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Sillyness, satire, and science fiction
The Fifth Elephant
"The Fifth Elephant" is one book in the long "Discworld" series by Terry Prachett. Don't worry - you can read them in any order. Books that come one right after another are quite rare in the Discworld series. All the books are funny, witty, and subtly thought-provoking. All of them take place on an imaginary planet called Discworld, described as "a flat planet supported on the shoulders of four great elephants", who in turn stand on the back of "the Great A'Tuin, the World Turtle." In the middle of all this chaos, a large city called Ankh-Morpork is the setting for most of the "Discworld" series, including this one. I cannot really explain the plot of any of these books, the so the easy way out would be to compare them to the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" trilogy, by Douglas Adams. This book is set in the days when magazines such as "Crossbows & Ammo" were popular, where there was a Guild for everything (an Alchemists Guild, Wizards Guild, Thieves Guild, Assassins Guild, etc.) and when very little made sense. Enter Sir Samuel Vimes, commander of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch (a.k.a. the police.) Sam Vimes is a policeman, through and through. He never wanted to be anything else. However, he is married to Lady Sybil, a duchess of Ankh-Morpork. This makes Samuel Vimes a Duke, and when a diplomatic mission is sent out to Uberwald, he is the one chosen to be the diplomat. This is only the beginning, of course, and it gets much more complicated as vampires, werewolves, trolls, and even a six foot tall dwarf clash when The Scone of Stone, the dwarves' throne for the Low King, is stolen. Of course it is policeman, er, diplomat, Vimes who is blamed and must finally solve this mystery. This is but a brief overview of this book, and if you read it, remember this: If you decide to eat, sleep, or do some other crazy like that while reading it, you must choose where to stop. There are no chapters in this book. After reading nine Discworld books, I have only encountered one with chapters. There were only six of them in that entire book. So do yourself a favor, and read this book. Then do yourself another favor, and read the rest of the series (there's about thirty of them.) Click here to read the previous Random Book Review, of "Seabiscuit, An American Legend".
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