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2005-10-09 20:20:46 UTC
Annotations for "Thud!" by Terry Pratchett
By Edmund Schluessel
These annotations are indexed to the US-published Harper-Collins 1st
Edition, released 13 September 2005, ISBN-10: 0-06-081522-1 (alk.
paper), ISBN-13: 978-0-06-081522-6.
and
now
here
comes
a
modicum
of
spoiler
space!
(pre-half title) - "500,000 years old" - Trollish writing
clearly predates Dwarfish and Human, as established in pre-existing DW
canon. Compare Dwarfish beliefs in this book.
1 - "Sam Vimes shaved himself." - Possibly a synthesis of the
well-known logical paradox "the barber shaves all those who do not
shave themselves; who shaves the barber?" and the question stated
many times in this book, "who watches the watchers?"
2 - "The steel was a lot better than the steel you got today" -
Dwarves make the best steel (see later at the well). Is the old steel
really better, or is Vimes seeing through rose-colored glasses, as he
will several times in this novel?
Ibid. - "Grag Hamcrusher" - My first guess for the origin of
this name is that, like Goodmountain in _The Truth_, Hamcrusher's
name may be a translation of the name of some famous demagogue from
Earth history. The best guess I have so far is "Ham" -> German
"Schenk" -> "Schinklgruber", a purported real name for Adolf
Hitler, but this seems a stretch.
Ibid. - "A cap-brim sewn with pennies" - British Special Forces
have been described as doing just such a thing for brawling; compare
also the deadly hat of Auric Goldfinger's henchman Oddjob in the
James Bond adventure _Goldfinger_.
4 - "Mr., er, Fizz" - first mentioned in _Monstrous Regiment_
as the Ankh Morpork Times' cartoonist.
5 - "Methodia Rascal" - What might be the origin of this name?
7 - "His ridiculous accent that grew thicker or thinner..." -
This is the well-documented linguistic phenomenon of "register
change", and is not necessarily done consciously.
8 - "Mr. Pessimal" - Possibly, this name is a portmanteau of
"pessimist" (or indeed "pessary") and "decimal". Pterry's
Dickensian character naming scheme continues to grow.
9 - "Do you know Mr. John Smith?" - the popular British
character of the Doctor in _Dr. Who_ occasionally goes by "Doctor
John Smith", and has worn colourful vests in many of his
incarnations. Compare also the vampires playing at being everyday
humans in _Carpe Jugulum_.
11 - "for thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances?" - From
this, we can conclude that it is possible to live a reasonably
middle-class lifestyle on thirty-eight $AM a month.
Ibid. - "You're not a vampire, Doreen!..." - compare the
inherited vampire couple in _Moving Pictures_.
12 - "Count Vargo St. Gruet von Vilinus!" - one of the battles
of Koom Valley took place in Vilinus Pass.
Ibid - "collects bananas" - See note for page 85.
Ibid - "Cockbill Street" - see _Feet of Clay_.
Ibid - "Salacia Deloresista Amanita..." - "Amanita" is a
genus of mushrooms containing many of the most toxic known.
"Zeldana" seems to be some kind of construction material.
17 - "Quid custodiet ipsos custodes?" - Juvenal, "Satires".
"Who shall guard the guardsmen?" but often translated as "who
watches the watchers?" either of which fits in an AM City Watch
context. The line's original contexts relates to locking up one's
wife in order to prevent her from cheating, followed by the fear that
she may be seduced by the guard watching her.
19 - "Fred Colon shook his head....'We knew what one another was
thinking...'" - not only is the Watch looking back on the
less-complicated days of _Guards, Guards!_, but Pterry himself may be
referring to the lighter, less developed style and content of his
earlier Watch novels.
20 - "Sarsaparilla" - An American soft drink brewed in part
from a bitter aromatic plant of the same name (genus Smilax).
21 - "Mr. Shine" - Probably this name has nothing to do with
the Pink Floyd epic "Shine On, You Crazy Diamond" from the _Wish
You Were Here_ album, but it might.
22 - "Gods damn the wretched place" - Blatant foreshadowing.
Ibid. - "at the Battle of Koom Valley that mutual hatred
became...Official" - Many interethnic rivalries are symbolized by a
single battle; one of the most relevant in our age is the Battle of
Kosovo Polje between Serbia and the Ottoman Empire, which, despite
having happened on 15 June, 1389, became of immediate importance during
the collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. The outcome of the battle is
unknown but thought to have been a tactical draw, and the Serbian knez
and Ottoman sultan both died during the fight. Another battle of Kosovo
Polje was fought on the same spot in 1448.
23 - "The parades were okay" - in Northern Ireland,
nationalistic parades by both sides were once quite common both as a
display of pride and as a means of intimidation.
24 - "clang" - Compare the American affectation "bling",
gaudy jewelry ostensibly named from the sound of rattling platinum and
often associated with swagger, machismo, and ostentatious display.
Ibid - "Beware of the troll...." - This passage, although not
an actual quotation, follows the style of Adolf Hitler's _Mein
Kampf_.
30 - "Tawneee" - For comparison, the names of dancers at a US
strip club (The Camelot in Washington, DC): Alexis, Allisha, Amanda,
Amber, Angel, Angela, Anna, Becca, Beth, Beverly, Bo, Caprice, Carmen,
Chelsie, Dawn, Desiree, Devon, Diva, Grace, Kayla, Holiday, Idalys,
Jasmine, Brandy, J.J., Katya, Lynette, Marianne, Michelle, Mickey,
Rachelle 2, Rita, Robin, Sam, Sherrie, Sidney, Tamara, Zena. Compare
also the American actress Tawny Kitaen, born with the name Julie and
known for being associated with several celebrities.
Ibid - "pole-dancing" - the mazurka, a lively dance originating
in the Masurian Lakes region of northeastern Poland and performed in
3/4 time.
31 - "Two sequins and a bootlace" - In contrast to its other
virtues, Ankh-Morpork's dance bars are apparently non-nude (or at
least this one is).
Ibid. - "You're not supposed to put it anywhere, Sarge." - a
common rule of ecdysiastic establishments is an admonition against
touching the dancers.
33 - "attitude of a preoccupied chicken" - The
chicken-as-haunting-demon idea occurs thrice in _Thud!_ - in Sir
Reynold's role of what Sam Vimes should have known about earlier but
for his preoccupation, as Methodia Rascal's demon, and as Angua's
reminder of her incomplete civilization.
34 - "since his lordship held Views" - Compare Lord
Vetinari's attitude toward mimes; while generally not prone to
directly interfere in the workings of the city, he takes an active hand
in regulating its artistic life.
Ibid.- "fifty feet long" - and as a consequence about sixteen
feet in diameter. A painting in the round is properly termed a
"cyclorama" and the technique was invented in 1767 by Irish painter
Robert Barker; one of the most notable cycloramas is one by Paul D.
Philippoteaux depicting the Battle of Gettysburg, and another depicts
Waterloo. Most cycloramas are considerably greater in circumference
than "The Battle of Koom Valley".
36 - "Don't Talk to Me About Mondays" - Possibly a collision
of Garfield the Cat's "I hate Mondays" (or the Boomtown Rats'
"I Don't Like Mondays") and Marvin the Paranoid Android's
"Life? Don't talk to me about life."
39 - "No urns" - A quick browse through several important
Odalisques haven't found any with urns, although one does appear in
Michaelangelo's "The Drunkenness of Noah".
