Guards! Guards!

Reread 2024: This was just as enjoyable to read as it was last time. Never bet against a million-to-one chance. I'm looking forward to continuing with more of the Watch soon. Original review below.

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Someone out there was about to find that their worst nightmare was a maddened Librarian. With a badge.

It's no secret I'm a huge Discworld fan and have a particular fondness for the Night Watch books. So I was quite excited when Guards! Guards! was chosen for my book club's September read. This reread did not disappoint! It was just as enjoyable as I remembered.

The Supreme Grand Master of the Elucidated Brethren of the Ebon Night has an idea: to overthrown the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork and install a puppet ruler while he show more not-so-secretly rules the city from behind the throne. How to acheive such a feat? Locate the long lost heir to the throne, have him defeat a dragon and install him as king. Using a book he stole from Unseen University the Supreme Grand Master goes about setting his plot in motion. What could possibly go wrong?

Guards! Guards! is the 8th Discworld novel and the start of the Watch sub-series. As with most Discworld books it takes several familiar concepts from mythology and common fantasy tropes, shakes them up, adds a twist and gives the story it's own unique Discworld flavor. This time around it's secret societies, the origins of dragons and their nature, a by-the-book cop, ritual magic, the danger of libraries (knowledge = power = energy = matter = mass), how to make a king, humans being the real monsters, million-to-one chances and more.

It is also the first book that is set entirely within Ankh-Morpork. The city comes to life in such detail that in some ways almost becoming a character itself. In Vimes's words:

The city wasa, wasa, wasa wossname. Thing. Woman. That's what it was. Woman. Roaring, ancient, centuries old. Strung you along, let you fall in thingy, love, then kicked you inna, inna, thingy. Thingy, in your mouth. Tongue. Tonsils. Teeth. That's what it, she, did. She wasa ... thing, you know, lady dog. Puppy. Hen. Bitch. And then you hated her and, and just when you thought you'd got her, it, out of your whatever, then she opened her great booming rotten heart to you, caught you off bal, bal, bal, thing. Ance. Yeah. Thassit. Never knew where where you stood. Lay. Only one thing you were sure of, you couldn't let her go. Because, because she was yours, all you had, even in her gutters...

Speaking of Vimes, this is our first introduction to him and the other members of the Watch. Vimes goes on one heck of a character arc in this book and throughout the series. He starts as a down in the gutter drunk to being quite the detective and able leader of the Watch. It is great fun to read. The remaining members of Watch are: Lance Constable Carrot, a 6'6" dwarf (he's adopted) and very literal minded when it comes to the Book of Law; Corporal Nobby Nobs; and Sargent Colon. The imposing and advocate for swamp dragons, Lady Sybil Ramkin makes her first appearance. Lord Vetinari, the enigmatic Patrician and ruler of Ankh-Morpork character is fleshed out into who he will be for the remainder of the series. His relationship with Vimes and how he rules the city in general is fascinating.

For anyone looking for a good place to start their Discworld adventure I highly recommend Guards! Guards!. It's a great introduction to the world, Pratchett's style of humor and it's cast of recurring characters. This one is a favorite of mine. show less

Szerintem megvan annak tíz éve, hogy utoljára Pratchettet olvastam – lehet, tizenöt is, de az ezzel való szembenézés olyan következtetésekre sarkallna a korommal kapcsolatban, hogy inkább eltekintek tőle. Mindenesetre nagyon élveztem, marha jó volt. Kicsit tartottam azért tőle, mert ezek a gegekben bővelkedő, kifacsart logikával operáló szórakoztató irodalmak gyakorta esnek bele abba a hibába, hogy meggyalázzák magát a szigorúan vett történetszálat – ami érthető. Ha egy író a cselekmény bizonyos részét nem tudja elegendő poénnal megtölteni, nyilván hajlik rá, hogy inkább csak úgy vázlatosan odakenje az egészet, jól van, ezzel is megvolnánk, haladjunk tovább a móka és kacagás show more felé*. Na most nem állítom, hogy az Őrség! Őrség!-ben nincsenek leülő részek (egy 460 oldalas monstrumban nyilván kell legyenek), de összességében Pratchett ügyel arra, hogy maga a történet is érdekfeszítő (mondhatni, elgondolkodtató) legyen, és ne legyenek benne ordító logikai lyukak. Istenverte profi, na. Pedig az olyan karakterek, mint Karott, Vinkó**, vagy maga a Könyvtár-univerzum amúgy is széles vállukon elhurcolnák az egész sztorit, de Pratchett nem elégszik meg az olcsó sikerrel. A Korongvilág-univerzum mindezek felett egy komplett (nem feltétlenül új, de annál stílusosabb) filozófiai rendszer, és egyben (helyenként csípős) karikatúra magáról az emberi fajról. Önzésünkről, gyávaságunkról, ostobaságunkról, egyszóval: a sárkányokról, akik az elménkben lakoznak. A maga módján páratlan író – nem mondom, hogy volt, mert igazából mindig az lesz.

