Spence167

I like eating treacle. Sometimes, when I fancy something sweet to eat I'll toast some bread and then add a spoonful of treacle. Delicious! 

 

What I don't like doing with treacle is swimming through it. This book felt as if I was doing exactly that. Swimming through treacle.

 

A book of equal length (375 pages, give or take), will usually take me a week to ten days to finish. If I finish a book in that time it means that I enjoyed the book. If it takes me less then I REALLY enjoyed it. You may have some idea of how much I enjoyed this book then, when I tell you it took me a MONTH to finish. Yes, a whole MONTH!

 

And it is frustrating because the two things I love in books - and come to think about it, in general - are fantasy and comedy. So, when an author who specialises in both fantasy and comedy writing, comes along, you'd think I'd be in 7th heaven. Nope. I'm sorry. This was more like Hell for me. The writing was disjointed, confusing and more importantly, boring. Being a book entitled 'Raising Steam', I expected it to have something to do with trains, you don't need to be Stephen Fry to work that one out. What I didn't expect it to be about was JUST trains. And branch lines. And footplates. And chuff knows what else. It was just too monotonous. OK, there was a bit of comedy in there and I did find myself snorting out loud on occasion but sadly, not enough. And on the fantasy side, um...Where was it? There were no wizards, no spells cast, just nothing fantastical at all.

 

I have tried tried to like Terry Pratchett's works. I have, after all, read six of his books (and heard one too, 'Dodger', on audiobook) but once again I have been disappointed and I will not be buying anymore of his work. And I am genuinely sorry to say that.

 

This felt more like a chore than an enjoyment and books aren't meant to be that way - not to me anyway.

 

Sorry but only 3 out of 10 for this.