40 - "The Goddess Anoia Arising from the Cutlery" - clearly
similar to Sandro Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus". Anoia first
appears in _Going Postal_.
Ibid. - "The Koom Valley Codex" - Dan Browne's _The Da Vinci
Code_, despite (or perhaps because of) being pseudomystical drivel, was
a world-wide bestseller in 2003 and quickly inspired a film. The book,
a highly sensationalistic work concerning supposed hidden knowledge in
the Roman Catholic church regarding the true nature of the
Resurrection, involves the murder of someone aware of this knowledge in
order to keep it hidden, along with keys hidden in Da Vinci paintings.
44 - "She had short hair...a girl who wouldn't mind passing for
one" - Sally may be written with some lesbian subtext. Contrast
Maledicta from _Monstrous Regiment_.
45 - "Any history....throat biting" - Sally was apparently
born, not made, a vampire.
47 - "I have crumbled and I can't get up" - The phrase
"I've fallen, and I can't get up!" originated in an American
commercial for LifeCall, a medical emergency alert service.
50 - "War, Nobby. Huh! What is it good for?...." - This passage
parodies Edwin Starr's 1970 Vietnam War protest song, "War".
Contrast the use of "Fixin' to Die Rag" in _Monstrous Regiment_.
Also note that Colon and Nobby are both veterans of the Ankh
Morpork-Klatch war in _Jingo_.
51 - "COPERS ARE BARSTUDS" - compare the corruption of
"bastard" to "brass stud" in _Feet of Clay_.
52 - "go postal?" - I'm confused as to how this phrase came
to have this meaning on the Discworld. See discussion for _Going
Postal_.
54 - "Once some madman finds out..." - possibly a reference to
Carcer from _Night Watch_.
55 - "Gooseberry"; "Bluenose" - the BlackBerry is a series
of handheld personal digital assistants manufactured by Research In
Motion Limited of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Many models incorporate
the Bluetooth specification for wireless networking.
56 - "Splong!" - "Pong", commonly known as the first video
game, experienced a resurgence in popularity, as did other classic
video games, as the popularization of handheld computerized assistants
increased the demand for simple time-passing games that consumed little
memory and could be displayed on a low-resolution screen.
Ibid - "iHUM" - Apple's iPod device for storing and playing
music became so popular in the early 2000s that I probably had no good
reason for writing this annotation. Oh well.
57 - "Ankh-Morpork is mostly built on Ankh-Morpork" - first
revealed in _The Truth_.
58 - "where does that lead?" - Vimes' resolution to avoid
taking the first step down a slippery slope is another theme developed
in this book.
61 - "Let 'em laugh....At least they're not throwing things"
- compare the description of Otto Chriek's "music-hall vampire"
act on page 7.
62 - "a circle with a horizontal line through it" - Such a
glyph is the symbol of Transport For London in general and the London
Underground, the oldest and largest metro system in the world, in
specific.
63 - "another circle, this time with two diagonal lines slashed
through it" - Depending on how one interprets this passage, this
glyph could be equivalent to the "No Parking" or "No Stopping"
road signs, or the "Restriction End" sign.
64 - "dusty black sedan chairs....There were no windows" - the
kings of Persia during the Classical era travelled in closed-off sedan
chairs in order that they might never be seen by common folk; the kings
of France, meanwhile, are reputed to have travelled in closed-off
carriages so as not to see the land outside their palaces.
65 - "daylight face" - Helmclever, like Fred Colon, is a
liaison officer.
65 FN - "if only the pawns united..." The _Dr. Who_ serial "The
Curse of Fenric" includes a chess problem whose resolution requires
the pawns joining together and turning against the king; recall also
the Vimes family's history of regicide.
66 - "Dwarfs made good coffee" - This little touch increases
parallels between Dwarfish culture in Ankh-Morpork and Arabic culture
in Europe.
69 - "They had been building with stone here ten thousand years
ago" - Compare the age of the Trollish writing noted at the
beginning of the book.
70 - "small deer" -Ardent may mean "deer" in its more
archaic sense of any forest-dwelling creature. Compare the Trollish
word "oograh".
71 - "you're undermining my city?" - Quite literally; watch
this metaphor.
73 - "You destroy written words?" - Compare Judaism, many of
whose Orthodox adherents refuse to write the name of God for fear it
might be destroyed or disrespected.
76 - "The grags are the law....They interpret laws" - the role
of grags is akin to that of mullahs or imams in Islam, or rabbis in
Judaism; as contrasted with those of priests and ministers in
Christianity, who usually enforce laws set centrally, either by the
Pope or by church synods.
79 - "giant wooly elephants" - Brick's psychedelic
experiences possibly belie a latent psychic spiritual ability; in this
instance he has seen the distant past.
Ibid. - "metamorphorical rock" - another portmanteau: of
"metamorphic", as in rock that changes under intense pressure and
heat; and "metaphorical".
81 - "plum-cake mob" - presumably, a mass of dense but
generally bland and indistinguishable individuals riddled with
troublemaking raisins.
83 - "deep-down dwarfs" - "deep down" speaks to the word
"fundamental", via Latin "fundamentum". Another meaning of
"fundament" is, according to Webster's Dictionary, "the part of
a land surface that has not been altered by human activities".
Ibid. - "The brighter the light the blacker the shadow?" -
compare the "dark light" of _The Truth_.
84 footnote - "In, Out, and Shake It All About" - three motions
performed in the party dance the "Hokey Pokey" or "Hokey
Cokey".
85 - "If you're not an apple, you're a banana..." - Apples
and bananas appear throughout the book. I'm still trying to figure
out if this is a legitimate metaphor for the division of one society
into two different but not intrinsically opposed groups, or just a red
herring.
91 - "That was what made the Watch a police force..." - See
note for page 19. This passage may be another metareference to the
growth of the Watch since _Guards, Guards!_.
92 - "small loaf of dwarf bread" - Is this from _Feet of Clay_?
Ibid. - "The imp was a very pale green" - possibly a reference
to Beastie, the demon icon of the BSD operating system.
94 - "...not because he had a huge interest in the results..."
- Contrast how, in _Night Watch_, Vimes has an exact idea of the
tonnages of foodstuffs consumed by the city.
96 - "They were baaad trolls. At least, they'd like everyone to
think so." - Many of the street gangs in United States history were
ethnic in origin and competed primarily with gangs of other
ethnicities.
99 - "Der Pork Futures Warehouse" - First seen in _Men at
Arms_.
100 - "you're on the side of the people" - Another contrast
with _Night Watch_, in which Vimes dismisses the idea of "the
people" as a conceit.
101 - "Er...permission t'speak freely...." - Recall, in this
passage, that Detritus's first partner was a dwarf.
102 - "It looked like a city" - A city or house is employed as
an image representing the mind at least as far back as C.G. Jung's
_Man and His Symbols_. More recently, Stephen King's _Dreamcatcher_
(novel 2001, film 2003) features the character of Jonesy being pursued
through the metaphorical streets of his hometown by an alien trying to
take him over.
Ibid. - "who had never drifted close to a major accretion..." -
Compare the origin of gods in _Small Gods_ and the notion of inspirons
in _Men at Arms_.
104 - "'Baaa!' said Vimes" - Is this simply Vimes
shivering, or is he subconsciously projecting _Where's My Cow_?
109 - "Sediment'ry trash" - i.e., not metamorphorical.
114 - "Vimes was a runner by nature" - compare _Guards,
Guards!_ and the basics of Watch survival in the bad old days.
