Ladies and gentlemen; Terry Pratchett!Hi again.
I was wondering if I could be bothered writing this tonight - it's rather late, an' all - but it seems I am able, though you will have to excuse my poor writing. Spoily spoilers abound, so if you want to be able to read this book with an unspoiled mind, do so before you read the following.
I finished Terry Pratchett's Nation last night. It was an interesting book. Pratchett's normal oevre consists of books set in Discworld, which is a fascinating, tongue in cheek fantasy land (yes, the original covers put me off, too), populated by all kinds of creatures and characters. The Discworld novels are usually fairly light-hearted with a deep moral undercurrent, often incorporating themes like tolerance and racial acceptance.
This book is not set in Discworld. This book is not particuarly funny. It begins with a young boy, in the middle of a manhood initiation rite, being separated from his tribe, his 'Nation', by a tsunami, which kills the whole tribe, except him. Daphne, a young Victorian-ish (my understanding is that the book is set in an alternate reality) girl, is the only survivor of a ship wrecked on his island. The 'Adam & Eve' plotline you are expecting doesn't happen. At all. No more than a few flickerings of romance between the two: I found this more than a little annoying. Particularly because of the flickerings. The characters were very well written, particularly our main boy, Mau, whose heartbreak and personal crisis are completely believable and relatable - Daphne, having fewer reasons for heartbreak, is a lighter character, still well written, but a little less relatable, on account of being, well, less conflicted. I was not comfortable with the direction of this book on the whole: the biggest underlying theme, to my understanding, is the classic 'if God is (or, in this case, 'gods' are) real then why do bad things happen?' Nation handles the quiestion pretty well for its standpoint (which was, naturally, God/gods don't exist, and if they do they don't care), but I am still unhappy with the standpoint, which eventually undermines the actual enjoyability of the plot as a whole. I grew tired of the question and the constant back and forth long before the end, and I'm sure I wasn't the only reader to feel thus. And the epilogue made me so angry. Don't read the epilogue. Terry Pratchett's incredible standard of good writing was completely sunk by the awfulness of the unnecessary, patronising and disappointingly dull epilogue. This was a well written book (discounting said epilogue) and if it had only spent more time building up towards a satisfying ending and had left out the giant agnostic angst a little, I would recommend it.
Instead, I think you should go and read some Discworld stories: I haven't yet read them all (that will take a while!), but I heartily recommend the two Moist von Lipwig books and the novels about the Watch. Very good, very clever and very funny.
