Dodger is a rare non-Discworld book from Terry Pratchett. And that’s a great thing, because not everyone is into a light veneer of magic and dragons over their essentially-Victorian fiction, but everyone deserves a chance to read Pratchett’s delightful humanism. Here, he goes Full-Victorian, with lots of historical and kinda-historical Victorian characters in 18-mumble-mumble London. Our titular character, Dodger, meets a young Charles Dickens, still working as a journalist. There are damsels in distress to be rescued and plots to be foiled, but also lessons about the importance of civil engineering and sewers to be learned. Classic Pratchett, in other words.

FuzzyCo grade: A+