The Truth

First edition
Author	Terry Pratchett
Cover artist	Josh Kirby
Language	English
Series	Discworld 25th novel – 4th individual story
Subject	Newspaper journalism, Watergate Characters: William de Worde Locations: Ankh-Morpork
Genre	Fantasy
Publisher	Doubleday
Publication date	2000
Awards	Came 193rd in The Big Read.
ISBN	0-385-60102-6
Preceded by	The Fifth Elephant
Followed by	Thief of Time

The Truth is a fantasy novel by the British writer Terry Pratchett, the 25th book in his Discworld series, published in 2000.

The book features the coming of movable type to Ankh-Morpork, and the founding of the Discworld's first newspaper by William de Worde, as he invents investigative journalism with the help of his reporter Sacharissa Cripslock. The two investigate the charges of embezzlement and attempted murder against Havelock Vetinari, and help to vindicate him.

The Ankh-Morpork City Watch characters also appear in this novel, but have limited roles and are seen mainly from de Worde's perspective. C.M.O.T. Dibbler also makes an appearance.

Plot

William de Worde is the black sheep of an influential Ankh-Morpork family, scraping out a humble lifestyle as a common scribe producing stock letters-to-home and a gossipy newsletter for foreign notables. After a team of dwarves arrive in Ankh-Morpork to start a printing business using moveable type (a technology hitherto outlawed in the city in favour of engraving due to the entreaties of the Unseen University and the city's religious establishment), De Worde and the dwarves establish The Ankh-Morpork Times, later employing Sacharissa Cripslock and Otto, a black-ribbon vampire and iconographer. The Guild of Engravers aim to halt the 'non-guild' activities of the Times by cutting off their paper supplies and establishing The Ankh-Morpork Inquirer, a loss-making tabloid filled with popular fabricated stories, often about unlikely events in far-off countries.

Meanwhile, a conspiracy is afoot in the city to depose the Patrician, Lord Vetinari. The wealthy and powerful (but anonymous) Committee to Unelect the Patrician hire Mr. Pin and Mr. Tulip, a pair of villainous out-of-town mercenaries known as the New Firm, to frame Vetinari with a staged embezzlement and replace him with a puppet. Pin and Tulip manage to catch off-guard the normally impassible Patrician with Charlie, a witless Pseudopolitan Vetinari look-alike coerced into helping them. The plan starts going awry, though, when Drumknott, Vetinari's clerk returns in the middle of the scene and the New Firm is forced to stab him and render Vetinari unconscious, hoping to also frame him for murder; their efforts are hampered by Lord Vetinari's prized terrier, Wuffles, who bites Mr. Pin and escapes, becoming the sole witness to the crime.

After William ill-advisedly advertises a reward for information leading to Wuffles' recovery, the New Firm, disguised as Omnian clergy, attempt to gather information about Wuffles from the Times but are frightened off by Otto's experimental dark-light 'obscurograph' technology (which unpredictably produces images of the past, the future or what is "really there"). Realising that the job is much harder than their employers had initially suggested, the New Firm decides to skip town. Although the job is unfinished they extort from their employers' zombie lawyer and representative Mr. Slant their promised payment and a big "bonus" in jewels, using compromising voice recordings captured with a dis-organiser Mk II.

An anonymous tipster named "Deep Bone", helps William track down Wuffles and "translate" his testimony, giving William the last pieces of the puzzle. In the meantime, Sacharissa accidentally discovers the New Firm's hideout in the de Worde family townhouse and is captured. The New Firm head back to the Times offices hoping to exchange her for Wuffles and silence all witnesses. In the ensuing struggle the Times offices catch fire. William and the others manage to escape outside while Pin and Tulip hide in the cellar. Pin, driven insane due to the dark-light giving him visions of the New Firm's deceased victims, kills Tulip to steal his potato (which he believed would allow him to reincarnate after death) and to use him as a raft against molten lead; escaping from the cellars, he attacks William but is impaled on William's memo spike. William retrieves the jewels and the dis-organiser, and discovers Wuffles's bitemark on Tulip's leg. With the liberal application of a crossbow wielded by a daring Saccharisa, dwarven axes, bribery in jewels, and Otto's sense of dramatic atmosphere helps the crew borrow one of the Inquirer's presses for the evening to get the story out in time. After discovering that "Cut Me Own Throat" Dibbler was hired by the Inquirer as its editor, William and Sacharissa hire him to sell Times advertising space.

The big story breaks the next day and Lord Vetinari's name is cleared just before the new, Guild-controlled Patrician can seize power, but ordinary citizens are seemingly nonplussed by this revelation. From the recordings on the dis-organiser, William discovers that his father Lord de Worde, an ardent speciesist opposed to Vetinari's tolerance of non-human species resident in the city, is the mastermind behind the Committee. He decides to confront him. A tense argument, blackmail with the threat of exposure, a fortune in jewels, and threats from Otto fail to intimidate Lord de Worde into returning to his self-imposed exile as William demands. However, after learning that his machinations nearly killed his own son, Lord de Worde admits defeat and walks away. William manages to blackmail Slant into providing his services pro bono to get him released from Watch custody and to resolve his dispute with the Engravers' Guild.

William is ambivalent about the new and unexpected role of the free press in his life and in the world but resolves that someone must tell the public the truth about what goes on in the city, even if the public is disinterested. The Times comes to be recognized, if not exactly welcomed, by the powers that be in the city, and William and Sacharissa make plans to expand even further. An attempt to bunk off work for a lunch date leads them to witness and report a news-worthy cart crash. Tulip and Pin, with the former feeling sorry for his past crimes and having strong faith in a misunderstanding from his childhood, and the latter being relieved not to suffer vengeance after death, are reincarnated as a woodworm and a chipping potato, respectively.

Characters

• Otto Chriek
• Sacharissa Cripslock
• Gunilla Goodmountain
• Mr. Pin
• Mr. Tulip
• Havelock Vetinari
• William de Worde
• Lord de Worde
• Mr Slant

Reception

At the SF Site, Steven H Silver judged that Pratchett's decision to present the novel from William's viewpoint "infused (it) with a freshness that has been lacking from many of Pratchett's (then-)recent books".^[1] CNN called it "technically a fantasy novel, but an unconventional one. And a funny one — the laugh-out-loud kind of funny that comes along all too infrequently," saying that Pratchett was a "master at wordplay" and that the novel was full of "striking example(s) of linguistic gymnastics".^[2]

Infinity plus described it as an "excellently plotted tale of mystery and murder" and "an hilarious take on the newspaper business", its only fault being that the book's title was "descriptive" but insufficiently "fun".^[3]

Publishers Weekly considered it "Pratchett's best one yet", and noted parodic similarities to Pulp Fiction and His Girl Friday.^[4] MIT Technology Review observed that it "combines humor and political satire to great effect" and compared it to the work of Oscar Wilde, but felt that it relied too strongly on coincidence, that there was insufficient closure to some of the plot threads, and that "some of the dialogue tries too hard to be witty", ultimately concluding that although it may be "quite unfair to set [Pratchett] to higher standards than other [authors]", the quality of work he produced would naturally lead readers to have heightened expectations.^[5]

References

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to The Truth.

• The Truth title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Annotations for The Truth
• Quotes from The Truth