The alchemists of the Discworld have invented moving pictures. Many hopefuls are drawn by the siren call of Holy Wood, home of the fledgling "clicks" industry -- among them Victor Tugelbend ("Can't sing. Can't dance. Can handle a sword a little."), a dropout from Ankh-Morpork's Unseen University and Theda Withel, a girl "from a little town you never ever heard of", who become stars, and the Discworld's most infamous salesman, Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler, who introduces commerce to the equation and becomes a successful producer. Meanwhile, it gradually becomes clear that the production of movies is having a deleterious effect on the structure of reality.

Oh my, what a big book that was! Still it's all over now. It's an interesting way in which popular cultural references appear in Discworld novels, they burst onto the scene have one glorious book and are never seen again. It's certainly a very tidy method of writing, but it also means when you get a good idea you can't use it again. I mean if the magic of Holy Wood was defeated then any further clicks made would just be of the ordinary kind and not a threat to anyone. However that's just a bugbear. The main plot is about sending up early b&w Hollywood movies, Gone with the Wind, Wizard of Oz, King Kong and a suspiciously anachronisic Cohen the Barbarian. Dibbler gets moved up into a main character role too and we see the shady sausage vendor succumb to the lure of corporate advertisement and subliminal messages. The other main story is about the Wizards and here we have a finaly settlement of the University Faculty that'll appear in many of the wizard novels to come, although for one they only get to be in 1 more book. There's Ridcully, The Bursar (who's slide into madness starts early on), the Senior Wrangler, Recent Runes, The Dean of Pentacles, The chair of Indefinite Studies, and the youngster Pondor Stibbons. All in all it seems like a gentle pastiche of the golden age of movie making, however I bet we never see this one made into a big budget summer blockbuster film with 1000 elephants any time soon.