119 - "various approximations of the hour..." - compare the
clattering of bells in _Night Watch_.
122 - "Buglit!" - The 2004 film "Meet the Fockers" contains
a similar gag. Note that this telling of the Vimes street version
differs somewhat from that portrayed in _Where's My Cow?_
132 - "You've laid rails?" - see note for Page 62.
134 - "Lips that touch Ichor shall never touch Mine" - The
temperance anthem "lips that touch wine shall never touch mine". I
have no idea where it comes from. Recall that Vimes is a recovering
alcoholic, and contrast his attitude toward the Black Ribboners - he
thinks a word against the movement, no matter what he feels about
vampires in general - with Angua's.
136 - "with only a slit for the eyes" - compare the burqa worn
by conservative Muslim women.
138 - "Even the river catches fire in a hot summer!" - the
Cuyahoga River, which runs through eastern Ohio in the United States,
was so polluted that it caught fire on several occasions between 1936
and 1969. It's better now.
Ibid. - "Trolls don't clean their feet much..." - compare
_Feet of Clay_, in which tracked mud is one of the most important
clues.
139 - "Vilinus Pass" - see note for page 12.
140 - "When we have our Koom Valley...burned to the ground". The
first part of this passage foreshadows Otto's appearance at the end
of the book; the last sentence takes us all the way back to the opening
of _The Color of Magic_.
Ibid. - "Humans would have gone insane living like that..." -
The 2003 novel _Coalescent_ by Stephen Baxter describes the society of
humans living in just such circumstances.
144 - "That'd fill a big room!" - Loam (see page 212) has a
density of around 1.3 grams per cubic centimetre; 40 Imperial tons of
loam would take up about 30 cubic meters.
Ibid. - "...write-only documents." - When I was applying to
Cambridge, all of the forms I had to submit were in at least
triplicate; some were in sextuplicate. I was assured by people I know
within the university's bureaucracy that at most one of any of those
would ever be seen by human eyes.
145 - "The Plaza of Broken Moons" - Rincewind and Twoflower
have lunch here in _The Color of Magic_.
146 - "...eats the apple and the banana." - see note for page
85.
147 - "tomato ketchup is not a vegetable." - During Ronald
Reagan's presidency in the United States, the Department of
Agriculture, setting nutritional standards for public school lunches,
famously published rules under which a serving of tomato ketchup could
be counted as a "vegetable". The rule was retracted after much
popular ridicule; during the Clinton administration, however, salsa
(which, if prepared correctly, does have a substantial nutritional
content) was classified as a serving of vegetables under the same
conditions.
149 - "It didn't get political on you" - Recall that the plot
in _Guards, Guards!_ was explicitly political, concerning a conspiracy
to replace Vetinari.
152 - "When push came to shove...removed was yours." - Recall
the citizen militia of _Night Watch_.
155 - "numknuts" - akin, of course, to nunchaku (popularly
nunchucks), a Chinese flail consisting of two wooden shafts connected
by a chain or cord.
158 - "Lengths of wood...a line in the sand." - The origin of
the word "barricade" is, in fact, "collection of barrels".
166 - "...the mouthwash was afterwards never strong enough." -
A wolf eating a dog would be cannibalism, or almost.
166 footnote - "Empirical Crescent...all this by accident." -
It is notable that B.S. Johnson's works, which started out as merely
inept in earlier books, have developed into quasi-magical perversions
of the very fabric of space and time. Compare also Robert Heinlein's
1941 short story "-And He Built A Crooked House-".
169 - "Do you know how many bats I have to become..." - Compare
"borrowing", especially that of a swarm of bees as described in
_Lords & Ladies_. Also note that the average vampire bat doesn't
weigh more than a few ounces; so a hundred and fifty *might* just
barely weigh 40 pounds.
171 - "A paying audience?" - Pterry may, in this passage, be
playing with the slash fiction community reading this book.
181 - "nobody would be interested in an exotic dancer with a name
like Betty." - Note the popularity, and especially the popular
rediscovery in the past few years, of exotic dancer and model Bettie
Page, recognized as an icon of alternative sexuality.
183 - "Lance Constable von Humpeding needs an apple, urgently."
- see note for page 85. It has to mean *something*, dammit.
193 - "pull der other one, it is havin' bells on." - it might
be interesting, or at least pleasingly obsesssssssive, to compile a
list of all the times this phrase or its variants appear in Discworld.
198 - "All dem dancin' teef!" - This is a reference to
something, but I don't remember what and most of my books are still
in America. Help?
201 - "It what you 'scrape up'...pigeon droppings" -
compare the recipe for crack cocaine. Also, pigeon droppings are loaded
with phosphates; this may tie in to what is known about trollish
petrochemistry.
204 - "A wukwuk is what you make wi' charcoal an' niter an'
Slab" - Charcoal and niter (potassium nitrate) constitute two main
ingredients of gunpowder; compare Ridcully's recipe for Wow-Wow
Sauce.
205 - "Someone's pinched the secret of fire, have you seen my
golden apple?" - Fingers-Mazda is recorded in _Men at Arms_ as
having stolen fire from the Gods. The golden *falchion* was stolen from
Astoria in Ephebian legend, as stated in (I think) _Small Gods_. See
again the note for page 85.
206 - "No. 3 Tenth Egg Street" - Tenth Egg Street is previously
referred to as the home base of Willikins's boyhood street gang.
210 - "Just Sex, Pussy Galore and No Brainer" - presumably, a
Sex on the Beach without the beach. Since the "beach" is, in that
drink, the pseudotropical blend of cranberry & grapefruit juices,
"Just Sex" would be the remaining vodka and peach schnapps. There
is also a cocktail called the "Brain Eraser" which may relate to
the third: Goldschlager (cinnamon schnapps), Kahlua, and vodka.
"Pussy Galore", meanwhile, is - well, if you haven't seen
"Goldfinger" by now, go and rent it.
211 - "Are you telling me you're two people? With one body?"
- contrast Miss Level from _A Hat Full Of Sky_, who is one person
with two bodies. Indeed, while we're on the subject, compare the
symptoms of infection by the Following Dark in this book with those of
the Hiver in that one.
214 - "I can regulate the temperature of my brain by reflecting all
heat" - In addition to being the hardest substance known to
science, diamond has the additional property of being the best thermal
conductor known to science. This fact is important because it's not
enough for Mr. Shine to reflect heat from the environment, but also to
dispose of heat he generates through the very act of thinking.
224 - "There was the sound of tinkling glass..." - Recall the
ease with which Vimes has foiled a multitude of Assassins' attempts
on his life in previous novels. On the other hand, no Assassin would
think of digging up through the floor; he might get non-black on him.
225 - "in accordance with some butlerian duty" - Possibly an
oblique reference to the "Butlerian jihad" against sentient
machines in Frank Herbert's _Dune_ series.
229 - "two iron boots were cooling from white heat in a puddle of
molten sand." - There's a Bond film where an evil female villain
is killed with some kind of projectile explosive, leaving only a pair
of smoking high heels, but I can't remember the details. Also compare
the vaporization of victims in _Guards, Guards!_.
231 - "They will burn for what they did....They shall bur-" -
The increasing influence of the Following Dark on Vimes is illustrated
by Vimes changing from from the declarative "will burn" to the
imperative "shall burn".
Ibid. - "hi-ho, hi-ho" - The "Hiho Song" appears
spontaneously in dwarfish culture in _Moving Pictures_.
