Feet of Clay (1996)

This is probably my fifth book in the Discworld series and my third of the "guards" books from that series. I always find Pratchett's humor refreshing and his mysteries, while taking place in a fictional universe, are well-constructed. In this novel, Vimes, commander of the City Watch, must solve a series of murders that are especially puzzling because they do not appear to have been committed by Guild of Assassins members and yet they appear to be planned and targeted. Further, the Patrician of the city is suffering from a slow poison that cannot be identified, one of the watch's newest members is suffering a gender identity crisis, and Nobby discovers he may be a member of the nobility. Confusion, hilarity and a few deep thoughts ensue.
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golems make themselves a king and some kind of Ankh-morpork politics going on. And a lady dwarf. It was just odd. Funny bits, but not funny overall. ( )

Feet of Clay is the third book in the Watch subseries of Discworld. It’s also the Guards book that I’ve enjoyed the most so far. In fact, it may even have given my previous favorite Discworld book, Wyrd Sisters, some competition.

I was worried at first that this book would rehash old ground with the “let’s get ourselves a puppet king” thing. There’s a bit of that, and it’s an important aspect of the story, but it doesn’t overpower the story and it has a more amusing twist than in previous books. In general, I thought this plot was one of the better ones. Parts of it actually kept me guessing, and I was truly interested in finding out what would happen next as opposed to just sitting back, going along for the ride, and enjoying the humor like I normally do when I read these books.

Character-wise, I enjoyed the mish-mash of characters and their different backgrounds and amusing perspectives. I enjoyed the introduction of that in the second Watch book, and things got even livelier in this book. Even Vimes seemed less annoying to me than he had in the previous books. Also, his pocket organizer was hilarious. This seemed like one of Pratchett's better ones in terms of humor. The books are all funny, but this one had more parts that made me laugh out loud.

I’m not sure many people would appreciate the corniness of this insult, but I loved this: “… a ding-a-ling so big he’d been upgraded to a clang-a-lang”. ( )

Pratchett does surprisingly well with the mystery aspect of the book. The humor is pretty weak, though. ( )

Re-reread April 2015.

There are two story threads connected by a pivotal plot point in this book: The city's golems are behaving strangely and someone is slowly poisoning Lord Vetinari. Sam Vimes is on the case....

But this is Pratchett, so you know there is more to it than that. This Discworld reflection focuses on self-determination, the meaning of life, what it is to be human, oppression, prejudice, the economic effects of mechanization, and contrasting ideas of what makes for good governance.

It's also a story that, despite some heavy ideas, is lighthearted and thoroughly enjoyable.

I highly recommend it. ( )