Now read the footnote on page 171, about the little Dracula Types. Only Pratchett made a book with better footnotes than this one. Oh, and these aren't fiction.
In fact, the whole book had a tendency to first severely stretch the brain. When understanding finally happens, you go OMG WTF what did I just read?
Wait, what? (Reads) ...And if you, gentle reader, have never seen a nervous rocket mechanic, complete with monkey suit, being buzzed by nine thousand demented bats and trying to beat them off with a shovel, there is something missing from your experience. (The omitted part explains how there came to be nine thousand demented bats attacking said rocket mechanic.)
Oh. Yes. Indeed there is.
He also has a marvelously understated style. Read between the lines of the following, I was against describing the nature of the inhibitor in the openly published specifications, since the inhibition was such an unlikely— though simple — trick that it might well have been kept secret for some time. I had friends in the intelligence community, and asked them to try to learn, discreetly, whether or not the trick was known on the other side of the iron curtain. The answer came back, with remarkable speed, that it was not, and that, in fact, the Soviet HF manufacture was in trouble, and that the director of the same was vacationing in Siberia. So I protested violently and at length, but the Air Force was running the show and I was overruled. And when the specs were published, the gaff was blown for good.
The inhibitor in question was needed to keep nitric acid in storage and one can only imagine how unpleasant Siberia was as a vacation spot...
In fact, the whole book had a tendency to first severely stretch the brain. When understanding finally happens, you go OMG WTF what did I just read?