Nation

Rating:	★★★
Category:	Books
Genre:	Childrens Books
Author:	Terry Pratchett

MY initial disappointment in purchasing this book was learning that this book is not a Discworld novel. With his Discworld series, Pratchett already parodied things such as moviemaking, postal service, publishing, and even space travel. I was hoping that this latest book would be an ambitious project in making a parody of nation-building. Turning the first few pages of the book immediately indicate that this isn't so. (There's a map of the standard spherical world, and the font size was way too big. I looked again at the mark of the publisher, and saw it was Doubleday, which specializes in children's books.)

Nevertheless, Nation is a passably entertaining read. A tsunami wipes out an entire island-nation in the Pelagic Ocean (Pacific to us - this is still set after all in an alternate reality) killing everyone except for one boy, who was supposed to undergo the official manhood ceremonies were it not for the killer wave. In the process, a European vessel in the area of the tsunami was shipwrecked and consequently crashed into the island killing everyone on board except a girl (who, unknown to herself, was already 2nd in line to the throne of Britain due to a disastrous plague killing all other potential claimants.) Together, the two adolescents overcome the initial difficulties of their cultural barrier and slowly pick up the pieces left by the disaster and rebuild the island-nation with the help of other survivors who arrived from nearby islands.

What is pleasing is that while Pratchett's distinctive style is apparent, there is no hint of Discworld in this book. No parallel characters to Lord Vetinari, CMOT Dibbler, Rincewind, Capt. Carrot, etc. This is an entirely different novel, which, if anything, proves that Pratchett is perfectly capable of making equally entertaining stories outside of the confines of Discworld.

The notion that primitive cultures are in reality superior to Western European civilization is a recurring theme in many books. But with Nation, the idea is pushed further by suggesting that the cradle of civilization is actually an archipelago in the Pelagic Ocean, most of which has sunk under rising waters after the Ice Age, and whose people seeded the earth with their genes and their learning.

Despite these delightful aspects however, the story is still a relatively simple one (i.e. simple but not weak), and adds very little value to Pratchett's very own sub-genre of parodying the real world through alternate realities.