This is part of the Pratchett Project.
The blurb:
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.
To do this, they recruit an unlikely group of players: Trev, a street urchin with a talent for kicking a tin can; Glenda, the night chef who makes a mean pie; Juliet, the kitchen hand turned world's greatest fashion model; and the mysterious Mr Nutt, who has something powerful, and dark, locked away inside him...
And 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!
In publication order, Unseen Academicals is #37; in terms of books I've read, it's between Making Money and Snuff. In my review of Making Money, I said it seemed 'less, somehow' when compared to Going Postal; Makng Money was published around the time the Embuggerance became public knowledge. Unseen Academicals was published next after Making Money and,to me, it's go the same feeling of 'less, somehow'. It's still not as messed up as Snuff — I maintain that, had Pratchett been in full command for Snuff, it would have blown the doors off — but it's still a pretty strong book in many ways.
There's a softening to the language, but the characterisation is still pretty sharp, and the observations about life with bullies and rival football gangs are on point. Trevor and Juliet's romance — somewhat star-crossed, as befits one of their names at least — feels real, and Mr Nutt's gradual growth from candle-dribbler to team coach to actually knowing himself is engaging. The way others react to him when it's revealed that he's an orc, even though orcs are reputed to have died out, and the secrets of orc history — less murder machines than tools of an oppressor — are likewise heartfelt and actually pretty optimistic.
Which is not uncommon for Discworld, really; bad things happen, people are a long way from being all sweetness and light, and things don't always turn out perfectly...but they do turn out okay. Good does at least hold its own, even if the victory isn't always total. Juliet and Trevor get their happy ending, Glenda and Mr Nutt do as well, and Ankh-Morpork lives to exist another day.
Started: 26 January 2026
Finished: 9 February 2026
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