Guards! Guards!
You knew this was coming...
Don't tell me you didn't know about this...
You know me, so you had to know this was coming...
I haven't shut up about this book series since I first picked it up two or three years ago...
That's right... Today, I'm talking about Discworld!
For those of you who don't know me, haven't known me long, or just learned to tune me out over three years ago and haven't bothered listening to me gushing about this book series since then, I must emphasize to you that my favorite, favorite, favorite fantasy series is Discworld by none other than Sir Terry Pratchett. I've read most of the books. I've watched all of the movies that have reached America (you'd be surprised what you can get off the internet). I own the bloody children's book. I have a tattoo of the Death of Rats (or Grim Squeaker) on my stomach.
I know I'm not the first person to love Discworld. Not even the first American. With the first book (The Colour of Magic) being released in 1983 with a total of thirty-nine published books since then, it's sad that so many people haven't read these books. It's heart-warming to find out how many people have. They're funny. Okay, they're hilarious. This series takes the normal things you see in regular fantasy books series, twists them ever so slightly, turns them on their head, and then plays them completely straight. It's like reading fantasy as acted out by Monty Python and Mel Brooks working in tandem.
Only, these books? They actually make sense.
When life gets me down and the world seems rotten, I just need to go on a mental trip to the world that rides on the back of four elephants who stand on the back of a giant space turtle. It doesn't make the darkness of the world go away... It just helps me laugh at the darkness and move on.
So, I knew I'd be reviewing a Discworld novel eventually... but which one? I mean, there are thirty-nine books and I haven't read all of them so I can't accurately pick out my favorite and review it for you. And if I did pick my current favorite, you'd have to wait until Christmas to read the review because my favorite is currently the Christmas book.
Yes, there's a Christmas book called The Hogfather. There's also a movie based on the book which I watch every Christmas.
Anyhow... How do I choose? Do I review the first book of the series, The Color of Magic? Do I review the first book about Death (my favorite main character) which was called Mort? Do I review one of the witch books (I'd pick Wyrd Sisters, by the way)? OR do I review the one that is suggested the most for beginners, Guards! Guards!?
If you read the title, you know which one I picked...
Guards! Guards! is the eighth novel in the Discworld series, written in 1989. It is the first novel about the City Watch of Ankh-Morpork, the most prominent city-state in the Discworld novels. Almost all of them involve Ankh-Morpork in some way or another. This is the location of the Unseen University, where the wizards live. This is where Lord Vetrinari, The Patrician, holds sway, ruling as a dictator with an iron fist. This is where Assassins and Thieves are allowed to coexist with fellow citizens provided they do everything out in the open and pay taxes based on their "misdeeds". That's why they both have guilds. They police themselves. This sprawling city is like London, New York, and renaissance Florence stewed into a pot until it turns into black ooky stuff you don't really want to touch, but have to to get the pot clean.
So, if the Assassins and Thieves are allowed free reign and have to police themselves or else, where does the City Watch fit into all of this? That's what the novel is about.
The book sets you up looking over the shoulder of three different people/groups.
First there's the Unique and Supreme Lodge of the Elucidated Brethren of the Ebon Night, a secret brotherhood that intends to summon a dragon. Why do they want to summon a dragon? Well, initially you are lead to believe they wish to summon a dragon so that the True King of Ankh-Morpork will show up to defeat it and oust the Patrician, Lord Vetrinari in the process. However, the Supreme Grand Master gradually reveals to his followers that they don't want the True King, they're actually just going to unsummon the dragon once they have their puppet king in place and have him be the "True King" in the court of public opinion, ousting the Patrician and gaining control of the city-state.
Second, there's Captain Vimes of the Nightwatch, the group that's considered the "losers" of the city watch and the whole of Ankh-Morpork. When you meet him, he is drunk, which seems to be his natural state. Another one of his lieutenants is dead because he tried to play the hero in a city that no longer needs a City Watch ever since Lord Vetrinari changed the way things are supposed to go by installing the guilds and making them police their own and even make money on the side from "insurance" (Pay so much money and you definately won't get robbed or killed!). Over the course of the book, you come to really appreciate Vimes for being someone who upholds the spirit of the law and is actually a decent detective when he isn't drunk. He's also quite wiley. If someone tells him not to do something, he usually figures out how to do it without upsetting the person who told him not to do it.
