents’ adaptability.

Many of Pratchett’s novels can be read as sub-set trilogies within the Discworld sequence (in fact, several such have been published in the past: the City Watch Trilogy, the Witches Trilogy, etc); Raising Steam is the third novel to feature the wonderfully named Moist von Lipwig, one-time con-man and reluctant civic reformer. First introduced in Going Postal, in which Moist set up the Discworld’s first postal and telegraphic services, and then again in Making Money (which should be fairly self-explanatory), Moist is an amalgamation of a flaneur, a jongleur, and many other words ending in “-eur” (as long as they carry some hint of disrepute).

A proxy for many of the machinations of the Patrician Lord Vetinari (oft described as resembling a predatory flamingo and undisputed ruler of the great city of Ankh-Morpork), Moist enters the story when Dick Simnel, a young man from the provinces, comes to town with his newfangled concept of a steam locomotive. Moist, whose life is becoming far too unexciting, with a stable marriage and a smoothly running Post Office, Bank and Mint, finds himself caught up in the equivalents of a civil war and a religious war, all running at the same time.

In addition to Moist, Dick and Vetinari, Raising Steam also features Harry King, an erstwhile entrepreneur known as the “King of the Golden River,” who has made his massive fortune on the back of, well, human effluvia and the premium people will pay to not wallow in their own filth. Together, these four gentlemen (and I use the phrase in its most generous sense) see in the advent of the locomotive, an irresistible force that can pull Ankh-Morpork — kicking and screaming — into the future.

But for every irresistible force, there must be an immovable object. In Raising Steam, this function is fulfilled by a group of zealots, dwarves known as “grags” who manage to combine the delights of bigotry and racial purity with a complete disdain for modernity, which they see as an insult to tradition. Reactionary fundamentalists to the core, the grags indulge in waves of terrorist violence in which they attack the well-nigh indispensable “clacks” (telegraph) system that dots the Discworld landscape and attempt to derail the imminent railway system that is spreading across the region like wildfire.

Change may always be good, but the people facing it don’t necessarily see that. And in Raising Steam, we get that sense: this novel is not dark in the way earlier Discworld novels were — it’s dark in the truest sense of the word, reminiscent of terrors lurking in the shadows. Thoughtful but graphic, philosophical but also violent, Raising Steam is a sweeping commentary on modernity, aspiration, fear, ambition and the discontent engendered by metamorphosis. As the Discworld becomes ever-smaller, connected to a greater and greater extent by technology and its practitioners, and its inhabitants become closer and closer, Pratchett also raises the question of suffrage and the rights of people (not necessarily just humans) to be treated as actual persons, rather than just broadly painted stereotypes.

The problem, of course, with diving straight into the mythos of a world is that new readers may struggle to understand why, for example, the grags of Raising Steam have so many issues with their brethren, or what makes Moist von Lipwig such a target for the Patrician’s puppetry, or indeed why a gnome is any less a person than a troll, a vampire or a werewolf. That particular context is only really evident initially if you have read the previous novels: Pratchett is all about “live and let live,” and the freedom of the individual is a central theme in almost all of his novels … especially when that freedom is earned through struggle, rather than handed out wholesale or taken as given. In the same way, lack of context may be the greatest flaw in Raising Steam; unless you’ve read at least a few of the earlier Discworld novels, you will struggle to understand why the advent of technology is such a big deal.

The short answer is that in previous Discworld novels, such as Men at Arms or Moving Pictures, Pratchett dallied with the idea of technology as a quasi-mystical force. The “gonne” (gun) in the former exerts a malign influence on those who bear it, the films in the latter make the most sensible people into delusional, hedonistic fools. Unlike the previous novels, though, the railroad in Moving Pictures is a benevolent god (if occasionally vengeful with those who would do it harm): it is a force more powerful than magic; than tradition or religion; more powerful even, than … paperwork (see the Patrician’s clerk, Drumknott, for a fuller understanding of this). Raising Steam marks something of a shift in the Discworld: not only do we explore a vaster and more fully-realised geography than ever before, we are also confronted by the fact that this is a world moving not only through space on the back of a giant turtle, it’s also a world moving through time, from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution.

It should by now be clear to the readers of this publication that I am a fan of Pratchett and his Discworld series. There’s something rather special about Raising Steam though; despite the fact that many readers may find it difficult to jump into a book that is so clearly part of a sequence (relative to many of other Discworld novels, which could easily be read as stand-alones), this novel is a bit of a capstone. The initial Discworld books were light and fluffy, but across the last 30 years, they have steadily grown — without losing the joy inherent in Pratchett’s writing — to address darker and more “real” themes, of what it means when a world is faced by the glory and despair inherent in progress. Raising Steam will undoubtedly raise some hackles, but it continues Pratchett’s career as one of the cleverest, slyest (and other words ending in “-est” as long as they carry a soupcon of wit in their nature) writers we still have with us.

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Raising Steam

(NOVEL)

By Terry Pratchett

Doubleday, US

ISBN 978-0857522272

384pp.