Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett

I guess it’s about time I started reviewing Terry Pratchett books on here, least any Discworld fans lured in by the blog’s title accuse me of false advertising. Not that I need an excuse to re-read any of them for the fifth or six time, I’d do it eventually anyway ^_^

For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett is a series of fantasy comedy/satire--Douglas Adams meets Tolkien, Mark Twain with a more whimsical twist, Monty Python in novel form. They're not only hilarious and fun, but full of little truths and big truths that make you stop and think.

Discworld books tend to follow several different sets of characters; the most closely followed are the wizarding faculty of Unseen University, a trio of witches in the small mountain kingdom of Lancre, and the city watch of Ankh-Morpork, Discworld's largest city. Several minor sets of characters also feature in multiple books, and a few books stand alone, with no more than cameo appearances by the more well-known faces. It's basically huge jumbled mess, and that's part of the charm.

Guards! Guards! is the first book in the Watch sequence, and a very good place to start if you're new to Discworld. (I would, in fact, not recommend starting with the earliest published books: The Color of Magic, The Light Fantastic, and Equal Rites. They're still very good books, but not Pratchett's best, and Discworld's fractured character lines mean that you aren't missing anything)

Overview
It's very hard to summarize a Discworld book; the bits I really want to talk about aren't necessarily related to the main plot. That's because plot is only a small measure of what a Discworld book is actually about. The plot of Guards! Guards! is that a giant dragon is terrorizing the city, and since the ruling tyrant has no daughter or half-kingdom to offer as a reward for killing it, it's up to Ankh-Morpork's Night Watch to save the day. Unfortunately, Ankh-Morpork's Finest are a pack of dysfunctional misfits, and that's also what it's about: underdogs, whether they be down-on-their-luck policemen or evolutionarily challenged swamp dragons (smaller cousins of the one terrorizing the city). And to top it all off, Pratchett manages to fit in a general grab bag of satire and irony along the way. (kings and magical swords, proper dungeon upkeep, and the mysterious workings of statistics all come to mind)

Recommended for: Anyone and everyone.

Parental worries: The books are written for an adult audience, so there might be a few jokes that fly over younglings' heads, but there's not much to actually educate in those areas. (okay, make that a lot of jokes, including a city Guild of Seamstresses who aren't very good with needlework, if you know what I mean) Also some mild language, if memory serves me correctly.

Audiobook comments: Read by Nigel Planer, who does a truly wonderful job. The colorful characters of Discworld require some real vocal acrobatics, and he's spot on for all of them.

Ramblings (Spoiler Threat: Low)
The Watch is my favorite set of Discworld characters, so here's a quick run-down on them:

First of all, there's Captain Sam Vimes, who we first come across lying drunk in a gutter, mumbling about his love/hate relationship with the city. Vimes develops into one of the coolest, most bad-ass characters in Discworld and probably all fiction, so don't let this unpreposessing introduction fool you. He's a copper's copper, with a scorching disdain for the upper classes and no illusions about the lower ones.

Next up is Carrot Ironfoundersson, who was informed by his parents at the tender age of 18ish (and height of 6 feet) that he was not, as he had always assumed, a dwarf. Turns out he's a human who had been adopted by dwarves and raised in a mine. The fact that he had to be informed of this tells you quite a bit about Carrot. His family decides that he needs to be near his own kind, so they arrange for him to join the Ankh-Morpork Night Watch. Before he leaves, however, his father gives him a sword that was found not too far from the spot where they'd discovered the infant Carrot. So, we've got a young man, born in mysterious circumstances, heading off to the big city to seek his fortune, carrying an ancient sword. Oh, and he has a birthmark shaped like a crown. I'll let you do the math.

Next up in the ranks is Sergeant Fred Colon, who is "one of nature's sergeants". Fred is the Watch's Everyman, in a way that Vimes and (especially) Carrot fall a bit short of. He's also great comic relief, particularly when paired up with Nobby Nobbs.

Years ago, Corporal Nobbs was Ankh-Morpork's Artful Dodger, but now he's all grown up and learned that he can get away with multiple minor malfeaseances much easier from the enforcement side of things. He's still a cheeky, lovable urchin on many levels, but it's slightly less cute from an adult. And by slightly less cute, I mean that Nobby is the only person in Ankh-Morpork with a certificate signed by the Patrician affirming that he is indeed a member of the human race. Otherwise, there might be (and still is, occasionally) some confusion.

One of the coolest things about the Discworld books is that at some point, all the humor and slapstick fall away, and what you're left with is a wonderful story, with a beautifully cinematic climax. That's what sets Discworld above and beyond Douglas Adams, Monte Python and the rest of the comedy and satire world. Pratchett not only knows how to make us laugh, he's also mastered true narrative--he can make us feel, and make us think.

And here's the part where I get to put in some of my favorite quotes from the book ^_^ Have fun!

"People who are rather more than six feet tall and nearly as broad across the shoulders often have uneventful journeys. People jump out at them from behind rocks then say things like, "Oh.Sorry. I thought you were someone else." --Carrot's voyage to Ankh-Morpork

"It's a metaphor of human bloody existence, a dragon. And if that wasn't bad enough, it's also a bloody great hot flying thing."--Vimes

"Never trust a ruler who puts his faith in tunnels and bunkers and escape routes. The chances are that his heart isn't in the job."--Vetinari (Patrician of Ankh-Morpork)

"There was a thoughtful pause in the conversation as the assembled Brethren mentally divided the universe into the deserving and the undeserving, and put themselves on the appropriate side."-- The Elucidated Brethren see the light