Going Postal
Chapters - Terry Pratchett
Chapter 1: The Angel
Moist von Lipwig, a conman and forger condemned to hang under the alias Albert Spangler, is executed before a crowd in Ankh-Morpork - but Lord Vetinari has arranged the hanging with expert precision so that Moist survives. Vetinari offers the 'dead' man a choice: become the new Postmaster General of the derelict Ankh-Morpork Post Office, or walk through a door that opens onto a bottomless shaft. Moist accepts, but immediately flees the city on horseback.
His escape is short-lived. Mr Pump, a golem assigned as his parole officer, tracks him by his unique karmic signature, catches him overnight, and carries him back to the city. Vetinari explains that Mr Pump never sleeps, never stops, and can follow Moist anywhere on the Disc. Moist reluctantly agrees to take up the post, and is sent to the Post Office with a massive ring of keys and a golem shadow who will follow him for the rest of his government service.
On page: Moist von Lipwig, Havelock Vetinari, Mr Pump
Chapter 2: The Post Office
Moist arrives at the Ankh-Morpork Post Office to find it a derelict ruin, its great hall choked with pigeon guano and its motto missing half its letters. He meets Tolliver Groat, an ancient Junior Postman who has been running the place for twenty years without promotion, and Stanley, an intense young man obsessed with pin collecting. They are the entire staff.
Groat reveals that the building is stuffed floor to ceiling with undelivered mail - millions of letters that piled up over decades as the Post Office declined and the Grand Trunk clacks system took over. Moist learns that four previous postmasters appointed by Vetinari have died in suspicious circumstances. The building itself seems almost alive; the accumulated mail whispers and shifts in the darkness. Despite his terror, Moist begins to see the outline of a plan - or at least, a con.
On page: Moist von Lipwig, Tolliver Groat, Stanley Howler
Chapter 3: Our Own Hand, Or None
Moist explores the city as himself for the first time, visiting Dave's Pin Exchange to learn about Stanley's obsession and finding the lever to motivate the boy. He discovers the Golem Trust, run by Adora Belle Dearheart, whose family built the original Grand Trunk clacks before it was stolen by Reacher Gilt and his consortium. Adora Belle is sharp, cynical and chain-smoking - and utterly unimpressed by Moist.
Moist begins to understand the city's communications landscape: the Grand Trunk clacks is expensive, unreliable, and run by ruthless profiteers who are killing their own signallers through negligence. Meanwhile he starts to work his own kind of magic on the Post Office, promoting Groat, inspiring Stanley with a rare pin, and beginning to deliver some of the ancient undelivered letters - starting a chain of consequences both heartwarming and legally complicated.
On page: Moist von Lipwig, Stanley Howler, Adora Belle Dearheart, Reacher Gilt, Tolliver Groat·Mentioned: John Dearheart
Chapter 4: A Sign
Moist discovers that all four of his predecessors as Postmaster General died under mysterious circumstances - falls, heart failure, and other apparent accidents that the Watch investigated without result. The Post Office itself seems to be haunted by the undelivered mail, which whispers and moves in the darkness. Groat tells Moist about the Postman's Walk, a traditional test that any true postmaster must complete.
Meanwhile, Reacher Gilt is introduced as a flamboyant pirate-businessman who has taken control of the Grand Trunk through financial manipulation. His associate Crispin Horsefry, a corrupt banker, visits Gilt in a panic about Vetinari's investigations. Gilt employs a terrifying assassin-like figure called Gryle. Moist walks the Postman's Walk through the building's upper floors, guided by the whispering letters, and emerges transformed - the mail has shown him its unfinished stories.
On page: Moist von Lipwig, Tolliver Groat, Reacher Gilt, Havelock Vetinari, Crispin Horsefry, Sweet Mr Spools
Chapter 5: Lost in the Post
Stanley savours his pin collection while Groat debates whether Moist is a true postmaster. Moist explores the upper floors of the Post Office and is nearly killed in a mailslide - an avalanche of accumulated letters that almost buries him. The experience convinces him the building is dangerous but also strangely alive.
