Discworld goes Hollywood. Or perhaps Hollywood comes to Discworld?

Basically, Hollywood is a manifestation of a ‘Great Old Ones’ esque cult where the final cultist keeping the Holy Wood from arising once again dies. One thing leads to another, trolls get dressed up as elephants, and a movie hero has to save the day.

There’s a lot of funny there, in particular as it pokes fun at Hollywood and the tropes of film and TV.

It’s interesting seeing how Pratchett reimagined how things change when you get away from the technology of our world–popcorn exists as ‘banged grains’ ( If you put butter and salt on it, it tastes like salty butter ) while the movies themselves are created by way of rather fast painting imps).

On thing that was particularly neat about this book, having just come off the City Watch subseries is the introduction of and , both of which we get to know decently well in those books. It’s interesting to see the roots of their characters so much earlier.

Overall, it’s a decent entry into the series. A bit of a let down after the City Watch series (much more disjointed, less story driven), but still worth the listen.

That absolute best part of listening to this as an audiobook? Where the narrator takes the role of a Troll woman singing in a nightclub. That’s just… I literally burst out laughing at the gym.