A prime example of the modernity theme of the latter half of the Discworld novels, Going Postal is ostensibly a story of the establishment of a functional modern postal service. Of course though, theres much more to it than that.
Moist Von Lipwig is a career crook who's run out of luck, about to see the end of his last alias. We start the story with him being hanged for his crimes...before waking seated in front of Vetinari. He's now Moist again, and with his real name, Vetinari wants him to take on the role of postmaster for a historically unlucky postal service. Throughout the story we get to see the postal service going up against the big new tech of the clacks (long distance semaphore communication), and the shady asset strippers that are currently operating it. We see the marrying of marketing with the press, the grubby world of con-man finance and the efficiency savings that can kill a service.
While the book seemed to start off a little shaky, it found it's feet pretty quickly and before long felt like a very understandable statement of righteous indignation in regards to cash-grabbing on essential services.
I'm getting so close to the end of reading the full series now that I'm starting to get sad at the prospect.
Finished reading - 28/04/26