Snuff (Pratchett novel)
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''Snuff'' is the 39th novel in the ''
Discworld ''Discworld'' is a comic fantasy"Humorous Fantasy" in David Pringle, ed., ''The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Fantasy'' (pp.31-33). London, Carlton,2006. book series written by the English author Terry Pratchett, set on the Discworld, a flat pla ...
'' series, written by
Terry Pratchett Sir Terence David John Pratchett (28 April 1948 – 12 March 2015) was an English humourist, satirist, and author of fantasy novels, especially comical works. He is best known for his ''Discworld'' series of 41 novels. Pratchett's first nov ...
. It was published on 11 October 2011 in the United States, and 13 October 2011 in the United Kingdom. The book is the third-fastest-selling novel in the United Kingdom since records began, having sold over 55,000 copies in the first three days. The book is the eighth
City Watch A city guard, city watch, town guard, or town watch, was a law enforcement and security formation found in many countries and historical periods, usually subordinate to the local municipal government. Historically, many cities had their own guar ...
story and is based largely around Commander Sir
Sam Vimes His Grace, The Duke of Ankh, Commander Sir Samuel "Sam" Vimes is a fictional character in Terry Pratchett's ''Discworld'' series. Vimes is depicted in the novels as somewhere between an Inspector Morse-type 'old-school' British policeman, and ...
. Pratchett emphasised that the word 'snuff' has "at least two meanings".


Synopsis

Commander
Sam Vimes His Grace, The Duke of Ankh, Commander Sir Samuel "Sam" Vimes is a fictional character in Terry Pratchett's ''Discworld'' series. Vimes is depicted in the novels as somewhere between an Inspector Morse-type 'old-school' British policeman, and ...
is forced by his wife, Lady Sybil, to take a holiday with their son, Young Sam, at her family's mansion Crundells. After a short time of enjoying his holiday, he discovers that the rural community has a dark past with the resident
goblin A goblin is a small, grotesque, monstrous creature that appears in the folklore of multiple European cultures. First attested in stories from the Middle Ages, they are ascribed conflicting abilities, temperaments, and appearances depending on t ...
s, humanoid lifeforms that live in caves nearby. Vimes finds out that the son of Lord Rust has been enslaving goblins to force them to work on his
tobacco plantation A plantation economy is an economy based on agricultural mass production, usually of a few commodity crops, grown on large farms worked by laborers or slaves. The properties are called plantations. Plantation economies rely on the export of cash ...
s in Howondaland, allowing him to manufacture
cigar A cigar is a rolled bundle of dried and fermented tobacco leaves made to be smoked. Cigars are produced in a variety of sizes and shapes. Since the 20th century, almost all cigars are made of three distinct components: the filler, the binder l ...
s cheaply that are then smuggled to
Ankh-Morpork Ankh-Morpork is a fictional city-state which features prominently in Terry Pratchett's ''Discworld'' fantasy novels. Overview Pratchett describes Ankh-Morpork as the biggest city in Discworld and its corrupt mercantile capital. In ''The Art o ...
. After teaming up with the local constable, a young man called Upshot, Vimes manages to arrest those responsible for the crime. In the end, thanks to his wife's organisational skills and powers of persuasion, goblins are recognised as
citizen Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection". Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...
s by all major nations and rulers. Rust's son is disinherited and exiled to Fourecks, where Lord Vetinari assures an eye will be kept on him.


