Nation by Terry Pratchett

10/10

In what can really only be called a tour de force by an author who is arguably the greatest living English novelist, Terry Pratchett has pulled out all the stops for his latest book, Nation. Pratchett is best known for his Discworld series of books, which stretch across a monstrous 36 books (of which the majority does well to score below 7 out of 10). However this time around, Pratchett has stepped off the Disc and into a parallel universe to our own, with honorable mentions to Einstein and Isaac Newton.

To say that I am a Terry Pratchett fan is to really not grasp the picture. It is like saying that the ocean is marginally damp, or that George Bush might have made a mistake stepping into Iraq.

I say this so that you will be able to temper my review with the knowledge that I might be a little biased. That’s not to say you should disbelieve anything I say. In fact… let’s just get on with it.

Written with Pratchett’s inimitable wit and humor, Nation is one of the best books I have read this year. It is right up there with Pratchett’s best Discworld novels like Night Watch and Making Money. But this time around we are gifted the opportunity to see Pratchett’s attention to detail and love of his craft.

Nation tells the story of Mau, a young member of the Nation, an island not even large enough to be credited on a world map, located in the South Pelagic Ocean. Africa and England both exist, but anomalies – apart from the Great Pelagic Ocean – include the Reunited States and The Russias. We find out immediately that a plague has killed the King of England, and that the next in line has to be acquired as soon as possible so that the French don’t get any funny ideas (not that they’d want too).

However while patriotic Englishmen carry on behind the scenes, desperately searching for their new King, and only appearing randomly, our focus is always drawn to Mau, and to Ermintude, preferably called Daphne.

I review a lot of material and am constantly confronted with the issue of just how much to spoil. When it comes to some of the poorer written work, spoiling often comes as a relief to those who have not yet placed themselves in a place to read said material. But with Pratchett’s work, each moment of the book is like the perfect quarter chicken and chips meal (I’m not obsessed); each mouthful worth savoring. The same is for Nation, thus I am just unsure of how much to reveal.

In short, using Pratchett’s own blurb as a reference, Mau is the last survivor of his people, left alone on an island with only a ghost girl as company (Ermi… Daphne). The Nation will regrow, as other survivors of the catastrophe seek a measure of shelter, but for young Mau, who is no longer a boy but not yet a man, the battle is just beginning. He must become chief to survivors while trying to work out who he is.

What starts off being a two-person show is soon remedied with the arrival of Milo and Pilu, which, after some rather embarrassing moments between Mau and Daphne concerning the nature of gender, sees Daphne come into her own as a powerful woman.

But in this book, hidden beneath character development that is nothing short of breathtaking and amidst a story that will at times make you laugh out loud (SHOW US YER DRAWERS!) and at times shed a tear, exists such a revelation that you will begin to question our own history. Pratchett has not just settled for telling a story of people, but has provided an answer to the beginning of human civilization (if not our own, then one of them).

Written from varying perspective’s that never take you out of the story when switched, Nation tells a story that will at once bring you joy and tear your heart out (well, it will if you’re a romantic). You will live every day with these characters as if they were your own, never becoming annoyed at a persistent flaw that some authors write into their characters.

Pratchett knows how to write a story that people do not want to put down, and if you were to have seen my father over the last weekend you would understand my point (silence would more often than not be broken by an outrageous laugh from the family room).

Terry Pratchett’s Nation gets 10 out of 10 for me. Only Pratchett, Robin Hobb, James Barclay and J.R.R. Tolkien have ever received such a mark from me, and not for everything they have ever written. Nation will make you feel good for a week (hopefully more, we’ll see) and will remind you once again that humanity is not totally doomed (just probably doomed).