* Erre kiváló példa a Rejtő-regények átlagos lezárása: gyakran csak úgy odacsapja őket, mint egy rossz bollywoody film happy endjét. Nyilván könnyebb egy pofozkodást viccesen ábrázolni, mint amikor a nő meg a főhős ott állnak kézen fogva a lemenő napban.
** A régebbi fordításban: Murok és Kadar. Ahogy a régebbi fordítás Reterátbúvár testvére ezúttal Slozivégi testvér lett – ez mondjuk jobban is tetszik. Amúgy meg tudja valaki, hogy lehet, hogy a 15 éve kiadott verzió miért 150 oldallal karcsúbb? show less

I'm rereading the City Watch series this year because it's about the real power of the law to protect the weak from the powerful and the powerful from each other and to create an environment that allows inclusion and diversity to prosper.

I need this to bolster my hope while my country slides towards the collapse of the rule of law as we tear our democracy apart in the pursuit of Brexit, which I fear is our Reichstag Fire, creating an emergency so Ministers can grant themselves extraordinary powers.

I believe that Pratchett had a firm grasp of both politics and ethics. He understood that politics without ethics is merely a blood sport for the powerful, that ethics without politics is a sterile intellectual exercise and that its the rule show more of law that yokes these two together.

His depiction of the evolution of the City Watch in this subseries is romantic not in a soppy way but in a way where the Watch aspires to be more than it can sometimes manage to be. In a way that gives us something to live up to - whether we want to or not. That's a romance I'm happy to embrace in this Brexit year.

The first book in the subseries is "Guards! Guards!" The City Watch is three people, led by Captain Vimes, a man so depressed by the current state of the world that he spends much of his time drunk. This is the book where all of that starts to change.

It's been more than twenty years since I first read "Guard! Guards!" and even though I remembered the plot (more or less) it was a bit of a shock to meet Vîmes, one of my favourite characters, the one I hope I might get to be for a while on my very best days, drunk in the gutter.

Fortunately, I know that the arrival of Carrot in the Watch means everything is about to change for Vimes so it made me smile to read about him looking at the ancient Watch House and reading the old motto:
“It must have been quite imposing once, but quite a lot of it was now uninhabitable and patrolled only by owls and rats. Over the door a motto in the ancient tongue of the city was now almost eroded by time and grime and lichen, but could just be made out: FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC”


Carrot, the six-foot-six human who thinks he's a (very tall) dwarf because he was fostered by a dwarf King, has been sent to the big city to join the Watch. He's prepared himself by reading an old and now largely ignored lawbook. Carrot is likeable, fights well, wants to be the kind of dwarf his mother will be proud of and takes his duty of enforcing the law seriously.

Early in the book, Vimes leaves Carrot alone in the Watch House, polishing his helmet and breastplate, so as to keep him out of trouble. When the Librarian of the Unseen University (an Orangutang with a vocabulary restricted to "Oook" - it's a long story) arrives at the Watch seeking help, Carrot left a note for Vimes saying "Gone To Fight Crime" and...
"...then he went out on to the streets, untarnished and unafraid"
What a great description that is.

