Review of The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett

According to the lore, Discworld flies through space on the back of the great turtle Atuan and is supported on four sides by four great elephants. But there was once a fifth, and in the twenty-fourth Discworld novel, The Fifth Elephant (1999), readers learn of its fate, and continued impact on Disc life to this day.

Things are getting political in dwarf land. Conservatives are even clashing with liberals on the far away streets of Ankh-Morpork. Someone has stolen the dwarves' sacred Scone of Stone (or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof). And Wallace Stonky, Discworld inventor of rubberized “preventatives”, has somehow turned up dead. Investigation is needed all around. As Lord Vetinari dispatches Vimes to mediate the situation in Ubervald, enter the Night's Watch.

It's almost pointless to say, but I will anyway: Pratchett's Discworld novels are all a lot of fun, and while personal interest may vary depending on the individual novel, each is an enjoyable read on a line-by-line basis alone. The Fifth Elephant is no different. Pratchett keeps the puns, slapstick, and situational humor rolling in fine Disc style, regardless whether this is your first or last Disc read.

That being said, The Fifth Elephant makes a far better early Disc read than later. Practchett is on point humor-wise, but does not integrate the novel's overarching ideas to the plot as well as he can. Perhaps I missed something, but this is a book that reads predominantly at the plot level—not in itself a bad thing, just not as nuanced and expansive a thing as many other Disc novels.

In the end, The Fifth Elephant is not S-tier Discworld. But even when Pratchett is not marrying theme to plot as tightly as he has in other Disc novels, the novel's tone, humor, and in-the-moment action still carry it. In the words of Primus, they can't all be zingers. But that doesn't mean the book is lacking the juice that makes Pratchett, Pratchett. Read, enjoy, just don't set your expectations as high as some of the other Discworld novels if this is not your first.