Third, there's Corporal Carrot Ironfoundersson. He's a new recruit to the City Watch from Uberworld, the country/region where vampires, werewolves, and dwarves come from. Carrot is a six-foot-tall dwarf who just realized that he was actually adopted. That's right, Carrot is a human raised by dwarves sent to Ankh-Morpork to be "with his own kind" because he fell in love with a female dwarf. Now, some things about dwarves: they spend a lot of time with rocks so they don't understand figurative speech, they're hard-working until they get to the city and then they carry around axes and drink a lot and just generally cause problems, and being a dwarf isn't just about stature, there's a whole cultural thing too. Carrot is a cultural dwarf, so he still thinks of himself as a dwarf despite being 100% human with a sword from his birth family that's old, rusty looking, but sharp. Being a dwarf, Carrot takes his job very seriously and has memorized the law book. This means he arrests the leaders of the Thieves' Guild and the Assassins' Guild for breaking the law. He also lives with members of the Seamstresses' Guild (whores), but he's so innocent, he doesn't realize what's going on there.
There are other points of view for other parts of the book, but those are the three main ones. The book largely plays out like a fantasy murder mystery with the question being: Who is the leader of the Unique and Supreme Lodge of the Elucidated Brethren of the Ebon Night who is summoning the dragon? However things take a bit of a turn when the dragon gets crowned king and the main female protagonist, Sybil Ramkin, is called upon to be a "virgin sacrifice of noble blood".
I won't tell you any more because you really need to just pick up the book and read it. Read it twice. However, if you don't have time to read a book, there are other ways to get the story that maye take less time. First, there is an audiobook available read by Tony Robinson which is pretty good. If you don't like audiobooks, there's a radio drama produced by BBC Radio 4. There are also two stage plays, a videogame and a boardgame.
I'll leave this review off with a quote from the book...
"It is said that the gods play games with the fates of men. But what games, and why, and the identities of the actual pawns, and what the game is, and what the rules are - who knows?
Best not to speculate.
Thunder rolled...
It rolled a six."
--Terry Pratchett, Guards!Guards!, page 25
Don't tell me you didn't know about this...
You know me, so you had to know this was coming...
I haven't shut up about this book series since I first picked it up two or three years ago...
That's right... Today, I'm talking about Discworld!
For those of you who don't know me, haven't known me long, or just learned to tune me out over three years ago and haven't bothered listening to me gushing about this book series since then, I must emphasize to you that my favorite, favorite, favorite fantasy series is Discworld by none other than Sir Terry Pratchett. I've read most of the books. I've watched all of the movies that have reached America (you'd be surprised what you can get off the internet). I own the bloody children's book. I have a tattoo of the Death of Rats (or Grim Squeaker) on my stomach.
I know I'm not the first person to love Discworld. Not even the first American. With the first book (The Colour of Magic) being released in 1983 with a total of thirty-nine published books since then, it's sad that so many people haven't read these books. It's heart-warming to find out how many people have. They're funny. Okay, they're hilarious. This series takes the normal things you see in regular fantasy books series, twists them ever so slightly, turns them on their head, and then plays them completely straight. It's like reading fantasy as acted out by Monty Python and Mel Brooks working in tandem.
Only, these books? They actually make sense.
When life gets me down and the world seems rotten, I just need to go on a mental trip to the world that rides on the back of four elephants who stand on the back of a giant space turtle. It doesn't make the darkness of the world go away... It just helps me laugh at the darkness and move on.
So, I knew I'd be reviewing a Discworld novel eventually... but which one? I mean, there are thirty-nine books and I haven't read all of them so I can't accurately pick out my favorite and review it for you. And if I did pick my current favorite, you'd have to wait until Christmas to read the review because my favorite is currently the Christmas book.
Yes, there's a Christmas book called The Hogfather. There's also a movie based on the book which I watch every Christmas.
Anyhow... How do I choose? Do I review the first book of the series, The Color of Magic? Do I review the first book about Death (my favorite main character) which was called Mort? Do I review one of the witch books (I'd pick Wyrd Sisters, by the way)? OR do I review the one that is suggested the most for beginners, Guards! Guards!?
If you read the title, you know which one I picked...