One of the things that I love about Terry Pratchett is that he leaves you to draw your own conclusions about whether Carrot is a hero or an innocent

I prefer to think of him as an innocent. He's not self-aware enough or egotistical enough to be a hero.

Labelling Carrot as an innocent made me smile until a voice in my head whispered a quote from Graham Greene's "The Quiet American"

"Innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm."

Of course, I know that Terry Pratchett won't let Carrot cause any harm. Perhaps that's why I'm re-reading Terry Pratchett and not Graham Greene

Captain Vimes is one of my favourite characters because I like how he sees the world. He sees what's really there rather than what everyone tells him is there and he feels obliged to act on what he sees..

This is Vimes' reaction to seeing, for the first time, the huge dragon that is attacking the city:
And it was all wrong, Vimes thought. Part of him was marvelling at the sheer beauty of the sight, but an insistent, weaselly little group of brain cells from the wrong side of the synapses was scrawling its graffiti on the walls of wonderment.
The combination of Vime's refusal to look away from the truth of how things are and Carrot's absolute belief in his duty to enforce the law combine to create a force that rescues the city from the merciless rule of a power unleashed by someone who yearns for the City's glorious past but sees none of its current strengths and completely fails to understand the price that will be extracted by summoning a dragon.

To my Brexit-dominated consciousness, the parallels are too powerful to miss.

"Guards! Guards!" isn't a political essay. It's a book full of humour, draped around a reasonably complex plot and populated with larger than life characters.

It's a great start to a great subseries and I feel better for having read it again.
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Next up is "Men At Arms" where the new City Watch really starts to emerge. show less

A book club pick :)

“Never build a dungeon you wouldn’t be happy to spend the night in yourself.”

Why do I love Discworld books? Because they are laugh-out-loud funny. Because they are unexpected. Because they are clever and wise. Because they are cynical. Because they are humane.

This is the first Watch book, Captain Vimes and everyone are growing into the Watch we all know and love. (Yes, I have so far read the 3rd and 4th Watch books, because I am jumping around in Discworld. It’s fun.) What a hilarious process this is – and somehow, inspiring. Terry Pratchett loves his characters, every single one of them. (I am of the opinion that every city should have a Carrot, a dwarfish war yodel included.)

In Guards! Guards!, show more Ankh-Morpork has a dragon problem. By the way, in case you want to summon a dragon and you have no idea what you’re doing: don’t.

“We never intended this,” he said weakly. “Honestly. No offence. We just wanted what was due to us.”
A skeletal hand patted him on the shoulder, not unkindly. And Death said, CONGRATULATIONS.”

Really, dragons are not fun at all. Unless they are Lady Ramkin’s swamp dragons. Lady Ramkin is quite awesome too.

The secret society trope is hilarious – until it isn’t, because it’s Pratchett we are talking about. “Give him the ones in which the flows of venom and vindictiveness were dammed up behind thin walls of ineptitude and low-grade paranoia.” The destined king trope (with some lovely, lovely nods to Tolkien) also gets some time in snarky spotlight. Pratchett wasn’t a royalist, I suppose… :)

I am left with a feeling of satisfaction that comes after reading a well-crafted, well-constructed, fun novel that is deeper than it seems. show less

I recently organized my wife's books for her, which made me cognizant of the number of books she owned that I would like to read, but haven't. So I have begun a sporadic project to do so, beginning with the Discworld novels in general, and the City Watch subseries in particular, since multiple people who know my tastes well have told me these would be my favorites.

Well, there are some forty Discworld novels to read after this, so it will be a long time before I know if they actually are my favorites, but I did really enjoy this. It's one of those books were you keep laughing aloud-- and keep pausing your reading to explain the jokes to whoever's around you, who in my case was my wife, which meant she suffered through hearing about jokes show more she'd already read! Carrot Ironfoundersson is a human biologically, but a dwarf culturally, and is sent to Ankh-Morpork to make something of himself after a lifetime in the dwarf mines. But he's also a bit dim, a bit literal, and bit earnest, meaning the fact that the Night Watch spends its time avoiding work is kind of lost on him. One of my favorite gags was when he's told all he has to do is walk around the streets saying, "It's Twelve O'clock and All's Well." Carrot asks what if it's not all well, and he's told, "You bloody well find another street"! (I was also a big fan of all the jokes about the incompetent secret conspiracy.)

