thud

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Terry Pratchett The Discworld series 34th novel – 8th City Watch story
Outline
Characters	Samuel Vimes, Ankh-Morpork City Watch
Locations	Ankh-Morpork, Koom Valley
Motifs	Fantasy, racism, trolls, dwarves, The Da Vinci Code, chess
Publication details
Year of release	2005
Original publisher	Doubleday
Hardback ISBN	ISBN 0-385-60867-5
Paperback ISBN	ISBN 0-552-15267-6
Other details
Notes	Companion volume to Where's My Cow?

Thud! is Terry Pratchett's 34th Discworld novel, released in the United States of America on September 13, 2005, the United Kingdom on October 1, 2005. Thud! was released in the U.S. three weeks before it was released in Pratchett's native UK, to coincide with a United States signing tour. It was nominated for the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel in 2006.^[1]

Plot

As the book opens, a dwarven demagogue, Grag Hamcrusher, is apparently murdered. As ethnic tensions between Ankh-Morpork's troll and dwarf communities mount in the buildup to the anniversary of the Battle Of Koom Valley, Lord Vetinari convinces Commander Vimes to interview a vampire applicant to the Ankh-Morpork City Watch. The new recruit, Lance-Constable Salacia "Sally" von Humpeding, along with Sergeant Angua and Captain Carrot, is attached to the investigation surrounding Hamcrusher's death.

Meanwhile, Corporal Nobbs and Sergeant Colon begin an investigation into the theft of the fifty-foot painting, The Battle of Koom Valley by the insane artist Methodia Rascal, from a city museum. Most of the populace believe the painting holds clues to a treasure hidden in Koom Valley. Nobbs has a new girlfriend, the exotic dancer Tawneee; Nobby first caught her eye when slipping an IOU into her garter. Other subplots involve the tension between vampires and werewolves (Sergeant Angua and Lance-Constable Van Humpeding), and the presence of Vetinari's auditor, A.E. Pessimal, in the Watch House.

A recurring element in the book is Vimes' race to get home every night by six o'clock to read the book Where's My Cow? to his infant son ('Young Sam', named after his father), no matter what. Another is the game Thud, which first appeared in Going Postal; the game, which is a symbolic replication of the Battle of Koom Valley, requires the player to learn to think as both sides.

Vimes finds himself pressured by Lord Vetinari to solve the murder quickly, before inter-species war erupts in Ankh-Morpork. Vimes and Sergeant Angua visit the dwarves' under-city mine, where a nervous dwarf named Helmclever draws a mysterious sign in the spilled coffee on his desk. Vimes' particular brand of omnidirectional anger sends him veering off into the mine, where he cuts himself, he supposes, on a locked door. Later, he convinces the deep down dwarves to allow Captain Carrot to be the "smelter" who looks for the truth of the murder.

When Carrot tries to find that truth, however, he is shown a body that was mutilated after death, and a confusing patch of clues. Angua discovers that a troll really was in the mine at the time of the murder, much to the consternation and fear of the dwarves who claimed a troll did the killing. This troll turns out to be Brick, who is a gutter troll of the lowest sort, addicted to anything beginning with "S" (such as most troll drugs, which all have names like Slab, Scrape, Slice, Slide etc.) and who becomes the protege of Sergeant Detritus.

Angua and Sally soon discover four more bodies in the mine, dwarves clearly murdered by other dwarves. One of these dwarves used his own blood to scrawl yet another mysterious rune on the back of a door in the mine -- a door that Commander Vimes cut himself on the other side of. The Deep Downers flee for the mountains, taking the talking cube they found at the bottom of Methodia Rascal's well, and the painting of Koom Valley. As a parting shot, they invade the Vimes mansion and attempt to murder Lady Sybil Ramkin and Young Sam. The two survive unharmed, thanks to the fighting talents of Vimes and the family butler, Willikins, as well as a dwarf being foolish enough to provoke Sybil's dragons.

Vimes, along with family and several members of the Watch, travels to Koom Valley. He believes he is pursuing justice, but an astute troll king named Mr. Shine and a bright young grag named Bashfulsson know that Vimes is carrying the Summoning Dark, the quasidemonic entity that wreaks vengeance on dwarves who have done evil in the sight of other dwarves. Vimes acquired the Summoning Dark when he touched the cursed door in the city mine, but his own internal watchman proves stronger than it is. As the Commander discovers, the real secret of Koom Valley is that trolls and dwarves did not intend war, but had originally come to Koom Valley to broker peace. Weather conspired against them and after a thick fog caused a "double ambush" a flash flood carried them into the caverns below. The Deep Downers intended to destroy the evidence of this to continue the war between troll and dwarf and had sought out the cave where the surviving trolls and dwarfs had been washed. Preserved as a form of stalagmite, troll and dwarf had died as friends in the cavern while the ancient troll king and dwarf king played a game of Thud. As the book ends, the tomb of the dead trolls and dwarves is opened to the public, in the hope that the two races will learn to end their centuries of animosity.

References

External links

• Information from L-Space.org
• Thud! at Discworld & Pratchett Wiki
• Discussion about the book at Thudgame.com
• Thud! at Worlds Without End