Terry Pratchett has a way with words. Like the children's entertainer with the balloons, he can take a familiar phrase and with a few deft twists create some new plaything better than all the contents of your party bag. To do that trick once or twice is good. To sustain it throughout a whole book is remarkable. To keep it fresh into the 39th volume of a series deserves a knighthood. 
 Snuff is Sir Terry Pratchett's 50th novel. That's a lot! It's also the most recent foray into Discworld series, a literary phenomenon that has been ongoing for 28 years now. Enough with the vital statistics though - is it any good? 
 The story follows one of Discworld's best established characters, Commander Sam Vimes, out into fresh territory. With wife and son on hand, Vimes experiences for the first time a holiday in the countryside. The Ankh-Morpork police force supply most of the characters for this tale from a well-stocked inventory of favourites. Lord Vetinari makes a welcome appearance at the open and close of the book, and with his hidden hand setting events in motion it can safely be assumed that Commander Vimes will not be idle in his country idyll. 
 Along with a murder mystery we're presented with various angles on the topic of poo, an interesting introduction to the goblin race and their peculiarities, and some wide-ranging social critique. It's not unusual for Pratchett to hold the Discworld up as a mirror in which he can satirise everything from the iniquitous to innocuous in our own world. In Snuff the critique is perhaps more heavy handed, the sentiments goodhearted rather than funny. We learn that oppressing minorities (goblins) is bad and that the class system along with the uneven distribution of wealth are neither big nor clever. I know these things and would have preferred a little more about how the goblins bottle a lifetime's supply of snot. 
 The main weakness in Snuff however is simply that its hero is so familiar to us, so capable, sturdy, so grown and set into his character over many books, that the story lacks tension. We know Commander Vimes will come through. We don't truly believe harm will befall his family. We expect the same man to walk out of the book as walked in. 
 These issues with the book on the grand scale do not however change the fact that Snuff is continuously entertaining, line by excellent line, with all Pratchett's genius on display in the small scale. And his again he achieves the miracle of making you care about his creations. In the midst of all the funnies he can suddenly turn on the pathos and within moments the fate of a malodorous snot-bottling goblin will matter to you. 
 Fans of the series will enjoy the romp with old Discworld friends and some feisty new additions. Anyone who isn't a fan should get a hold of one of the many entry-point books into this 39 novel masterwork (by all means start with number 1). And unless you were born without funny-bone you'll soon be roaming the Discworld with the rest of us. 
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 My 4* rating is to some degree influenced by the following wind of this excellent series - the added value carried from earlier books by many of these characters can't be ignored. 
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