| $@%&! level: Medium-Low “Bedroom” level: Low Violence level: Medium-Low Back Cover: “Suddenly, condemned arch-swindler Moist von Lipwig found himself with a noose around his neck and dropping through a trapdoor into...a government job? By all rights, Moist should be meeting his maker rather than being offered a position as Postmaster by Lord Vetinari, supreme ruler of Ankh-Morpork. Getting the moribund Postal Service up and running again, however, may prove an impossible task, what with literally mountains of decades-old undelivered mail clogging every nook and cranny of the broken-down post office. Worse still, Moist could swear the mail is talking to him. Worst of all, it means taking on the gargantuan, greedy Grand Trunk clacks communication monopoly and its bloodthirsty piratical headman. But if the bold and undoable are what's called for, Moist's the man for the job—to move the mail, continue breathing, get the girl, and specially deliver that invaluable commodity that every being, human or otherwise, requires: hope.” |
In terms of progress on Discworld, the postage stamp is invented, and issues of civil rights are explored in the area of golems. And a professional thief and trickster single-handedly takes down a large corporation (which is also a professional thief and trickster, but can't be called that because it's too big to fail). I'd like to say that Moist is the greatest thief in the Discworld, except that he freely admits that his opposite number on the board of the clacks company is better than he is. The only reason he wins is that he's not really a bad man, unlike Reacher Gilt. If there hadn't been a graveyard worth of skeletons in that closet, there's a good chance Moist couldn't have done a thing about it. But there were, so he not only lets them out—he makes them dance.
My favorite thing about Moist von Lipwig is that he's all about image. That's not normally a characteristic to admire, but in this case it is. Or at least it is once Moist starts pretending to be a hero. Once that happens, he's stuck in the role whether he likes it or not, and because he is a born con-man, he's constitutionally incapable of breaking character. And, oh, but he plays it to the absolute hilt, right down to rescuing the cat. And the most interesting thing about it is that he actually finds it exhilarating. The thieving was never actually about the money for him—it was about the thrill of getting away with it. And now he gets to fool the entire city! Who knew government work could be so much fun?