Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett

Dick Simnel, a man who knows exactly how a slide-rule works, has invented the steam engine. Suddenly Ankh-Morpork is at the centre of a transport revolution, as journeys across the Sto Plains that took weeks can now be accomplished in hours. The Patrician assigns the semi-fully-redoubtable Moist von Lipwig, late of the Ankh-Morpork Post Office, Bank and Mint, to oversee the expansion of the rail network in a manner that is politically acceptable. But when civil war breaks out amongst the dwarfs of distant Überwald and the Low King has to get home ASAP, Lipwig and Simnel realise their modest invention may have consequences far beyond what they were expecting.Raising Steam (2013) is the fortieth and, distressingly, penultimate Discworld novel. It's also the third novel to focus on the roguish Moist von Lipwig, following Going Postal and Making Money. Curiously, Pratchett spent several years suggesting that the third Lipwig novel would be called Raising Taxes. The book's appearance in…