‘I could tell which of my fellow tube passengers had downloaded it to their e-readers by the bouts of spontaneous laughter’ Ben Aaronovitch, Guardian The Discworld is very much like our own – if our own were to consist of a flat planet balanced on the back of four elephants which stand on the back of a giant turtle, that is . . .Change is in the air for Moist von Lipwig, swindler, con-man, and (naturally) head of the Royal Bank and Post Office. A steaming, clanging new invention – a steam locomotive named Iron Girder, to be precise – is drawing astonished crowds. Suddenly it’s a matter of national importance that the trains run on time. Moist does not enjoy hard work. His input at the bank and post office consists mainly of words, which are not that heavy. Or greasy. And it certainly doesn’t involve rickety bridges, runaway cheeses or a fat controller with knuckledusters. What Moist does enjoy is being alive, which may not be a perk of running the new railway. Because, of course, some people have OBJECTIONS, and they’ll go to extremes to stop locomotion in its tracks.____________________The Discworld novels can be read in any order but Raising Steam is the third and final book in the Moist von Lipwig series.

Steam is rising over Discworld, driven by Mister Simnel, the man with a flat cap and a sliding rule. He has produced a great clanging monster of a machine that harnesses the power of all of the elements -- earth, air, fire, and water -- and it’s soon drawing astonished crowds.

To the consternation of Ankh-Morpork’s formidable Patrician, Lord Vetinari, no one is in charge of this new invention. This needs to be rectified, and who better than the man he has already appointed master of the Post Office, the Mint, and the Royal Bank: Moist von Lipwig. Moist is not a man who enjoys hard work -- unless it is dependent on words, which are not very heavy and don’t always need greasing. He does enjoy being alive, however, which makes a new job offer from Vetinari hard to refuse.

Moist will have to grapple with gallons of grease, goblins, a fat controller with a history of throwing employees down the stairs, and some very angry dwarfs if he’s going to stop it all from going off the rails . . .