Going Postal: Terry Pratchett

The Discworld is very much like our own - if our own were to consist of a flat planet balanced on the back of four elephants which stand on the back of a giant turtle, that is . . .

The post was an old thing, of course, but it was so old that it had magically become new again.

Moist von Lipwig is a con artist and a fraud and a man faced with a life choice: be hanged, or put the ailing postal service of Ankh-Morpork - the Discworld`s city-state - back on its feet.

It`s a tough decision.

The post is a creaking old institution, overshadowed by new technology. But there are people who still believe in it, and Moist must become one of them if he`s going to see that the mail gets through, come rain, hail, sleet, dogs, the Post Office Workers Friendly and Benevolent Society, an evil chairman . . . and a midnight killer.

Getting a date with Adora Bell Dearheart would be nice, too.

Perhaps there`s a shot at redemption in the mad world of the mail, waiting for a man who`s prepared to push the envelope . . .

The Discworld novels can be read in any order but Going Postal is the first book in the Moist von Lipwig series.