233 - "There is green around his mouth, sir." - Possibly
arsenic. The use of suicide attackers in the modern world is,
unfortunately, well-known; recall that this book was published after,
but written before, the 7/7/2005 London Transit bombings. The use of
slow poison by an assassin, however, may originate with the original
series _Star Trek_ episode "Journey to Babel".
242 - "I'm not a bondage kind of person" - See note for page
171.
249 - "And you are Setha Ironcrust....Gimlet Gimlet....Yo Rat!"
- We see Ironcrust's bakeries in _Feet of Clay_ and Gimlet in
_Moving Pictures_. "Yo Rat!" plays on "Yo! Sushi", a chain of
quick Japanese restaurants located throughout London.
249 - "Bashfull Bashfullsson" - another traditional name; see
Cheery Littlebottom's introduction in _Feet of Clay_.
253 footnote - "Poosticks" - "Poohsticks" is a game played
by dwellers of the Hundred Acre Wood in the _Winnie-the-Pooh_ stories
by A. A. Milne.
254 - "Thank God It's Open" - TGIO refers to the American
chain "T.G.I. Friday's", known as a chain of family-dining
restaurants in the USA but with a few dozen locations in the United
Kingdom. UK T.G.I. Friday's have retained the chain's original
reputation, as a restaurant open late and with overpriced fruity
cocktails.
Ibid. - "Screaming Orgasm" - An actual drink: on Earth,
Amaretto (almond liqueur), Kahlua (sweet coffee liqueur), Baileys Irish
Cream (whiskey and cream), and vodka (distilled death). In short, a
strongly alcoholic, unbelievably sweet, dark headache in a glass.
(Serve in a lowball glass over ice with an umbrella). Note also that
Bearhuggers, a brand of whiskey we've seen before in _Guards,
Guards!_ and _Men at Arms_, is, like Baileys, spelled without an
apostrophe.
256 - "no woman under fifty uses the word 'bosom'" - Sally,
recall, is 51.
260 - "the voice of B'hrian Bloodaxe" - see the note for page
29 in _The Fifth Elephant_. Recall that in that book, B'hrian's
reign was fifteen hundred years ago; now it is, apparently, two
thousand.
266 - "All I've got is yung Helmclever here..." - Ironically,
Helmclever's statement as recorded might become admissible as a dying
declaration. (IANAL)
269 - "Fun. What is it good for?" - See note for page 50.
273 - "And they were laying rails..." - See note for page 62.
278 - "'Have you ever been up to the attics here, Sam?'
'No!'" - How long has Sam lived in this house, and he still
hasn't seen every room? Compare the Jungian image of the house noted
on page 102.
279 - "Serves you right for drinking...vine" - See annotations
for page 54 of _Carpe Jugulum_ and page 30 of _Monstrous Regiment_.
281 - "APPLE CORES, VARIOUS" - see note for page 85 again.
Honestly, I have nothing better to do.
Ibid. - "lacrosse sticks" - Lacrosse being a sport which in our
world originated among the natives of northeastern North America, I am
interested to know its Discworld origins.
Ibid. footnote - "He was just puzzled at the suggestion that he was
there to do the food a favor." - compare the Dish of the Day in
Douglas Adams' _The Restaurant at the End of the Universe_.
286 - "I don't even have a galli!" - possibly a play on the
Latin for "chicken", "gallus" - Vimes is running off without
even a chicken to guide him. Or something.
291 - "Generations of rascally drunk student wizards..." - We
see these loose bricks in _Equal Rites_ and again in _Soul Music_.
295 - "It was slow, but never stopped following." - Compare Mr.
Pump's steady, relentless pursuit in _Going Postal_.
297 - "Something happens at thirteen miles an hour." - Possibly
a reference to the 88 miles an hour of "Back to the Future"; see
annotations for _Soul Music_.
298 - "there's seven broomsticks nailed underneath each coach."
- Compare how Moist von Lipwig pointedly did not use a broomstick in
the final race in _Going Postal_.
299 - "his marriage to Ruby" - Ruby first appears in _Moving
Pictures_.
300 - "Signed the message 'Aicalas'." - Compare Mr. Soak in
_Thief of Time_, but particularly see the note for page 8 of _Carpe
Jugulum_.
302 - "It was said that even clouds kept away from the desolation
that was Koom Valley." - It is more likely, however, that this is
an example of "rain shadow", the tendency of clouds to stop at
mountain ranges rather than go over, as is so well-known to the
inhabitants of northwestern England.
Ibid. - "many had ever been found again" -The first American
printing contains a number of typographical errors, especially near the
end.
304 - "And there was a fifth horse....The part of a horse that was,
in fact, Horse." - exactly this same image appears in _A Hat Full
of Sky_.
305 - "Perhaps sound was unable to keep up." - The speed of
sound in normal air is around 750 miles an hour.
312 - "The landscape ahead was strangely bluish..." - Compare
the change in colors seen in similar circumstances in _Thief of Time_,
and also recall the "slow light" of the Discworld.
Ibid. - "I fink my brain's still back home." - There's a
quotation from _The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ about how no
matter how fast the body travels, the soul travels as fast as something
or other...I don't have my copy close to hand.
Ibid. - "It's amazing how the inn's beer helped recovery."
- There are two schools of thought about alcoholism, one that a
recovering alcoholic must never drink again and another that moderation
can be learned. Vimes apparently follows the second school; or
possibly, strong liquor counts differently
Ibid. footnote - "it was all blamed on people from another world"
- For some reason, UFOs are sometimes blamed for mysterious
mutilations of cattle.
314 - "the local town of Ham-on-Koom" - Given that "ham"
means "town" and "koom" is already (see note for _Soul Music_
page 330) established as being a play on the Welsh "cwm",
"valley", we have here a town near a valley whose name means
"town on valley".
317 - "Campfires from the valley...." - A few ways to go here.
On the one hand, it might be a reference to the civilian observers who
watched the Battle of Bull Run (1861) as if it were an afternoon's
entertainment; or on the other, to the early arrivals at CCDE looking
for a good spot; or on the other other hand, it could be just taken at
face value.
318 - "Only we do it with people dressing up...." - Recall the
Thud club where Vimes meets Mr. Shine earlier, and also that Nobby is a
member of the Peeled Nuts; see annotation for page 68 of _Feet of
Clay_.
327 - "It had been like that little voice that whispers
'Jump'" - See note for page 102 regarding _Small Gods_.
328 - "HAS IT NEVER STRUCK YOU..." - Death is speaking in
meta-references here, almost hinting that he knows Vimes is a character
in a book. Also, the fact that Death appears here, but *not* in the
opening passage on page 1, is a metareferential clue: Hamcrusher must
already be dead; compare the opening appearance of Death in other Watch
novels.
354 - "he spoke fluent Chicken" - possibly a reference to the
surreal webcomic _The Parking Lot Is Full_, which featured one strip in
which civilization is ended by a linguist who invents a language called
"Chicken".
354 - "The first thyng Tak did, he wroten hymself...." - The
archaic spelling and verb endings draw on Middle English.
355 - "Then Tak looked upon the stone...." - This passage of
arcana parallels the hidden arcana of _The Da Vinci Code_. See note for
page 40.
359 - "It would be a lot simpler...if this was a story." - See
note for page 328.
361 - "The carvings on Diamond" - made with, er, what?
367 - "Sixty men...." - A current complement of less than 180,
then. Of course, some of these new recruits will be behind desks rather
than on the street.