Plot

Commander Vimes is persuaded by his wife Sybil and
Lord Vetinari Lord Havelock Vetinari, Lord Patrician (Primus inter pares) of the city-state of Ankh-Morpork, is a fictional character in Terry Pratchett's ''Discworld'' series, a series of forty-one books describing a parallel universe whose main world has ...
to take a family holiday at the Ramkins' countryside estate; Willikins, Vimes's thug-turned-butler, accompanies them. As Vimes arrives in the countryside, despite the silence and tranquillity, he senses crime. At a dinner with all the local 'nobs' organised by Sybil, Vimes discovers the distaste the local people have towards goblins, calling them vermin and a nuisance, with a pub called the Goblin's Head having an eponymous stuffed and mounted goblin's head. At the dinner, he also meets Miss Felicity Beedle, a children's book author whose works Young Sam is a fan of, and he feels that she has something she wants to tell him about a possible crime. The next day he participates in a hand-to-hand fight with the hot-headed local blacksmith, Jethro. After Vimes wins the fight, he arranges to meet with Jethro at Dead Man's Copse on Hangman Hill at midnight, as Jethro has something to tell Vimes about the mistreatment of goblins. Lord Rust then approaches Vimes and tells him that he will not find any crimes in the country, also warning him that he has no jurisdiction outside of Ankh-Morpork. That night, Vimes and Willikins go up to Hangman Hill to find Jethro, but instead, they find the severed finger of a goblin girl and lots of blood. The next morning, the young local chief constable, Feeney Upshot, sworn to enact the will of the local Board of Magistrates rather than to uphold the law, arrives at Ramkin Hall to arrest Vimes for the murder of the blacksmith, who has gone missing. Vimes is considered the most likely suspect because he was in a fight with the blacksmith the night before, and he was overheard making plans to meet Jethro on Hangman Hill. However, Vimes refuses arrest, instead taking on the task of mentoring Upshot and teaching him to be a better copper, and together they start an investigation on the case. Vimes and Upshot, led by a goblin named Stinky, find the goblins' abode in a cave. They enter into pitch-black darkness, and Vimes realises he can see perfectly in the darkness, a skill rewarded to him by the Summoning Dark (a demon that briefly possessed him in the novel ''
Thud! ''Thud!'' is a fantasy novel by British writer Terry Pratchett, the 34th book in the ''Discworld'' series, first released in the United States on 13 September 2005, then the United Kingdom on 1 October 2005. It was released in the U.S. three wee ...
''. It is implied that the 'dark' and Vimes now have a mutual respect). In the cave he meets with the goblin chief who leads him to a goblin's corpse, the same goblin that was killed on Hangman Hill. Vimes ventures further in the cave in search of the blacksmith, but he instead finds Miss Beedle, who, because of adoptive goblin ancestry, spends her spare time teaching goblin girls how to read and communicate with humans. Upshot and Vimes then pay a visit to Mr Flutter; he is known as the 'local trouble' and seems to be involved in most crimes in the area. They capture Flutter, but he is unwilling to say much. Vimes then notices a cellar in his house and enters it; surrounded by darkness he is able to communicate to the Summoning Dark. From the Summoning Dark, who represents all darkness, he is able to get a witness account of what happened on Hangman Hill the other night and relays this to Flutter, who then tells Vimes that he protested against the killing of the goblin-girl, and whose murderer was a Mr Stratford, a man working for Gravid Rust, the 'entrepreneurial' son of Lord Rust. After Sergeant Colon is possessed by the ghost of a goblin child after finding an unggue pot (a goblin burial pot) inside a free cigar, parallel investigations by the Ankh-Morpork City Watch and Vimes lead to the revelation that goblins are being used for slave labour on tobacco plantations in Howondaland. Vimes also finds out that three years ago, large numbers of goblins were taken from their caves to work at the plantation. In this incident, many goblins were killed, abused and starved to death. Wee Mad Arthur of the Watch flies to Howondaland to investigate and finds the plantation, where all the goblin workers are dying or already dead. Vimes and Upshot hear that more goblins have been taken and are now being transported on the paddleboat The 'Wonderful Fanny'. Vimes and Upshot secretly board the boat just as a thunder storm arrives, making the night pitch-black and the river laden with debris and thus deadly. Vimes, with the help of Stinky, frees the goblins who are trapped in the cargo holds. He also rescues the captain's wife and daughter from being shot by Stratford, who had been posing as an underling. He then heads towards the captain and his captor. A battle ensues between Vimes and Stratford when the boat once again lifts on the tide, giving Stratford time to escape. After Vimes comes round from a knock to the head he surmises that Stratford is not dead and will be back to finish what he started. The captain of the boat loses track of the riverbends during the commotion and panics. Vimes's ability to see in the dark allows him to guide the boat to safety, and for this he is awarded the title 'King of the River'. Vimes is knocked unconscious in the storm and wakes to find himself and the boat in Quirm, everyone having survived the night. Vimes quickly discovers that the goblins, along with Stratford, have already boarded the next boat to Howondaland. Vimes boards the boat and arrests the Captain and frees all the goblins once and for all as well as a kidnapped Jethro, but Stratford is not on board. Vimes returns to his family in Ramkin Hall and together they travel to Quirm on the pleasure boat ''Roberta E. Biscuit''. Stratford attempts to attack Vimes's son and is defeated by Vimes and Willikins and handed over to the Quirmian
gendarmerie Wrong info! --> A gendarmerie () is a military force with law enforcement duties among the civilian population. The term ''gendarme'' () is derived from the medieval French expression ', which translates to " men-at-arms" (literally, ...
, to be returned to Ankh-Morpork for trial. On the way the prison coach crashes, Stratford escapes and kills a guard. However, shortly after he is met on the road and killed by Willikins. Meanwhile, Lady Sybil arranges a concert in the Ankh-Morpork Opera House, inviting the Patrician, Lady Margalotta Von Uberwald, and the ambassadors to Diamond King of Trolls and the Low-King of Dwarves. The aim of the concert is to showcase the musical talent of one of the goblin girls taught by Miss Beedle. The dignitaries are so moved by the display they agree to enact laws which will grant goblins the same rights as other sapient creatures and protection under the law. Gravid Rust, primarily due to his trafficking of troll narcotics, is disinherited and exiled to Forecks, much to Vimes's chagrin as he is left unpunished for the enslavement of goblins. However, it is implied that Gravid is monitored (and possibly killed) by one of Vetinari's Dark Clerks. One year later, Vimes and Lady Sybil return to the countryside to attend a wedding, where he learns that the events of the novel have been turned into a novel, ''Pride and Extreme Prejudice'', in which he is the main character.


