There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who, when presented with a glass that is exactly half full, say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty.

The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What’s up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don’t think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass! Who’s been pinching my beer?

And at the other end of the bar the world is full of the other type of person, who has a broken glass, or a glass that has been carelessly knocked over (usually by one of the people calling for a larger glass) or who had no glass at all, because he was at the back of the crowd and had failed to catch the barman’s eye.

In The Truth, investigative journalism comes to the Discworld. A young man named William de Worde creates a paper (the Ankh-Morpork Times) of “things written down” which ends up far more popular than he expected, leading to copy cat tabloids and a shakedown from the established printers of the city.

One nice thing about this book is that it could almost have been a City Watch book. We get plenty of Lord Vetinari and Commander Vimes, along with a few appearances by others in the City Watch. Those are (so far) my favorites among the Discworld books, so I’ll take it.

Another interest addition to the universe is Mr. Tulip, who swears a lot… except all you hear him say is “ing”. As in –ing this or –ing that. It’s kind of hilarious and kind of hard to follow, especially in audiobook form.

Perhaps my favorite part of the book though is Otto, a vampire from Überwald who’s sworn off blood (we see more of that in the later City Watch books) who runs the cameras for the Ankh-Morpork Times. The best part? He’s still a vampire… Whenever his flashbulb goes off, he has a tendency to burn badly and running screaming. Listening to that in the audiobook version is all sorts of fun.

Well worth the read/listen