Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett

From the jacket cover: Football has come to the ancient city of Ankh-Morpork — not the old fashioned, grubby pushing and shoving, but the new, fast football with pointy hats for goalposts and balls that go gloing when you drop them. 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.

The prospect of a Big Match draws in a street urchin with a wonderful talent for kicking a tin can, a maker of jolly good pies, a dim but beautiful young woman, who might just turn out to be the greatest fashion model there has ever been, and the mysterious Mr Nutt, who no one knows much about. As the match approaches, four lives are entangled and changed forever.

Because the thing about football – the important thing about football – is that it is not just about football.


Where Nation was cute in a young adult sort of way, Unseen Academicals really delved back into the world of Ahnk Morpork and the quirks of Unseen University. Ventari, dictator of Ahnk Morpork has agreed, nay, subtly encouraged the Wizards to a game of football - but with the condition they use the newly "rediscovered" rules.

With typical aplomb, Pratchett weaves together multiple stories: Trevor and Juliet; Glenda and Nott; and the Wizards and their quest for a football team. And with typical Pratchett subtleties - there are multiple tags a person can pick up on: The Barber of Seville, Romeo and Juliet, I'll let the reader find the rest.

I really enjoyed this one. Nations was good, but this was story that returned to all that made - makes - the Disk world books shine.