The story has some similarities to The Truth (2000) a few years earlier in which a Mr de Worde invents the printing press. Moist, as a professional swindler but deep at heart a decent guy, recognises that half of the work is making people believe that the post office is back in business again, and making people believe things is what he is good at. What he finds at the post office building is mountains of letters covered in protective layers of pigeon guano, an elderly Junior Postman named Tolliver Groat and hints of old secrets. Pump accompanies him as his parole officer. Just when Moist von Lipwig is about to be hanged for his fraudulent practices, the Patrician intervenes and makes Moist an offer he cannot refuse: become head postmaster at the defunct Ankh-Morpork post office and breathe new life into it. Because these are new characters, readers new to Pratchett can start right here. In this last patch of Discworld novels he started the young adult sequence featuring Tiffany Aching, and three books about a slippy con man with the glorious name of Moist von Lipwig. I guess he had to keep things interesting for himself. After more than 30 books and two decades of writing, he still had the imagination to construct new novel sequences with new groups of characters. I have to admire Pratchett for his continuous innovation in the Discworld series.
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