Reception

In a review for ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'',
A. S. Byatt Dame Antonia Susan Duffy ( Drabble; born 24 August 1936), known professionally by her former marriage name as A. S. Byatt ( ), is an English critic, novelist, poet and short story writer. Her books have been widely translated, into more than t ...
noted that the book connected two different meanings of Snuff ("an old-fashioned stimulant to be kept in elegant boxes and snorted gracefully in society" and "arbitrary and unpleasant
deaths Death is the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism. For organisms with a brain, death can also be defined as the irreversible cessation of functioning of the whole brain, including brainstem, and brain ...
"). Byatt also noted the "great deal of interest in bodily fluids, excretions and excrement" in the book. At the end of the review, Byatt called Pratchett a master storyteller, and said he was endlessly inventive. ''Snuff'' won the 2012
Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize The Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize is the United Kingdom's first literary award for comic literature. Established in 2000 and named in honour of P. G. Wodehouse, past winners include Paul Torday in 2007 with ''Salmon Fishing in the Yemen'' and M ...
and was nominated for the 2012
Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel The Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel is a literary award given annually by ''Locus Magazine'' as part of their Locus Awards. Winners References External links The Locus Award Index: FantasyThe Locus Award: 2011 winnersExcerpts and summaries o ...
as well as the
Prometheus Award The Prometheus Award is an award for libertarian science fiction novels given annually by the Libertarian Futurist Society. American author and activist L. Neil Smith established the award in 1979, but it was not awarded regularly until the newl ...
.


References


External links

* {{Authority control Discworld books 2011 fantasy novels