Unseen Academicals (Discworld Series) by Terry Pratchett

From the Publisher

The wizards at Ankh-Morpork's Unseen University are renowned for many things—wisdom, magic, and their love of teatime—but athletics is most assuredly not on the list. And so when Lord Ventinari, the city's benevolent tyrant, strongly suggests to Archchancellor Mustrum Ridcully that the university revive an erstwhile tradition and once again put forth a football team composed of faculty, students, and staff, the wizards of UU find themselves in a quandary. To begin with, they have to figure out just what it is that makes this sport—soccer with a bit of rugby thrown in—so popular with Ankh-Morporkians of all ages and social strata. Then they have to learn how to play it. Oh, and on top of that, they must win a football match without using magic.

Meanwhile, Trev (a handsome street urchin and a right good kicker) falls hard for kitchen maid Juliet (beautiful, dim, and perhaps the greatest fashion model there ever was), and Juliet's best pal, UU night cook Glenda (homely, sensible, and a baker of jolly good pies) befriends the mysterious Mr. Nutt (about whom no one knows very much, including Mr. Nutt, which is worrisome . . .). As the big match approaches, these four lives are entangled and changed forever. Because the thing about football—the most important thing about football­—is that it is never just about football.

Publishers Weekly

Football, food, fashion and wizards collide in Pratchett’s 37th Discworld novel (after 2007’s Making Money), an affectionate satire on the foibles of sports and sports fans. The always out-of-touch wizards at Ankh-Morpork’s Unseen University stand to lose a very big bequest unless they enter a team in a violent but popular street sport competition. As the wizards struggle to learn the game, aided by the university’s hired help, Ankh-Morpork’s ruler schemes to use the competition for his own purposes. Though the book suffers from a few awkward moments (Pratchett’s attempts to discuss racism through the strained relationships of dwarves, humans and goblins fall particularly flat), the prose crackles with wit and charm, and the sendups of league football, academic posturing, Romeo and Juliet and cheesy sports dramas are razor sharp and hilarious but never cruel. At its heart, this is an intelligent, cheeky love letter to football, its fans and the unifying power of sports. (Oct.)

Kirkus Reviews

Imagine Harry Potter rewritten by Monty Python: That's the mood of Pratchett's return to Discworld (Making Money, 2007, etc.). This account of Unseen University's entry into the world of soccer (or, as they occasionally call it, "foot-the-ball") pushes past the usual conventions of satire to offer equal parts absurdist philosophy and heartwarming romance. Here, all the professors are ponderous buffoons as well as wizards, though occasionally they indulge those they consider their inferiors with "the sarcasm of a born pedagogue." Those inferiors generally have a whole lot more common sense and occasionally more learned erudition, particularly in the case of our hero, Mr. Nutt. A lowly candle dipper who is also a goblin and may well be something else as well, the humble Nutt ultimately reveals more brain power than anyone else in the novel, along with a variety of other powers, even though his background makes this intellectual range and depth seem unlikely. When Unseen University decides to field a soccer team, Nutt emerges as the coach, the driving force and the potential star, using his "talent for pattern recognition in developing situations" to train a team of players who previously had no conception of teamwork. In the process, Nutt not only falls in love with a worthy cook no one else considers lovely, he also helps his mate win the heart of the cook's helper, who has somehow become the rage of the land as a fashion model. Pratchett has great sport with a university that employs a Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography and Chair of Indefinite Studies and spouts platitudes such as "if we can make a tradition out of not observing another tradition, that's doubly traditional." Ofcourse, that's not such a weird comment in a society whose adages include "the leopard may change its shorts" and "thirst springs eternal."A witty addition to the long-running fantasy series.

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