The Fifth Elephant

While part of the Discworld series, The Fifth Elephant is a standalone story within the Watch sub-series. Readers new to Discworld can start here, though familiarity with Commander Vimes and the Ankh-Morpork City Watch from earlier books will enrich the experience.

The Fifth Elephant has not been directly adapted into a film or television series. However, other books featuring the Ankh-Morpork City Watch characters have received adaptations.

First published on 1 November 1999 by Victor Gollancz. It is the twenty-fourth Discworld novel and the fifth City Watch book.

Terry Pratchett drew inspiration from various real-world political and cultural elements for Uberwald, including Eastern European folklore, vampire myths, and the complexities of international diplomacy and resource control, particularly concerning oil and gas.

According to Discworld lore, the world is carried by four elephants standing on the Great A'Tuin. But fossil evidence suggests there was once a fifth elephant that crashed into the Disc — its rendered fat became the great fat deposits (and fat-based industries) of Uberwald. The title is a geological metaphor for a secret history that shapes the present.

The Scone of Stone is the sacred seat of dwarf kingship — a cheese-shaped lump of stone on which the Low King of the Dwarfs sits at coronation. Its theft triggers the political crisis of the novel.

Not the best. The novel assumes familiarity with Angua, Carrot, and Vimes's development across Guards! Guards!, Men at Arms, Feet of Clay, and Jingo. Starting there is strongly recommended.

Vimes's entire career has been built on the principle that people should follow the law regardless of who they are. Diplomacy, as practiced in Uberwald, runs on exactly opposite principles. The comedy and tension of The Fifth Elephant comes from watching Vimes try to be a policeman in a world that runs on privilege, rank, and who you know.