By Edmund Schluessel
These annotations are indexed to the US-published Harper-Collins 1st
Edition, released 13 September 2005, ISBN-10: 0-06-081522-1 (alk.
paper), ISBN-13: 978-0-06-081522-6.
and
now
here
comes
a
modicum
of
spoiler
space!
(pre-half title) - "500,000 years old" - Trollish writing
clearly predates Dwarfish and Human, as established in pre-existing DW
canon. Compare Dwarfish beliefs in this book.
1 - "Sam Vimes shaved himself." - Possibly a synthesis of the
well-known logical paradox "the barber shaves all those who do not
shave themselves; who shaves the barber?" and the question stated
many times in this book, "who watches the watchers?"
2 - "The steel was a lot better than the steel you got today" -
Dwarves make the best steel (see later at the well). Is the old steel
really better, or is Vimes seeing through rose-colored glasses, as he
will several times in this novel?
Ibid. - "Grag Hamcrusher" - My first guess for the origin of
this name is that, like Goodmountain in _The Truth_, Hamcrusher's
name may be a translation of the name of some famous demagogue from
Earth history. The best guess I have so far is "Ham" -> German
"Schenk" -> "Schinklgruber", a purported real name for Adolf
Hitler, but this seems a stretch.
Ibid. - "A cap-brim sewn with pennies" - British Special Forces
have been described as doing just such a thing for brawling; compare
also the deadly hat of Auric Goldfinger's henchman Oddjob in the
James Bond adventure _Goldfinger_.
4 - "Mr., er, Fizz" - first mentioned in _Monstrous Regiment_
as the Ankh Morpork Times' cartoonist.
5 - "Methodia Rascal" - What might be the origin of this name?
7 - "His ridiculous accent that grew thicker or thinner..." -
This is the well-documented linguistic phenomenon of "register
change", and is not necessarily done consciously.
8 - "Mr. Pessimal" - Possibly, this name is a portmanteau of
"pessimist" (or indeed "pessary") and "decimal". Pterry's
Dickensian character naming scheme continues to grow.
9 - "Do you know Mr. John Smith?" - the popular British
character of the Doctor in _Dr. Who_ occasionally goes by "Doctor
John Smith", and has worn colourful vests in many of his
incarnations. Compare also the vampires playing at being everyday
humans in _Carpe Jugulum_.
11 - "for thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances?" - From
this, we can conclude that it is possible to live a reasonably
middle-class lifestyle on thirty-eight $AM a month.
Ibid. - "You're not a vampire, Doreen!..." - compare the
inherited vampire couple in _Moving Pictures_.
12 - "Count Vargo St. Gruet von Vilinus!" - one of the battles
of Koom Valley took place in Vilinus Pass.
Ibid - "collects bananas" - See note for page 85.
Ibid - "Cockbill Street" - see _Feet of Clay_.
Ibid - "Salacia Deloresista Amanita..." - "Amanita" is a
genus of mushrooms containing many of the most toxic known.
"Zeldana" seems to be some kind of construction material.
17 - "Quid custodiet ipsos custodes?" - Juvenal, "Satires".
"Who shall guard the guardsmen?" but often translated as "who
watches the watchers?" either of which fits in an AM City Watch
context. The line's original contexts relates to locking up one's
wife in order to prevent her from cheating, followed by the fear that
she may be seduced by the guard watching her.
19 - "Fred Colon shook his head....'We knew what one another was
thinking...'" - not only is the Watch looking back on the
less-complicated days of _Guards, Guards!_, but Pterry himself may be
referring to the lighter, less developed style and content of his
earlier Watch novels.
20 - "Sarsaparilla" - An American soft drink brewed in part
from a bitter aromatic plant of the same name (genus Smilax).
21 - "Mr. Shine" - Probably this name has nothing to do with
the Pink Floyd epic "Shine On, You Crazy Diamond" from the _Wish
You Were Here_ album, but it might.
22 - "Gods damn the wretched place" - Blatant foreshadowing.
Ibid. - "at the Battle of Koom Valley that mutual hatred
became...Official" - Many interethnic rivalries are symbolized by a
single battle; one of the most relevant in our age is the Battle of
Kosovo Polje between Serbia and the Ottoman Empire, which, despite
having happened on 15 June, 1389, became of immediate importance during
the collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. The outcome of the battle is
unknown but thought to have been a tactical draw, and the Serbian knez
and Ottoman sultan both died during the fight. Another battle of Kosovo
Polje was fought on the same spot in 1448.
23 - "The parades were okay" - in Northern Ireland,
nationalistic parades by both sides were once quite common both as a
display of pride and as a means of intimidation.
24 - "clang" - Compare the American affectation "bling",
gaudy jewelry ostensibly named from the sound of rattling platinum and
often associated with swagger, machismo, and ostentatious display.
Ibid - "Beware of the troll...." - This passage, although not
an actual quotation, follows the style of Adolf Hitler's _Mein
Kampf_.
30 - "Tawneee" - For comparison, the names of dancers at a US
strip club (The Camelot in Washington, DC): Alexis, Allisha, Amanda,
Amber, Angel, Angela, Anna, Becca, Beth, Beverly, Bo, Caprice, Carmen,
Chelsie, Dawn, Desiree, Devon, Diva, Grace, Kayla, Holiday, Idalys,
Jasmine, Brandy, J.J., Katya, Lynette, Marianne, Michelle, Mickey,
Rachelle 2, Rita, Robin, Sam, Sherrie, Sidney, Tamara, Zena. Compare
also the American actress Tawny Kitaen, born with the name Julie and
known for being associated with several celebrities.
Ibid - "pole-dancing" - the mazurka, a lively dance originating
in the Masurian Lakes region of northeastern Poland and performed in
3/4 time.
31 - "Two sequins and a bootlace" - In contrast to its other
virtues, Ankh-Morpork's dance bars are apparently non-nude (or at
least this one is).
Ibid. - "You're not supposed to put it anywhere, Sarge." - a
common rule of ecdysiastic establishments is an admonition against
touching the dancers.
33 - "attitude of a preoccupied chicken" - The
chicken-as-haunting-demon idea occurs thrice in _Thud!_ - in Sir
Reynold's role of what Sam Vimes should have known about earlier but
for his preoccupation, as Methodia Rascal's demon, and as Angua's
reminder of her incomplete civilization.
34 - "since his lordship held Views" - Compare Lord
Vetinari's attitude toward mimes; while generally not prone to
directly interfere in the workings of the city, he takes an active hand
in regulating its artistic life.
Ibid.- "fifty feet long" - and as a consequence about sixteen
feet in diameter. A painting in the round is properly termed a
"cyclorama" and the technique was invented in 1767 by Irish painter
Robert Barker; one of the most notable cycloramas is one by Paul D.
Philippoteaux depicting the Battle of Gettysburg, and another depicts
Waterloo. Most cycloramas are considerably greater in circumference
than "The Battle of Koom Valley".
36 - "Don't Talk to Me About Mondays" - Possibly a collision
of Garfield the Cat's "I hate Mondays" (or the Boomtown Rats'
"I Don't Like Mondays") and Marvin the Paranoid Android's
"Life? Don't talk to me about life."
39 - "No urns" - A quick browse through several important
Odalisques haven't found any with urns, although one does appear in
Michaelangelo's "The Drunkenness of Noah".
