This was better than I expected. Admittedly the humour was hit and miss for me, but did hit more so because it’s often pretty low key, so misses are more inoffensive than usual.

I also quite liked what it has to say about institutions in general. Identifying a grifter/huckster to con essentially oligarchs? (I have not read any other discworld books, and as such some of the systemic things about the city are still opaque to me) via various intersections of Kafkaesque businesses and companies interacting with the post office said con man was hired to run, into as much of a “win” as you’re likely to get—was all very satisfying to me.

Also, I liked the golem and was surprised at how much that was gone into, systemic wise as well. I guess it did a good job of showing me things I honestly could not care less about in the first half and then showing me why I ought to in the later. There’s so much humour it was hard to know what was foreshadowing and a jape; it somehow worked in its favour, by the end.

Not sure I could say I cared about the characters beyond what they did for the story, or that the pacing was to my liking, though exactly as fantasy nerds tend to like it. But it’s very pleasant at a craft or structural level to look at. It also didn’t hurt that in my mind it was all playing out as Disney animation film cross between Ichabod Crane and 101 Dalmatians; ie, excellent line work and very pleasant to have in your head.