Reacher Gilt is shown at his mansion entertaining his board members, including the panicking Horsefry. Gilt's operation is revealed as a massive financial fraud - the Grand Trunk has been loaded with debt, its infrastructure allowed to decay, and its workers dying on the towers while the board extracts profits. Moist, recovering from his brush with death, begins to understand that the Post Office is not just a building but a cause, and that Vetinari has given him something more complex than a punishment.
On page: Stanley Howler, Tolliver Groat, Moist von Lipwig, Reacher Gilt, Havelock Vetinari, Anghammarad, Mrs Macalariat
Chapter 6: Little Pictures
Moist recruits a brotherhood of retired postmen - the Order of the Post - to begin actual mail delivery again. He invents postage stamps, working with the printer Mr Spools to create perforated sheets using pin-paper technology borrowed from Stanley's hobby. The stamps become an instant sensation, with people buying them as collectibles as well as for postage.
Moist makes a dramatic horseback mail run to Sto Lat on the terrifying horse Boris, delivering mail in record time and establishing the Post Office as a viable competitor to the Grand Trunk. He appoints the mayor of Sto Lat as acting postmaster, sells stamps, and returns with a full mailbag. The clacks towers, which have been suffering breakdowns, are visibly struggling to compete. Adora Belle Dearheart begins to take notice of Moist's campaign against the company that destroyed her family.
On page: Moist von Lipwig, Stanley Howler, Adora Belle Dearheart, Mr Pony, Crispin Horsefry, Anghammarad
Chapter 7: Tomb of Words
Moist continues developing the stamp system and the Post Office's services, while Adora Belle tells him about the Smoking Gnu - a group of disaffected former clacks engineers who sabotage the Grand Trunk from within. Moist receives a mysterious note from the Gnu predicting a clacks breakdown, and realises there are allies in his fight against Gilt.
Gilt, increasingly threatened by Moist's success, dispatches the terrifying Mr Gryle - a being who is not quite human, with an inordinate fondness for pigeons and an absolute economy of words and emotion - to deal with the Post Office problem. Moist, unaware of the specific threat, focuses on expanding the mail service and deepening his relationship with Adora Belle, while Groat and Stanley throw themselves into their work with renewed purpose.
On page: Moist von Lipwig, Adora Belle Dearheart, Reacher Gilt, Tolliver Groat, Stanley Howler, Mr Pony, Anghammarad
Chapter 8: Post Haste
Moist makes another dramatic mail run to Sto Lat on the mad horse Boris, establishing regular express mail service between the cities. News of the Post Office's revival spreads, and cities across the Sto Plains begin requesting their own stamps and postal services. Moist's fame grows through coverage in the Ankh-Morpork Times.
Meanwhile, the Smoking Gnu - former clacks engineers including the brother of Adora Belle - contact Moist directly. They have been inserting messages into the Grand Trunk system to undermine Gilt's operation. Moist negotiates with the coach companies for postal carriage rights, using Mr Pump and other golems to intimidate reluctant business owners. The Post Office is becoming a real institution again, but Gilt's response is building.
On page: Moist von Lipwig, Adora Belle Dearheart, Reacher Gilt, Mr Pump, Mr Pony, Mrs Macalariat·Mentioned: John Dearheart
Chapter 9: Bonfire
Reacher Gilt sends Mr Gryle to destroy the Post Office. The creature attacks at night, setting fire to the building and assaulting Groat, who is badly injured. Stanley fights off the attacker with a sack of pins and keeps calm by following the Book of Regulations, managing to drag the unconscious Groat to safety in the locker room.
Moist and Adora Belle arrive to find the building ablaze. Against all reason, Moist runs into the burning Post Office and rescues Stanley, Groat, the stamps and the cashbox. Golems from the Golem Trust arrive to fight the fire. Moist battles Mr Gryle on the burning roof; the creature falls to its death. The Post Office is devastated, but Moist, the staff, and the stamps survive. Adora Belle kisses him for the first time.
On page: Reacher Gilt, Tolliver Groat, Stanley Howler, Moist von Lipwig, Adora Belle Dearheart, Mr Pony, Crispin Horsefry
Chapter 10: The Burning of Words
In the aftermath of the fire, Moist stages a dramatic 'revelation' - pretending to receive divine guidance to the location of his old hidden fortune of $150,000. He digs up the money before witnesses including the Watch and the press, donating it to rebuild the Post Office. Lord Vetinari is amused but sees through the performance entirely.