40 - "The Goddess Anoia Arising from the Cutlery" - clearly
similar to Sandro Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus". Anoia first
appears in _Going Postal_.
Ibid. - "The Koom Valley Codex" - Dan Browne's _The Da Vinci
Code_, despite (or perhaps because of) being pseudomystical drivel, was
a world-wide bestseller in 2003 and quickly inspired a film. The book,
a highly sensationalistic work concerning supposed hidden knowledge in
the Roman Catholic church regarding the true nature of the
Resurrection, involves the murder of someone aware of this knowledge in
order to keep it hidden, along with keys hidden in Da Vinci paintings.
44 - "She had short hair...a girl who wouldn't mind passing for
one" - Sally may be written with some lesbian subtext. Contrast
Maledicta from _Monstrous Regiment_.
45 - "Any history....throat biting" - Sally was apparently
born, not made, a vampire.
47 - "I have crumbled and I can't get up" - The phrase
"I've fallen, and I can't get up!" originated in an American
commercial for LifeCall, a medical emergency alert service.
50 - "War, Nobby. Huh! What is it good for?...." - This passage
parodies Edwin Starr's 1970 Vietnam War protest song, "War".
Contrast the use of "Fixin' to Die Rag" in _Monstrous Regiment_.
Also note that Colon and Nobby are both veterans of the Ankh
Morpork-Klatch war in _Jingo_.
51 - "COPERS ARE BARSTUDS" - compare the corruption of
"bastard" to "brass stud" in _Feet of Clay_.
52 - "go postal?" - I'm confused as to how this phrase came
to have this meaning on the Discworld. See discussion for _Going
Postal_.
54 - "Once some madman finds out..." - possibly a reference to
Carcer from _Night Watch_.
55 - "Gooseberry"; "Bluenose" - the BlackBerry is a series
of handheld personal digital assistants manufactured by Research In
Motion Limited of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Many models incorporate
the Bluetooth specification for wireless networking.
56 - "Splong!" - "Pong", commonly known as the first video
game, experienced a resurgence in popularity, as did other classic
video games, as the popularization of handheld computerized assistants
increased the demand for simple time-passing games that consumed little
memory and could be displayed on a low-resolution screen.
Ibid - "iHUM" - Apple's iPod device for storing and playing
music became so popular in the early 2000s that I probably had no good
reason for writing this annotation. Oh well.
57 - "Ankh-Morpork is mostly built on Ankh-Morpork" - first
revealed in _The Truth_.
58 - "where does that lead?" - Vimes' resolution to avoid
taking the first step down a slippery slope is another theme developed
in this book.
61 - "Let 'em laugh....At least they're not throwing things"
- compare the description of Otto Chriek's "music-hall vampire"
act on page 7.
62 - "a circle with a horizontal line through it" - Such a
glyph is the symbol of Transport For London in general and the London
Underground, the oldest and largest metro system in the world, in
specific.
63 - "another circle, this time with two diagonal lines slashed
through it" - Depending on how one interprets this passage, this
glyph could be equivalent to the "No Parking" or "No Stopping"
road signs, or the "Restriction End" sign.
64 - "dusty black sedan chairs....There were no windows" - the
kings of Persia during the Classical era travelled in closed-off sedan
chairs in order that they might never be seen by common folk; the kings
of France, meanwhile, are reputed to have travelled in closed-off
carriages so as not to see the land outside their palaces.
65 - "daylight face" - Helmclever, like Fred Colon, is a
liaison officer.
65 FN - "if only the pawns united..." The _Dr. Who_ serial "The
Curse of Fenric" includes a chess problem whose resolution requires
the pawns joining together and turning against the king; recall also
the Vimes family's history of regicide.
66 - "Dwarfs made good coffee" - This little touch increases
parallels between Dwarfish culture in Ankh-Morpork and Arabic culture
in Europe.
69 - "They had been building with stone here ten thousand years
ago" - Compare the age of the Trollish writing noted at the
beginning of the book.
70 - "small deer" -Ardent may mean "deer" in its more
archaic sense of any forest-dwelling creature. Compare the Trollish
word "oograh".
71 - "you're undermining my city?" - Quite literally; watch
this metaphor.
73 - "You destroy written words?" - Compare Judaism, many of
whose Orthodox adherents refuse to write the name of God for fear it
might be destroyed or disrespected.
76 - "The grags are the law....They interpret laws" - the role
of grags is akin to that of mullahs or imams in Islam, or rabbis in
Judaism; as contrasted with those of priests and ministers in
Christianity, who usually enforce laws set centrally, either by the
Pope or by church synods.
79 - "giant wooly elephants" - Brick's psychedelic
experiences possibly belie a latent psychic spiritual ability; in this
instance he has seen the distant past.
Ibid. - "metamorphorical rock" - another portmanteau: of
"metamorphic", as in rock that changes under intense pressure and
heat; and "metaphorical".
81 - "plum-cake mob" - presumably, a mass of dense but
generally bland and indistinguishable individuals riddled with
troublemaking raisins.
83 - "deep-down dwarfs" - "deep down" speaks to the word
"fundamental", via Latin "fundamentum". Another meaning of
"fundament" is, according to Webster's Dictionary, "the part of
a land surface that has not been altered by human activities".
Ibid. - "The brighter the light the blacker the shadow?" -
compare the "dark light" of _The Truth_.
84 footnote - "In, Out, and Shake It All About" - three motions
performed in the party dance the "Hokey Pokey" or "Hokey
Cokey".
85 - "If you're not an apple, you're a banana..." - Apples
and bananas appear throughout the book. I'm still trying to figure
out if this is a legitimate metaphor for the division of one society
into two different but not intrinsically opposed groups, or just a red
herring.
91 - "That was what made the Watch a police force..." - See
note for page 19. This passage may be another metareference to the
growth of the Watch since _Guards, Guards!_.
92 - "small loaf of dwarf bread" - Is this from _Feet of Clay_?
Ibid. - "The imp was a very pale green" - possibly a reference
to Beastie, the demon icon of the BSD operating system.
94 - "...not because he had a huge interest in the results..."
- Contrast how, in _Night Watch_, Vimes has an exact idea of the
tonnages of foodstuffs consumed by the city.
96 - "They were baaad trolls. At least, they'd like everyone to
think so." - Many of the street gangs in United States history were
ethnic in origin and competed primarily with gangs of other
ethnicities.
99 - "Der Pork Futures Warehouse" - First seen in _Men at
Arms_.
100 - "you're on the side of the people" - Another contrast
with _Night Watch_, in which Vimes dismisses the idea of "the
people" as a conceit.
101 - "Er...permission t'speak freely...." - Recall, in this
passage, that Detritus's first partner was a dwarf.
102 - "It looked like a city" - A city or house is employed as
an image representing the mind at least as far back as C.G. Jung's
_Man and His Symbols_. More recently, Stephen King's _Dreamcatcher_
(novel 2001, film 2003) features the character of Jonesy being pursued
through the metaphorical streets of his hometown by an alien trying to
take him over.
Ibid. - "who had never drifted close to a major accretion..." -
Compare the origin of gods in _Small Gods_ and the notion of inspirons
in _Men at Arms_.
104 - "'Baaa!' said Vimes" - Is this simply Vimes
shivering, or is he subconsciously projecting _Where's My Cow_?
109 - "Sediment'ry trash" - i.e., not metamorphorical.
114 - "Vimes was a runner by nature" - compare _Guards,
Guards!_ and the basics of Watch survival in the bad old days.