Guards! Guards! is the eighth novel in the Discworld series, written in 1989. It is the first novel about the City Watch of Ankh-Morpork, the most prominent city-state in the Discworld novels. Almost all of them involve Ankh-Morpork in some way or another. This is the location of the Unseen University, where the wizards live. This is where Lord Vetrinari, The Patrician, holds sway, ruling as a dictator with an iron fist. This is where Assassins and Thieves are allowed to coexist with fellow citizens provided they do everything out in the open and pay taxes based on their "misdeeds". That's why they both have guilds. They police themselves. This sprawling city is like London, New York, and renaissance Florence stewed into a pot until it turns into black ooky stuff you don't really want to touch, but have to to get the pot clean.
So, if the Assassins and Thieves are allowed free reign and have to police themselves or else, where does the City Watch fit into all of this? That's what the novel is about.
The book sets you up looking over the shoulder of three different people/groups.
First there's the Unique and Supreme Lodge of the Elucidated Brethren of the Ebon Night, a secret brotherhood that intends to summon a dragon. Why do they want to summon a dragon? Well, initially you are lead to believe they wish to summon a dragon so that the True King of Ankh-Morpork will show up to defeat it and oust the Patrician, Lord Vetrinari in the process. However, the Supreme Grand Master gradually reveals to his followers that they don't want the True King, they're actually just going to unsummon the dragon once they have their puppet king in place and have him be the "True King" in the court of public opinion, ousting the Patrician and gaining control of the city-state.
Second, there's Captain Vimes of the Nightwatch, the group that's considered the "losers" of the city watch and the whole of Ankh-Morpork. When you meet him, he is drunk, which seems to be his natural state. Another one of his lieutenants is dead because he tried to play the hero in a city that no longer needs a City Watch ever since Lord Vetrinari changed the way things are supposed to go by installing the guilds and making them police their own and even make money on the side from "insurance" (Pay so much money and you definately won't get robbed or killed!). Over the course of the book, you come to really appreciate Vimes for being someone who upholds the spirit of the law and is actually a decent detective when he isn't drunk. He's also quite wiley. If someone tells him not to do something, he usually figures out how to do it without upsetting the person who told him not to do it.
Third, there's Corporal Carrot Ironfoundersson. He's a new recruit to the City Watch from Uberworld, the country/region where vampires, werewolves, and dwarves come from. Carrot is a six-foot-tall dwarf who just realized that he was actually adopted. That's right, Carrot is a human raised by dwarves sent to Ankh-Morpork to be "with his own kind" because he fell in love with a female dwarf. Now, some things about dwarves: they spend a lot of time with rocks so they don't understand figurative speech, they're hard-working until they get to the city and then they carry around axes and drink a lot and just generally cause problems, and being a dwarf isn't just about stature, there's a whole cultural thing too. Carrot is a cultural dwarf, so he still thinks of himself as a dwarf despite being 100% human with a sword from his birth family that's old, rusty looking, but sharp. Being a dwarf, Carrot takes his job very seriously and has memorized the law book. This means he arrests the leaders of the Thieves' Guild and the Assassins' Guild for breaking the law. He also lives with members of the Seamstresses' Guild (whores), but he's so innocent, he doesn't realize what's going on there.
There are other points of view for other parts of the book, but those are the three main ones. The book largely plays out like a fantasy murder mystery with the question being: Who is the leader of the Unique and Supreme Lodge of the Elucidated Brethren of the Ebon Night who is summoning the dragon? However things take a bit of a turn when the dragon gets crowned king and the main female protagonist, Sybil Ramkin, is called upon to be a "virgin sacrifice of noble blood".
I won't tell you any more because you really need to just pick up the book and read it. Read it twice. However, if you don't have time to read a book, there are other ways to get the story that maye take less time. First, there is an audiobook available read by Tony Robinson which is pretty good. If you don't like audiobooks, there's a radio drama produced by BBC Radio 4. There are also two stage plays, a videogame and a boardgame.
I'll leave this review off with a quote from the book...
"It is said that the gods play games with the fates of men. But what games, and why, and the identities of the actual pawns, and what the game is, and what the rules are - who knows?
Best not to speculate.
Thunder rolled...
It rolled a six."
--Terry Pratchett, Guards!Guards!, page 25
My dad loves this series, and he got me into it when I was like 12-13ish. And this was my first book, that he had me read! He had me read about the guards, then he got me into the Witches. But my fav part of his books by far has to be about Tiffany Aching and the Wee Free Men! Thanks for the great review!
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