A Discworld Novel
BY TERRY PRATCHETT

In the cover you can see the development of Terry Pratchett as a writer. This is a class act. 

The earlier Discworld novels featured a chaos of little characters all romping around, and often that's just what you got - comic fantasy. Sometimes the plots were hard to follow, or inconsequential, but the gags and wit and wry commentary on the human condition was enough to maintain interest. 

There's nothing comic or throw-away about Thud! There's good humour, make no mistake, but it's mature humour, cleverly placed to lighten the mood in a very serious story. The plot is cunning. The cover by Paul Kidby couldn't be better. It shows one man throwing a light and looking to the heavens (or just above the reader's head) for an answer in a cold, tense world that is trying to be black and white (except for the vivid scarlet slash where their ideologies clash).

Pratchett is very clever with his use of metaphors or parallels. He doesn't say ' here, look at your fanaticism, it's a load of bollocks'. He says, 'look att this religious text, written by the dwarfs. Can you see how misleading it is, how easy it is to manipulate? Watch how the dwarfs take it to heart. Watch how the fearful become hysterical if you criticise them, and see what a hard time the clear-thinking dwarfs have to escape from the culture of racism.

Right. Now you do your own thinking. You can't help but observe your own beliefs, world-view, religion. If you can't make the metaphorical comparison, you don't see the criticism and so can't be offended. But when you do see the links to our current culture, you want to clap your hands. He hits the nail (or, in this case the dwarf) right on the head. 

Discworld has become such a good mirror of our life and times, in many ways it can do a better job than if Pratchett were to write directly about our world. He doesn't preach. He illuminates the vital issues in such a way that you can understand them. With understanding comes enlightenment (or endarkenment, if you're a dwarf).