119 - "various approximations of the hour..." - compare the
clattering of bells in _Night Watch_.
122 - "Buglit!" - The 2004 film "Meet the Fockers" contains
a similar gag. Note that this telling of the Vimes street version
differs somewhat from that portrayed in _Where's My Cow?_
132 - "You've laid rails?" - see note for Page 62.
134 - "Lips that touch Ichor shall never touch Mine" - The
temperance anthem "lips that touch wine shall never touch mine". I
have no idea where it comes from. Recall that Vimes is a recovering
alcoholic, and contrast his attitude toward the Black Ribboners - he
thinks a word against the movement, no matter what he feels about
vampires in general - with Angua's.
136 - "with only a slit for the eyes" - compare the burqa worn
by conservative Muslim women.
138 - "Even the river catches fire in a hot summer!" - the
Cuyahoga River, which runs through eastern Ohio in the United States,
was so polluted that it caught fire on several occasions between 1936
and 1969. It's better now.
Ibid. - "Trolls don't clean their feet much..." - compare
_Feet of Clay_, in which tracked mud is one of the most important
clues.
139 - "Vilinus Pass" - see note for page 12.
140 - "When we have our Koom Valley...burned to the ground". The
first part of this passage foreshadows Otto's appearance at the end
of the book; the last sentence takes us all the way back to the opening
of _The Color of Magic_.
Ibid. - "Humans would have gone insane living like that..." -
The 2003 novel _Coalescent_ by Stephen Baxter describes the society of
humans living in just such circumstances.
144 - "That'd fill a big room!" - Loam (see page 212) has a
density of around 1.3 grams per cubic centimetre; 40 Imperial tons of
loam would take up about 30 cubic meters.
Ibid. - "...write-only documents." - When I was applying to
Cambridge, all of the forms I had to submit were in at least
triplicate; some were in sextuplicate. I was assured by people I know
within the university's bureaucracy that at most one of any of those
would ever be seen by human eyes.
145 - "The Plaza of Broken Moons" - Rincewind and Twoflower
have lunch here in _The Color of Magic_.
146 - "...eats the apple and the banana." - see note for page
85.
147 - "tomato ketchup is not a vegetable." - During Ronald
Reagan's presidency in the United States, the Department of
Agriculture, setting nutritional standards for public school lunches,
famously published rules under which a serving of tomato ketchup could
be counted as a "vegetable". The rule was retracted after much
popular ridicule; during the Clinton administration, however, salsa
(which, if prepared correctly, does have a substantial nutritional
content) was classified as a serving of vegetables under the same
conditions.
149 - "It didn't get political on you" - Recall that the plot
in _Guards, Guards!_ was explicitly political, concerning a conspiracy
to replace Vetinari.
152 - "When push came to shove...removed was yours." - Recall
the citizen militia of _Night Watch_.
155 - "numknuts" - akin, of course, to nunchaku (popularly
nunchucks), a Chinese flail consisting of two wooden shafts connected
by a chain or cord.
158 - "Lengths of wood...a line in the sand." - The origin of
the word "barricade" is, in fact, "collection of barrels".
166 - "...the mouthwash was afterwards never strong enough." -
A wolf eating a dog would be cannibalism, or almost.
166 footnote - "Empirical Crescent...all this by accident." -
It is notable that B.S. Johnson's works, which started out as merely
inept in earlier books, have developed into quasi-magical perversions
of the very fabric of space and time. Compare also Robert Heinlein's
1941 short story "-And He Built A Crooked House-".
169 - "Do you know how many bats I have to become..." - Compare
"borrowing", especially that of a swarm of bees as described in
_Lords & Ladies_. Also note that the average vampire bat doesn't
weigh more than a few ounces; so a hundred and fifty *might* just
barely weigh 40 pounds.
171 - "A paying audience?" - Pterry may, in this passage, be
playing with the slash fiction community reading this book.
181 - "nobody would be interested in an exotic dancer with a name
like Betty." - Note the popularity, and especially the popular
rediscovery in the past few years, of exotic dancer and model Bettie
Page, recognized as an icon of alternative sexuality.
183 - "Lance Constable von Humpeding needs an apple, urgently."
- see note for page 85. It has to mean *something*, dammit.
193 - "pull der other one, it is havin' bells on." - it might
be interesting, or at least pleasingly obsesssssssive, to compile a
list of all the times this phrase or its variants appear in Discworld.
198 - "All dem dancin' teef!" - This is a reference to
something, but I don't remember what and most of my books are still
in America. Help?
201 - "It what you 'scrape up'...pigeon droppings" -
compare the recipe for crack cocaine. Also, pigeon droppings are loaded
with phosphates; this may tie in to what is known about trollish
petrochemistry.
204 - "A wukwuk is what you make wi' charcoal an' niter an'
Slab" - Charcoal and niter (potassium nitrate) constitute two main
ingredients of gunpowder; compare Ridcully's recipe for Wow-Wow
Sauce.
205 - "Someone's pinched the secret of fire, have you seen my
golden apple?" - Fingers-Mazda is recorded in _Men at Arms_ as
having stolen fire from the Gods. The golden *falchion* was stolen from
Astoria in Ephebian legend, as stated in (I think) _Small Gods_. See
again the note for page 85.
206 - "No. 3 Tenth Egg Street" - Tenth Egg Street is previously
referred to as the home base of Willikins's boyhood street gang.
210 - "Just Sex, Pussy Galore and No Brainer" - presumably, a
Sex on the Beach without the beach. Since the "beach" is, in that
drink, the pseudotropical blend of cranberry & grapefruit juices,
"Just Sex" would be the remaining vodka and peach schnapps. There
is also a cocktail called the "Brain Eraser" which may relate to
the third: Goldschlager (cinnamon schnapps), Kahlua, and vodka.
"Pussy Galore", meanwhile, is - well, if you haven't seen
"Goldfinger" by now, go and rent it.
211 - "Are you telling me you're two people? With one body?"
- contrast Miss Level from _A Hat Full Of Sky_, who is one person
with two bodies. Indeed, while we're on the subject, compare the
symptoms of infection by the Following Dark in this book with those of
the Hiver in that one.
214 - "I can regulate the temperature of my brain by reflecting all
heat" - In addition to being the hardest substance known to
science, diamond has the additional property of being the best thermal
conductor known to science. This fact is important because it's not
enough for Mr. Shine to reflect heat from the environment, but also to
dispose of heat he generates through the very act of thinking.
224 - "There was the sound of tinkling glass..." - Recall the
ease with which Vimes has foiled a multitude of Assassins' attempts
on his life in previous novels. On the other hand, no Assassin would
think of digging up through the floor; he might get non-black on him.
225 - "in accordance with some butlerian duty" - Possibly an
oblique reference to the "Butlerian jihad" against sentient
machines in Frank Herbert's _Dune_ series.
229 - "two iron boots were cooling from white heat in a puddle of
molten sand." - There's a Bond film where an evil female villain
is killed with some kind of projectile explosive, leaving only a pair
of smoking high heels, but I can't remember the details. Also compare
the vaporization of victims in _Guards, Guards!_.
231 - "They will burn for what they did....They shall bur-" -
The increasing influence of the Following Dark on Vimes is illustrated
by Vimes changing from from the declarative "will burn" to the
imperative "shall burn".
Ibid. - "hi-ho, hi-ho" - The "Hiho Song" appears
spontaneously in dwarfish culture in _Moving Pictures_.