Moist visits Groat in hospital and vows to take down Gilt. He works with the Smoking Gnu to prepare a devastating strike against the Grand Trunk - a message inserted into the clacks system itself, composed of the testimony of dead signallers whose deaths Gilt's cost-cutting caused. Moist realises he must challenge Gilt publicly to maintain momentum and keep the Post Office's revival alive.
On page: Moist von Lipwig, Havelock Vetinari, Tolliver Groat, Reacher Gilt, Mr Pony
Chapter 11: Mission Statement
Moist issues a public challenge: the Post Office will deliver a message to Genua faster than the Grand Trunk clacks. The bet captures the city's imagination, with heavy wagering on the Post Office despite the apparent impossibility of beating light-speed communication. Vetinari summons Moist to discuss the challenge and the recovered gold.
Gilt's board debates how to respond. Gilt is confident of victory but his associates are nervous about the growing public sympathy for Moist and the Post Office. Moist prepares his strategy, working with the Smoking Gnu and the golems. His plan relies not on outrunning the clacks but on the Grand Trunk's own unreliability - and on a secret weapon involving the oldest golem messenger in the world, Anghammarad, who carries a message that is four thousand years overdue.
On page: Moist von Lipwig, Havelock Vetinari, Reacher Gilt, Owlswick Jenkins, Sweet Mr Spools
Chapter 12: The Woodpecker
The race approaches. Vetinari visits Moist at dawn to discuss the stakes, pointing out that Moist has promised the impossible. Moist sends a postman named Leadpipe on the long road to Genua by coach while the Smoking Gnu prepare to attack the Grand Trunk's systems using a technique called the Woodpecker - rapidly repeated signals that cause the towers to crash.
Gilt grows increasingly desperate, knowing his financial empire is built on sand. Horsefry, his most nervous associate, is murdered - found drowned in the river. Moist works through the night at the Times newspaper office, ensuring maximum publicity. Adora Belle helps coordinate the golem network. The entire city is gripped by the contest between the plucky underdog Post Office and the mighty Grand Trunk.
On page: Havelock Vetinari, Moist von Lipwig, Reacher Gilt, Adora Belle Dearheart, Mr Pony, Owlswick Jenkins
Chapter 13: The Edge of the Envelope
The race night arrives. Archchancellor Ridcully of Unseen University prepares the sealed message. The Grand Trunk board gathers at the university for the grand reading. Moist has arranged for the Smoking Gnu to bring down the entire clacks network using the Woodpecker attack, while simultaneously broadcasting through the system a devastating message - the testimony of dead and injured signallers, detailing how Gilt's cost-cutting has killed people on the towers.
The message is read aloud at Unseen University before the assembled great and good of Ankh-Morpork, including Gilt's board members. The Grand Trunk directors are arrested. Gilt himself escapes into the night. The clacks network crashes spectacularly. Moist has won not by outrunning the clacks but by destroying the organisation behind it - turning the Grand Trunk's own infrastructure into the instrument of its owners' downfall.
On page: Mustrum Ridcully, Moist von Lipwig, Reacher Gilt, Mr Pony, Owlswick Jenkins
Chapter 14: Deliverance
In the aftermath of Gilt's fall, Vetinari's clerks conduct a massive financial audit of the Grand Trunk and its associated banks, working through the night to trace the fraud. Moist sits alone in his damaged Post Office, contemplating a future he never expected - running a real institution, with real responsibilities and real people depending on him.
Mr Pump's parole instructions are changed; he is sent after Gilt instead. Moist is free to go - and for a moment he imagines running, returning to his old life of cons and aliases. But Adora Belle finds him, and he chooses to stay. Gilt's cockatoo Alphonse arrives in a box - Gilt has 'given him the bird' - suggesting the pirate-businessman has fled or been caught. The Post Office staff hang a misspelled banner reading 'THANK YOU MR LIPWIC!' and Moist accepts that the greatest con he ever ran was convincing himself he needed to keep running.
On page: Reacher Gilt, Havelock Vetinari, Moist von Lipwig, Mr Pump, Adora Belle Dearheart, Mr Pony, Mrs Macalariat