fantasy novel
Fantasy literature is literature set in an imaginary universe, often but not always without any locations, events, or people from the real world. Magic, the supernatural and magical creatures are common in many of these imaginary worlds. F ...
by British writer Terry Pratchett, the nineteenth book in the '' Discworld'' series, published in 1996. The story follows the members of the City Watch, as they attempt to solve murders apparently committed by a golem, as well as the unusual poisoning of the Patrician, Lord Vetinari.
The title is a figure of speech from
feet of clay
Feet of clay is an idiom used to refer to a weakness or character flaw, especially in people of prominence and power. It can also be used to refer to larger groups, such as societies, businesses, and empires. An entity with feet of clay may app ...
) and the script used in the book to represent Morporkian being written by a golem resembles the Hebrew alphabet, a reference to
golem
A golem ( ; he, , gōlem) is an animated, anthropomorphic being in Jewish folklore, which is entirely created from inanimate matter (usually clay or mud). The most famous golem narrative involves Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the late 16th-century ...
Twelve of the city golems, clay creatures forced to obey the written instructions placed inside their heads, decide to create a "king" golem. They fashion a golem from their own clay and place in his head instructions that would fulfill their hopes: "Bring peace to the world", "Treat everyone fairly" and so on. They enroll the help of a priest and dwarf bread baker to write the sacred instructions and bake the clay, respectively; Meshugah, the "king" golem, is initially sent to work in a candle factory.
Around the same time, a
cabal
A cabal is a group of people who are united in some close design, usually to promote their private views or interests in an ideology, a state, or another community, often by intrigue and usually unbeknownst to those who are outside their group. T ...
of
Ankh-Morpork
Ankh-Morpork is a fictional city-state which features prominently in Terry Pratchett's ''Discworld'' fantasy novels.
Overview
Pratchett describes Ankh-Morpork as the biggest city in Discworld and its corrupt mercantile capital.
In ''The Art ...
's nobles and guild leaders seeks to gradually depose the Patrician, replace him with Nobby Nobbs, revealed as the heir to the Earldom of Ankh, as the new king and rule the city through him.
To implement this, the cabal orders the golems' newly made king, Meshugah, to make poisoned candles and have them delivered to the palace. Vetinari is successfully poisoned, making him severely ill. Meshugah, however, is "overloaded" by all the different instructions his creators gave him, and goes "mad": he starts overworking and, when he exhausts raw materials, he rampages through the city, and goes on to murder the priest and baker who took part in his creation. The golems that made him are horrified as murder violates their most base instructions and Meshugah was baked from some of their parts and is therefore “clay of their clay.”
At this point the City Watch steps in trying to solve the murders and the poisoning of Lord Vetinari. With the assistance of their new forensics expert dwarf Cheery Littlebottom, Commander Vimes and
Captain Carrot
''Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew!'' is a DC Comics series about a team of talking animal superheroes called the Zoo Crew. The characters first appeared in a 16-page special insert in '' The New Teen Titans'' #16 (February 1982), follow ...
slowly unravel the mystery. The golems send one of their number, Dorfl, to falsely confess to the murders and the remaining eleven commit suicide.
Carrot and Dorfl, having been given a receipt for himself and thus owning himself and having no master, fight and defeat the golem king at the candle factory. Despite having his instructions removed, Dorfl is able to reveal that “words in the heart can not be taken” before dying, and is rebaked with a voice. Afterwards, Vimes confronts the city's chief heraldry expert, a vampire, who instigated the whole affair to ensure that the rightful heir to the Ankh-Morpork throne, Carrot, would not produce a part-werewolf line with Angua. Dorfl arrests him despite tenuous evidence and Vimes burns down all the heraldic record as retribution against the "elite" and "noble" plotters, who had happily and self-righteously sacrificed the lives of several "commoners" in the pursuit of their scheme (namely an elderly woman and a baby who lived in Cockbill Street, Vimes's childhood neighbourhood).
In the end, Vetinari has recovered completely, Dorfl is sworn in as a Watchman (much to the chagrin of Ankh-Morpork's theological establishment), Vimes gets a pay raise, and the Watch House gets a new dartboard. Vetinari reveals to his assistant, Drumknott, that he had known of the plot for some time already. Vimes' rash actions in the pursuit of truth had considerably scared the city elite, which is precisely why Vetinari had let him continue: so that the plotters would know just how much worse off they'd be if Vetinari died.
Characters
*Carrot Ironfoundersson
*Cheery Littlebottom
*Angua von Überwald
*Samuel Vimes
*Dorfl
*Dragon King of Arms
*Meshugah
Reception
''
Publishers Weekly
''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of ...
'' described the book as "fantasy served with a twist of Monty Python, parody that works by never taking itself too seriously", with "sly puns" and "lively, outrageous characters". ''
The A.V. Club
''The A.V. Club'' is an American online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was cr ...
'', conversely, emphasized the book's "intelligent wit and wordplay with a notable lack of punnery", praised Pratchett for the "complexity" of the politics and the "three-dimensional" nature of the characters, and noted that the " sword and sorcery" plot "doesn't insult the reader's intelligence" despite involving "the bumbling City Watch" and "a murderous enchanted statue".
At the ''
SF Site
SF may refer to:
Locations
* San Francisco, California, United States
* Sidi Fredj, Algeria
* South Florida, an urban region in the United States
* Suomi Finland, former vehicular country code for Finland
In arts and entertainment Genre ...
'',
Steven H Silver
Steven H Silver (born April 19, 1967) is an American science fiction fan and bibliographer, publisher, author, and editor. He has been nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer twelve times and Best Fanzine seven times without winni ...
commended Pratchett for presenting "mysteries which can be solved with the clues provided", and stated that although the book does not have "quite as many laugh out loud moments as revious Discworld novels, it shows that Pratchett is "a novelist as well as a humorist".
Gideon Kibblewhite reviewed ''Feet of Clay'' for ''Arcane'' magazine, rating it a 9 out of 10 overall. Kibblewhite comments that "It's another gem from a master of comic fantasy."