The Fifth Elephant

The only things I know about The Fifth Elephant going in are the things that the title references. It is both a reference to the movie The Fifth Element and a reference to the fact that in Discworld, the world is held up on the shell of a turtle by four elephants.

In truth, the story of the book has very little to do with either one of those things. Go figure. Still, the book was a wonderful romp through Discworld. Quite literally, this time! The Fifth Elephant takes us out of the city of Ankh-Mopork and whisks us away to the land of Uberwald. Uberwald is considered by many to be a lawless place, and with Ankh-Mopork being the standard that’s saying quite a lot.

Commander of the Watch Sir Samuel Vimes, ever the main character of the Watch novels, is appointed as diplomat representing Ankh-Mopork in his role as Duke (a title he acquired earlier in the series). He is being dispatched in this position to represent Ankh-Mopork as a new Low King of the Dwarfs is crowned.

Hijinks, as you might imagine, ensue. There’s murders occurring in Ankh-Mopork around the time Vimes is to leave that seem related to the whole ordeal. There’s various political tensions as some of Vimes’s best coppers are people seen as unfit by the Dwarfs. Trolls, and heaven forbid, Dwarfs who advertise that they’re female. Who could tolerate such a thing?

Everything comes to a head as political machinations of Uberwald come to bear and things that were intended to stay in the dark are wrenched kicking and screaming into the light. No spoilers other than the above exposition and the slight nudge that the day does, in fact, get saved, more or less.

A bit more of a political thriller in the end than other Watch books, though not as much of a political novel as Jingo was. All in all I quite enjoyed it. It pulled at a lot of the threads that I wish Jingo had, so it certainly has that going for it as far as I’m concerned.

I have heard that the next book, Night Watch, is largely considered one of the best of Discworld over all, so I am quite excited to say the least.