There was a time when I was such a Pratchett fan that I even went to a Discworld Convention; after his last few books, it seems those times are past. The current Discworld novel, Thud!, was the first one I failed to finish, and I actually returned it to the shop to get a refund. It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t anything I hadn’t seen before.

The problem I have with the last half-dozen Discworld books or so is that Pratchett just won’t take any risks with his stories or characters, and the stories have become predictable and samey as a result. Take the character of the Patrician, for instance; once, this character was an intimidating, Machiavellian individual who had Ankh-Morpork under his thumb. He was always one step ahead of everyone else, always in control and in charge of whatever situation he found himself in. And he still is, but after you’ve seen him survive yet another attempt to depose, kill, or otherwise remove him from power it’s not interesting any more, it’s just boring. You know he’ll survive because he always does, and the potentially-interesting story that could arise from his removal is never seen.

Or take Vimes, a down-to-earth man of the people who’s ended up in a position of power far removed from the gutter in which we first met him. Vimes is, as far as I can tell, immortal. Like the Patrician, the reader knows that no matter what happens to him, no matter the odds, he’ll survive. I actually thought Pratchett was going to kill him off in Night Watch, and it would have worked really well. Everything in the story suggested that it was going to happen, but then Pratchett throws in a deus ex machina plot device and Vimes survives to star in the next book, again, again, again.

Every recent book suggests to me that Pratchett is unwilling to take risks with his creation. Even when he introduced an entirely new cast of characters and new locations in Monstrous Regiment — something he’s not done since, I think, Interesting Times back in 1996 or thereabouts — he undermined all their heroic exploits by having Vimes et al pulling strings in the background, just to have some familiar people in the story. Why even bother making the effort to explore new locations and people if they can’t be made strong enough to stand alone?

The Discworld used to be full of unexplored potential, and it still is — Pratchett’s never gone back to explore the worlds seen in Pyramids, Small Gods, The Lost Continent or Interesting Times, for instance. He recycles invulnerable characters who hog the centre stage and it all feels so safe, so easy, so comfortable. It’s a routine.

If he ever tries something new in a future book, will somebody please let me know?