Title: Guards! Guards!
Series: Discworld #8 (Ankh-Morpork City Watch #1)
Author: Sir Terry Pratchett
Genre: Low Fantasy
Trigger Warnings: Alcoholism, alcohol use, injury, fire, death, violence (mentions), animal cruelty
Spoiler Warning: This book is eighth in a series, but neither the book nor the review contains spoilers of any previous Discworld books.
Back Cover:
Here there be dragons . . . and the denizens of Ankh-Morpork wish one huge firebreather would return from whence it came. Long believed extinct, a superb specimen of draco nobilis (“noble dragon” for those who don’t understand italics) has appeared in Discworld’s greatest city. Not only does this unwelcome visitor have a nasty habit of charbroiling everything in its path, in rather short order it is crowned King (it is a noble dragon, after all . . .).
Meanwhile, back at Unseen University, an ancient and long-forgotten volume–The Summoning of Dragons–is missing from the Library’s shelves. To the rescue come Captain Vimes, Constable Carrot, and the rest of the Night Watch who, along with other brave citizens, risk everything, including a good roasting, to dethrone the flying monarch and restore order to Ankh-Morpork (before it’s burned to a crisp). A rare tale, well done as only Terry Pratchett can.
Review:
I was going to start this review by saying that Guards! Guards! was not bad but also not particularly remarkable, but then I thought about it and realized that assessment was wrong. There’s a lot that is very remarkable in this book. There’s Carrot, the six-foot-six dwarf (he’s adopted) newly arrived in Ankh-Morpork with an old book of laws and the absurd idea that they should be followed; Sam Vimes of the Night Watch; Lady Ramkin, the noblewoman built like a barbarian warrior who breeds swamp dragons in her back yard; a cult trying to start a calamity so they can stop it; and more. There is a lot in here that’s very, very interesting.
I think the biggest issue here was the last Discworld books I read were the Rincewind books, complete with the continuity of following a single character, the frustration with Rincewind’s potential being squandered, and the emotional ups and downs of actually getting really attached to Rincewind the inept “wizzard.” Jumping to a new sub-series with a whole new set of characters and maybe two mentions of wizards in the whole book was a bit jarring, and I found it hard to really connect with this book without a single central character to emotionally bond to, for lack of a better phrase.
That’s not to say Guards! Guards! lacks good characters. On the contrary. All the members of the Night Watch are interesting in their own way. I think Carrot is supposed to be the protagonist here, and he was very entertaining – a bit of an idealistic country bumpkin, but the joke isn’t on him. To Carrot, the Watch is there to keep the law, and stealing is against the law, so all thieves should be arrested. To the residents of Ankh-Morpork, arresting the head of the Thieves’ Guild is absolutely absurd – they have robbery quotas and everything! Carrot may be a simple country lad (although don’t make the mistake of assuming simple means stupid!), but the joke is always and forever on the great satire of urban life, the city of Ankh-Morpork. He’s who the book started with, but he becomes another part of the Watch, so he didn’t feel like The Protagonist – one of the protagonists, certainly, but not The Protagonist.
And then there’s Captain Sam Vimes, who was honestly a bit of a shock. He has played bit roles in other Discworld books, but about two years ago I read Snuff, the eighth and last book of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch sub-series. In that book, Commander Samuel Vimes was a respectable and hardworking man with a wife, a son, and a vacation home in the country. So imagine my surprise when Guards! Guards! opens with Captain Sam Vimes drunk off his ass and laying in a gutter in the rain, and continues with him mostly drunk and only making the barest effort at his job. That’s what I get for reading the Discworld series out of order, I suppose. He was a good character, but I didn’t start to appreciate him until halfway through because it took me so long to adjust to this Sam Vimes being dramatically different from the Sam Vimes I read about previously.
The other characters are, for the most part, good. None of them get enough focus for me to truly connect with them, but they were all quirky and entertaining Pratchett characters and I think I’ll grow to like them more through future City Watch books. The only characters I didn’t like were the brotherhood trying to screw things up in the city, and they were supposed to be unlikeable, but they got so much page time that it was irritating.
The plot, though fun enough, was unfocused. The guard meander around trying to figure out what to make of Carrot until the brotherhood’s plan succeeds, but that’s only temporary and now we have a new problem, and Lady Ramkin fits right into the story while you’re reading but I can’t for the life of me figure out what her subplot even was. It was fine to read and pretty enjoyable overall, but looking back it’s a bit of a mess.
I have mixed feelings about this book, and I’m not sure how much of it is the book’s fault. The plot is unfocused, it spends too much time on the antagonists for me to actually connect with the protagonists, and it definitely isn’t the strongest book in the series. However, I wasn’t coming in prepared for multiple protagonists and the disconnect of starting a whole new (sub)series. Regardless, it was entertaining enough, and I have the feeling if I had read this series in a different order I would have connected with it better. I’m hoping now that I have the context of this book, I’ll find future City Watch books more enjoyable.
The Discworld series:
- The Colour of Magic
- The Light Fantastic
- Equal Rites
- Mort
- Sourcery
- Wyrd Sisters
- Pyramids
- Guards! Guards!
- Eric
- Moving Pictures
- Reaper Man
- Witches Abroad
- Small Gods
- Lords and Ladies
- Men at Arms
- Soul Music
- Interesting Times
- Maskerade
- Feet of Clay
- Hogfather
- Jingo
- The Last Continent
- Carpe Jugulum
- The Fifth Elephant
- The Truth
- Thief of Time
- The Last Hero
- The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents
- Night Watch
- The Wee Free Men
- Monstrous Regiment
- A Hat Full of Sky
- Going Postal
- Thud!
- Wintersmith
- Making Money
- Unseen Academicals
- I Shall Wear Midnight
- Snuff
- Raising Steam
- The Shepherd’s Crown
Bluejay Reads 