The Carpet People

I've now read one of Terry Pratchett's oldest novels. And one he did recently. And they were the same novel! The Carpet People is a revision by an older Pratchett of something he wrote when younger. (Got it from Mighty Ape and I think it's even cheaper now than when I picked it up!)

He says in the introduction that his focus of fantasy has now changed, and so he's rewritten parts of it... and I have to say that this version of the novel is, well, rather generic Pratchett.

The set up of people living in the carpet is a good one, and Pratchett certainly plays it up, with different variations of people and creatures with strange names, and mixing in things we recognise from our world. The basic story is about a people forced to move and ending up changing the balance of peoples versus nominal monsters (the mouls are presented as monsters, but I never really got a good sense of what they were besides being presented as the monsters of the story).

And, as I said, it's rather generic. There isn't a huge arc here that will surprise anyone and even the story points can be ticked off a standard list. Clearly young Pratchett got a lot better (and who am I, unpublished schmuck, to say what should be going on), however aside from the setup of the People of the Carpet, there's isn't a lot here to recommend it.

I'm glad I got this, as a completest (although I will never have his sci-fi novels), but feel free to skip this, unless you really like anything Pratchett does.

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