Unseen Academicals
Ratings75
Average rating4
15
Ratings75
Average rating4
Football has come to the ancient city of Ankh-Morpork. And now, the wizards of Unseen University must win a football match, without using magic, so they're in the mood for trying everything else. The prospect of the Big Match draws in a street urchin with a wonderful talent for kicking a tin can, a maker of jolly good pies, a dim but beautiful young woman, who might just turn out to be the greatest fashion model there has ever been, and the mysterious Mr Nutt (and no one knows anything much about Mr Nutt, not even Mr Nutt, which worries him, too). As the match approaches, four lives are entangled and changed for ever. Because the thing about football - the important thing about football - is that it is not just about football. Here we go! Here we go! Here we go!
Reviews with the most likes.
Solid enough. Not one of the really great Discworld novels, but plenty entertaining.
Not really one of Pratchett's best, although even a mediocre Pratchett is still well worth reading. The topic is, of course, football, as seen through the lens of the Unseen University (as much its domestic staff as the wizards themselves), with additional swipes at high fashion and academia along the way. Ridcully and Ponder Stibbons feature, along with a number of other recurring characters, but the focus is really on a group of new characters, making this something of a one-off.
Full of the usual humour, although possibly with more innuendo than usual, but not really rising to the level of the top-notch Discworld books.
In which the wizards find an unexpected financial reason to take up the game of football, an orc proves his worth, and we're treated to the love story of Trevor and Juliet. This is not one of the best Discworld stories, and the football content doesn't really interest me, but much of it is entertainingly written and there are some good new characters.
Towards the end, it becomes more serious and less entertaining.
I have never not enjoyed a Pratchett book. This one isn't going to the top of the Pratchett mostly because it has a heavy focus on the Wizards and I prefer the Witches and Watch books a bit more, but it's still a great read and manages to make football/soccer interesting to me which ... well, no one has ever made football/soccer interesting to me before.
