The Compleat Ankh-Morpork

[Slantaholic]

Does TCAM mention Slant?

Does the Compleat give any updates on the Lawyers Guild at all?

Or give a general indication as to where Mr Slant may reside? I presume he leaves in the City of Ankh somewhere. Are there updates on the richest areas of Ankh-Morpork, or are there any more banks or vaults present?

 

[DreadfulKata]

Also, maybe it's just me but aren't we forgetting the rather important fact that, even as recently as my parents generation non Caucasians were still to a degree a rarity in most western cities and as discworld is at a Victorian era stage in its evolution then it is right, accurate and natural that klatchians and agateans would be a rarity in a place where travelling is still done by horse and cart (if you are lucky) unless you are a magic user.
Having said that were the zoons (the river traders that esk hitches a lift with ER and Vimes encounters Snuff, if memory serves) described as black somewhere?

Ankh-Morpork is only influenced by Victorian society sometimes. It is equally influenced by other cultures/times. And in any case, major Victorian cities weren't as white as you might think. Not only was immigration high, but actually non-white people had been a significant presence in Britain for centuries by the nineteenth century. After all, we had slavery until 1834 - those freed slaves didn't disappear overnight after abolition!

Having said that, with little explicit information on race being given, it comes down to personal interpretation with A-M, and for me it just felt natural that a city whose 'thing' was always how it absorbed everyone from troll to gnome, would also be extremely mixed in its racial makeup. Its cone of the few aspects of the TV adaptations' A-M that I positively liked (rather than felt merely meh about), that the crowds were a pretty mixed bunch.

 

[DreadfulKata]

Actually I've revised my opinion of the Compleat Ankh-Morpork a lot. I already loved it (and the map in particular is everything my geeky little heart could ever have dreamed of) but as my first post indicates I had some niggles.

I didn't much look at it for months, but getting it off the shelf again I find I've done the book a disservice in my memory. The illustrations are charming and the crowds a lot more diverse than I gave them credit for. Originally I found the directory part a little dull because it hadn't quite clicked in my brain that these aren't whimsical names made up specially for this book, these are all businesses mentioned at some point in the novels themselves. That's pretty cool.

Now I think they ought to publish an accompanying guide to the Guilds and institutions of A-M. There's a brief summary of each Guild in the Compleat A-M, but with 40 books in the series, each Guild has its own eventful history. It would be nice to have them recorded int heir own book. I found myself trying to use the Compleat A-M to check a fact the other day (who preceded Downey as Chief Assassin? Yes, I know, Cruces, I found the info online) and it doesn't go into that detail. Which is fair enough. But I think that means there's room for an accompanying guide...

 

[=Tamar]

Now I think they ought to publish an accompanying guide to the Guilds and institutions of A-M. There's a brief summary of each Guild in the Compleat A-M, but with 40 books in the series, each Guild has its own eventful history. It would be nice to have them recorded in their own book. I found myself trying to use the Compleat A-M to check a fact the other day (who preceded Downey as Chief Assassin? Yes, I know, Cruces, I found the info online) and it doesn't go into that detail. Which is fair enough. But I think that means there's room for an accompanying guide...

The Histories of the Guilds would be difficult for the guilds themselves to write because anyone but an upper-level History Monk would have trouble tracking all the universe changes. The differences in the guild structures (not to mention in Vetinari) can be attributed to the Change Spell in The Light Fantastic, and if not that, then to the changes made randomly by Esk in Equal Rites, the massive universe change in Mort, the equally massive one in Soul Music, the one mentioned as having happened in the past in Thief of Time and the concurrent one in Night Watch, etc. Lesser details of who was actually head of a particular guild would no doubt also have changed.

The Trousers of Time are made of stretch fabric.

 

[DaveC]

I think tracking down the diaries serves this purpose as a history of guilds and their characters. I have a few so far.