233 - "There is green around his mouth, sir." - Possibly
arsenic. The use of suicide attackers in the modern world is,
unfortunately, well-known; recall that this book was published after,
but written before, the 7/7/2005 London Transit bombings. The use of
slow poison by an assassin, however, may originate with the original
series _Star Trek_ episode "Journey to Babel".
242 - "I'm not a bondage kind of person" - See note for page
171.
249 - "And you are Setha Ironcrust....Gimlet Gimlet....Yo Rat!"
- We see Ironcrust's bakeries in _Feet of Clay_ and Gimlet in
_Moving Pictures_. "Yo Rat!" plays on "Yo! Sushi", a chain of
quick Japanese restaurants located throughout London.
249 - "Bashfull Bashfullsson" - another traditional name; see
Cheery Littlebottom's introduction in _Feet of Clay_.
253 footnote - "Poosticks" - "Poohsticks" is a game played
by dwellers of the Hundred Acre Wood in the _Winnie-the-Pooh_ stories
by A. A. Milne.
254 - "Thank God It's Open" - TGIO refers to the American
chain "T.G.I. Friday's", known as a chain of family-dining
restaurants in the USA but with a few dozen locations in the United
Kingdom. UK T.G.I. Friday's have retained the chain's original
reputation, as a restaurant open late and with overpriced fruity
cocktails.
Ibid. - "Screaming Orgasm" - An actual drink: on Earth,
Amaretto (almond liqueur), Kahlua (sweet coffee liqueur), Baileys Irish
Cream (whiskey and cream), and vodka (distilled death). In short, a
strongly alcoholic, unbelievably sweet, dark headache in a glass.
(Serve in a lowball glass over ice with an umbrella). Note also that
Bearhuggers, a brand of whiskey we've seen before in _Guards,
Guards!_ and _Men at Arms_, is, like Baileys, spelled without an
apostrophe.
256 - "no woman under fifty uses the word 'bosom'" - Sally,
recall, is 51.
260 - "the voice of B'hrian Bloodaxe" - see the note for page
29 in _The Fifth Elephant_. Recall that in that book, B'hrian's
reign was fifteen hundred years ago; now it is, apparently, two
thousand.
266 - "All I've got is yung Helmclever here..." - Ironically,
Helmclever's statement as recorded might become admissible as a dying
declaration. (IANAL)
269 - "Fun. What is it good for?" - See note for page 50.
273 - "And they were laying rails..." - See note for page 62.
278 - "'Have you ever been up to the attics here, Sam?'
'No!'" - How long has Sam lived in this house, and he still
hasn't seen every room? Compare the Jungian image of the house noted
on page 102.
279 - "Serves you right for drinking...vine" - See annotations
for page 54 of _Carpe Jugulum_ and page 30 of _Monstrous Regiment_.
281 - "APPLE CORES, VARIOUS" - see note for page 85 again.
Honestly, I have nothing better to do.
Ibid. - "lacrosse sticks" - Lacrosse being a sport which in our
world originated among the natives of northeastern North America, I am
interested to know its Discworld origins.
Ibid. footnote - "He was just puzzled at the suggestion that he was
there to do the food a favor." - compare the Dish of the Day in
Douglas Adams' _The Restaurant at the End of the Universe_.
286 - "I don't even have a galli!" - possibly a play on the
Latin for "chicken", "gallus" - Vimes is running off without
even a chicken to guide him. Or something.
291 - "Generations of rascally drunk student wizards..." - We
see these loose bricks in _Equal Rites_ and again in _Soul Music_.
295 - "It was slow, but never stopped following." - Compare Mr.
Pump's steady, relentless pursuit in _Going Postal_.
297 - "Something happens at thirteen miles an hour." - Possibly
a reference to the 88 miles an hour of "Back to the Future"; see
annotations for _Soul Music_.
298 - "there's seven broomsticks nailed underneath each coach."
- Compare how Moist von Lipwig pointedly did not use a broomstick in
the final race in _Going Postal_.
299 - "his marriage to Ruby" - Ruby first appears in _Moving
Pictures_.
300 - "Signed the message 'Aicalas'." - Compare Mr. Soak in
_Thief of Time_, but particularly see the note for page 8 of _Carpe
Jugulum_.
302 - "It was said that even clouds kept away from the desolation
that was Koom Valley." - It is more likely, however, that this is
an example of "rain shadow", the tendency of clouds to stop at
mountain ranges rather than go over, as is so well-known to the
inhabitants of northwestern England.
Ibid. - "many had ever been found again" -The first American
printing contains a number of typographical errors, especially near the
end.
304 - "And there was a fifth horse....The part of a horse that was,
in fact, Horse." - exactly this same image appears in _A Hat Full
of Sky_.
305 - "Perhaps sound was unable to keep up." - The speed of
sound in normal air is around 750 miles an hour.
312 - "The landscape ahead was strangely bluish..." - Compare
the change in colors seen in similar circumstances in _Thief of Time_,
and also recall the "slow light" of the Discworld.
Ibid. - "I fink my brain's still back home." - There's a
quotation from _The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ about how no
matter how fast the body travels, the soul travels as fast as something
or other...I don't have my copy close to hand.
Ibid. - "It's amazing how the inn's beer helped recovery."
- There are two schools of thought about alcoholism, one that a
recovering alcoholic must never drink again and another that moderation
can be learned. Vimes apparently follows the second school; or
possibly, strong liquor counts differently
Ibid. footnote - "it was all blamed on people from another world"
- For some reason, UFOs are sometimes blamed for mysterious
mutilations of cattle.
314 - "the local town of Ham-on-Koom" - Given that "ham"
means "town" and "koom" is already (see note for _Soul Music_
page 330) established as being a play on the Welsh "cwm",
"valley", we have here a town near a valley whose name means
"town on valley".
317 - "Campfires from the valley...." - A few ways to go here.
On the one hand, it might be a reference to the civilian observers who
watched the Battle of Bull Run (1861) as if it were an afternoon's
entertainment; or on the other, to the early arrivals at CCDE looking
for a good spot; or on the other other hand, it could be just taken at
face value.
318 - "Only we do it with people dressing up...." - Recall the
Thud club where Vimes meets Mr. Shine earlier, and also that Nobby is a
member of the Peeled Nuts; see annotation for page 68 of _Feet of
Clay_.
327 - "It had been like that little voice that whispers
'Jump'" - See note for page 102 regarding _Small Gods_.
328 - "HAS IT NEVER STRUCK YOU..." - Death is speaking in
meta-references here, almost hinting that he knows Vimes is a character
in a book. Also, the fact that Death appears here, but *not* in the
opening passage on page 1, is a metareferential clue: Hamcrusher must
already be dead; compare the opening appearance of Death in other Watch
novels.
354 - "he spoke fluent Chicken" - possibly a reference to the
surreal webcomic _The Parking Lot Is Full_, which featured one strip in
which civilization is ended by a linguist who invents a language called
"Chicken".
354 - "The first thyng Tak did, he wroten hymself...." - The
archaic spelling and verb endings draw on Middle English.
355 - "Then Tak looked upon the stone...." - This passage of
arcana parallels the hidden arcana of _The Da Vinci Code_. See note for
page 40.
359 - "It would be a lot simpler...if this was a story." - See
note for page 328.
361 - "The carvings on Diamond" - made with, er, what?
367 - "Sixty men...." - A current complement of less than 180,
then. Of course, some of these new recruits will be behind desks rather
than on the street.
