![]() ![]() Typical Pratchett silliness (and, as it happens, historically accurate). That asterisk leads the reader to a footnote:Ĭockney rhyming slang, short for Richard the Third, which rather happily rhymes with another interesting word. ![]() It was bad enough with all the rats down here, without having to make certain you didn’t step in a richard.* There is humor in “Dodger.” For instance, Pratchett explains that, originally, the sewers were built by the Romans for rainwater, but, by this time, rich Londoners had begun connecting their cesspits to the drainage system.ĭodger thought it was really unfair. The central character is Dodger, a 17-year-old who survived childhood in an orphanage and now lives by his wits, mostly as a tosher, i.e., someone who scavenges through the sewers of London searching for valuables. Rather than an imaginative look into the future, he is taking an imaginative look back. Instead of the science fiction of “The Long Earth,” Pratchett offers a history lesson in “Dodger” about London early in the Victorian era - a horrid, noxious and deadly place for anyone poor. He calls it “a historical fantasy…simply for the fun of it.” Yet, it’s much different from the 51 fantasies that he has produced since 1971, including his Discworld Series (40 books so far).Īnd it’s doesn’t share much with the straight-ahead speculative science fiction that he and co-author Stephen Baxter offered in “The Long Earth,” which hit bookstores in June. Terry Pratchett’s new novel “Dodger” strikes me as his most personal book. ![]()
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