Low Fantasy

Review: Jingo

Jay
Cover of the book, featuring two people attacking each other while holding onto a giant weathervane - whatever the weathervane is attached to is sinking into the sea.

Title: Jingo

Series: Discworld #21 (Ankh-Morpork City Watch #4)

Author: Sir Terry Pratchett

Genre: Low Fantasy

Trigger Warnings: Blood (mentions), death, violence, injury, war, racism, racial slurs, hate crimes, xenophobia, murder, injury (mentions), fire, crossdressing jokes

Spoiler Warning: This book is twenty-first in a series, but the book and this review contain only mild spoilers of the previous Ankh-Morpork City Watch books.

Back Cover:

Throughout history, there’s always been a perfectly good reason to start a war. Never more so if it is over a ‘strategic’ piece of old rock in the middle of nowhere. It is after all every citizen’s right to bear arms to defend what they consider to be their own. Even if it isn’t. And in such pressing circumstances, you really shouldn’t let small details like the absence of an army or indeed the money to finance one get in the way of a righteous fight with all the attendant benefits of out-and-out nationalism.

Review:

This is the most thematic Discworld book I’ve read yet. Most of the ones with strong themes have a main plot with the themes underneath. Jingo‘s whole plot is “war is stupid, so is nationalism, and so is racism too for that matter.” It makes its point very well (in my opinion), but my experience with other theme-heavy Discworld books did not lead me to expect the message to be so in-your-face.

Interestingly, somewhere along the line the City Watch sub-series has shifted protagonists. There’s a lot of major characters in the watch, but the series started off with Carrot as the main protagonist. Somehow, without my really noticing, it shifted to Vimes. Carrot is still there and being himself, but now Vimes is the one that the story is following. Which feels like a natural progression, all things considered. Carrot’s whole thing is that he is a simple Dwarven boy in the big city whose innocence and general good humor encourage those around him to be better. He was entertaining, but there wasn’t a lot of opportunity for growth, which makes him a poor choice for the protagonist of an eight-book sub-series. Vimes, on the other hand, is a great candidate in terms of character growth. Considering the first City Watch book opened with him drunk off his ass and laying in the gutter in the rain and I know from reading Snuff first that he ends up with a wife, a kid, and a nice vacation home in the country, there’s a ton of room for him to grow and adapt. And though I did like Carrot, I’m glad to see the focus shift.

Anyway. I’m not really sure what Vimes’ goal is in this book, and to be honest I’m not sure he does either. Things go very badly very quickly, and he’s just trying to keep things together and do his job while they people around him dissolve into warmongering and xenophobia. Technically his job description is “keeping the peace,” so obviously this whole war thing is gonna put a wrench in that. He’s very much had enough of this nonsense (which is a character trope I thoroughly enjoy), but gods damn it he is going to do his job even if he has to arrest both armies to do it. He got to be a nuanced character with solid motivations and definite flaws and strong emotions and I enjoyed it very much.

Some parts of this book, though, didn’t quite land. There’s a bit about Vimes’ wife being unhappy that he’s gone so much, but there is so much other stuff happening in the book that there’s no time to do anything with that plot thread. The climax also had a weird quantum parallel universe bit where you find out what would have happened if Vimes had made a different choice earlier in the book. It was interesting in a bizarre way, but I’m not entirely sure what the point was.

Considering this book isn’t unreasonably long, there’s a lot going on. I generally like fast-paced books, and I don’t have any particular objections to breakneck paces. But I do think it could have benefitted from being just a little longer and slowing down. This book tackles a lot of heavy topics about war, xenophobia, racism, and tensions between countries, and it’s hard to process all that when the plot is rocketing by you at a thousand miles an hour. Even Vimes’ strong emotional moments don’t have time to land. Just a few breaks to give the reader a chance to breathe, reflect, and process would have been beneficial in my opinion.

As it is, though, Jingo is still quite good. Despite everything happening, it wasn’t hard to follow. It was entertaining throughout and had its amusing moments (although less flat-out humor, which fits with the more serious topics discussed). And I’m quite pleased with the direction the City Watch sub-series is taking. There are still several more City Watch books to go, and I’m looking forward to seeing what happens next.

The Discworld series:

  1. The Colour of Magic
  2. The Light Fantastic
  3. Equal Rites
  4. Mort
  5. Sourcery
  6. Wyrd Sisters
  7. Pyramids
  8. Guards! Guards!
  9. Eric
  10. Moving Pictures
  11. Reaper Man
  12. Witches Abroad
  13. Small Gods
  14. Lords and Ladies
  15. Men at Arms
  16. Soul Music
  17. Interesting Times
  18. Maskerade
  19. Feet of Clay
  20. Hogfather
  21. Jingo
  22. The Last Continent
  23. Carpe Jugulum
  24. The Fifth Elephant
  25. The Truth
  26. Thief of Time
  27. The Last Hero
  28. The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents
  29. Night Watch
  30. The Wee Free Men
  31. Monstrous Regiment
  32. A Hat Full of Sky
  33. Going Postal
  34. Thud!
  35. Wintersmith
  36. Making Money
  37. Unseen Academicals
  38. I Shall Wear Midnight
  39. Snuff
  40. Raising Steam
  41. The Shepherd’s Crown