Unseen Academicals

He's a really interesting character, and yeah, deeply moral.

If you look at one of the key speeches in Discworld, particularly late period Discworld, is in Unseen Academicals, where, um, Vetinari, the character we're talking about, um, talks about how the, the true nature of evil.

And that's been a-

Yes

... theme of things he talks about throughout the books.

Like, um, he, there's a bit in Guards! Guards! from 1987 where he talks about the city being, um, like, lots of small examples of, of low level evil.

But he really crystallizes it 15 years later in Unseen Academicals, where he talks about, um, seeing a otter and her cubs, um, feeding on the body of a trout, and the roe, the, the, the eggs spilling out of the trout, and mother and child feasting on mother and child.

Mm.

Yeah.

He's also that Pratchett archetype that you're getting at this stage of the book, like Otto or Pepe from Unseen Academicals, the kind of on the outside they're very flamboyant and they, they've got, like, they really catch your eye in the way they act- And then at heart, they're very practical and they're very clear and they're kind of, they're almost putting on these affectations as a shield.

Yeah.

And while Sardines doesn't do it so much, you can s- it's made clear, like the way he talks to Darktan, he knows how this goes and he knows the, the advantages of it, while still being a silly idea.

It does.

Publisher Transworld is giving away 10,000 copies of the novel Unseen Academicals, which notably features the magical orangutan librarian on the cover, specifically to combat child illiteracy.

Using the librarian, a character who violently protects the magical texts of the university, as the face of a literacy campaign is a brilliant thematic crossover.

It is so clever.

So you've got Thud, a young person called Thud, making money...

Yeah, Unseen Academicals, a little less with a lot of change, but I think it still has some...

No, that's still got quite a bit, I think.

Yeah, Snuff, Raising Steam.