It seems that every now and then I "burn out" on Terry Pratchett. I don't know if he has some clinkers and I hit one of them, or if it starts becoming too much of the same, or what the deal is, but there it is. So it's been quite a while since I've picked up one of his books. So I was thoroughly and delightfully surprised by The Fifth Elephant, which is, IMHO, one heck of a good book. It is certainly full of his trademark funny bits of all sorts: of language, of perspective, and of situation. Set 'em up, knock 'em back down.

But the really delightful thing about this book is the serious stuff underneath the funny bits. It's a tightly-plotted mystery that works really well. Such stuff is probably in other of his books and I've just forgotten it, but I really noticed and enjoyed it in this one. I shall have both to go back to the ones I've enjoyed and to take up some that I hadn't got to yet.

I also really liked the … I don't know … world view or philosophical underpinnings or whatever you want to call it. I suppose some of it is that fairly shallow stuff that passes for Deep Insight, but I liked it anyway. I suppose because it agrees with/confirms some of my feelings about the world.

The man really is a great writer. I'm glad he's around and writing.