Warning: Comment contains spoilers!
I can’t condemn such an assumption completely. I am a vivid Pratchett fan, I’ve read every Discworld novel at least 4-5 times and also many of his other works. And I, too, couldn’t shake the feeling while reading the book that something was off. While “Thud” and even “Snuff” were clearly recognizable as Pratchett’s works, “Raising Steam” contains a number of things that don’t really work - or rather are weird for his books.
Some examples:
- Completely unnecessary camoes: I love Lu-Tze, I really do, but his appearance in this book looked like fan-service and served no purpose. Same with Ridcully, Rincewind, etc. Many parts feel like fan-service - which is great in general, but not really Pratchett’s style
- Too many explanations: In almost all of his books, Pratchett rarely explicitly mentions intriguing details but rather hints at them. In “The Fifth Elephant” Rhys didn’t say she was female, she just hinted it. Here she openly declares it to ■■■■■ without any need to do so.
- Characters acting contrary their established nature: ■■■■■ was established as someone who’d avoid fighting at any cost and yet he heads into battle without trying something else. Adora Belle never showed much emotion before and yet in this book she is almost sappy (in “Making Money” she didn’t even ask him how he’s been when sending him a clacks).
- Happy endings: Almost all of his books end well but almost never as smoothly as it did here. Rhys arrives back home, announces he’s back and - oh, he is female btw - and everyone just went “fine with me”. That is nice but contrary to everything we have heard about dwarfs before
I don’t think this book was written by a ghost writer but I think it was written by someone who knows that this might well be his last book ever and who wanted to write a parting gift for his fans. That’s really nice of Pratchett but unfortunately the result does not fit completely with the rest of his books. But it’s nevertheless very enjoyable.