So I laughed a lot as Carrot's new way of doing things gradually infects the other members of the Watch, especially its alcoholic captain, Samuel Vimes, and before they know it, they're actually investigating crimes. It occasionally gets serious, which I appreciate; there's a small subplot about xenophobia, which feels more relevant in 2019 than it did in 1989, I suspect, and is a theme Pratchett will return to in future City Watch novels, especially Jingo. This might be the funniest of the City Watch novels, actually, because as time goes on, Pratchett tones down the comedy and amps up the social commentary. The funniest, perhaps, but not the best.

(If you have the 2000s U.S. Harper edition, don't read the back cover, as it gives away what would have been a clever twist from around the three-quarters mark. Unforgivable!) show less

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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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.

WHAT'S GUARDS! GUARDS! ABOUT?
We start with a motley bunch of people who have been recruited by a mysterious figure to summon a dragon from another world—they don't know this initially, but the purpose is to take over the city of Ankh-Morpork for less-than-benevolent reasons.

Meanwhile, a tall and naive young man is informed by his father that he's not who he's always thought he was. In fact, he's been brought up by another species. Carrot had spent his whole life believing he was a dwarf like everyone he lived among, rather than a human. "It's a show more terrible thing to be nearly sixteen and the wrong species." Carrot has a hard time accepting this truth but does what his father tells him. He sets off for the city to become a member of the City Watch and will send his wages to his family. It's impossible (for me, at least) to read Carrot and not think of Buddy the Elf. I don't know if Ferrell and Favreau had this book in mind when they worked out the character—but they could've.

Like Buddy, Carrot doesn't understand the human world and its nuances. He's very literal, he's a hard worker, doesn't know how to be dishonest, and sees the world in black and white. So he goes about the business of the Watch like that—he's a one-man anti-crime crusade. Arresting people the rest of the watch doesn't have the energy to pursue—and those they've been told by the city leadership to leave alone.

His presence shakes up the Watch and awakens a sense of duty in them. So when they start finding traces of the dragon—and a corpse or two, this lethargic group gathers itself together and tries to save the city from the dragon, those behind it, and those who can't be bothered to care.

And a whole bunch of other things transpire, are said, and whatnot. But that's enough to get you started.

MORE THAN JOKES

“Down there,” he said, “are people who will follow any dragon, worship any god, ignore any iniquity. All out of a kind of humdrum, everyday badness. Not the really high, creative loathesomeness of the great sinners, but a sort of mass-produced darkness of the soul. Sin, you might say, without a trace of originality. They accept evil not because they say yes, but because they don’t say no. I’m sorry if this offends you,”

All good novelists will work in things that have nothing to do with the characters (directly), their development, or the plot to their books. Some sort of commentary on the world, an observation about humanity or a portion of it, etc. If you ask me, the more comedic novelists are better at it than others—it's probably that spoonful of sugar thing. That could just be my preference, I admit.

Some of the better moments in this book—at least some of the best sentences—come from moments like the above quotation. There's some cheap cynicism to be found in these lines—but there's some well-earned cynicism, too, in Pratchett's ideas about government, the people led by that government, and so on. But there's some great stuff on love and hope to be found in here, too. Pratchett's cup is half-full at least as often as it's half-empty.

The one-liners; the satire of Fantasy tropes, humanity in general; and the overall comedy of his world might be what he's known for—but at least here (and likely in general), Pratchett's observations of and commentaries on humanity are just as noteworthy.

THE LIBRARY/LIBRARIAN

The truth is that even big collections of ordinary books distort space, as can readily be proved by anyone who has been around a really old-fashioned secondhand bookshop, one that looks as though they were designed by M. Escher on a bad day and has more stairways than storeys and those rows of shelves which end in little doors that are surely too small for a full-sized human to enter. The relevant equation is: Knowledge = power = energy = matter = mass; a good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read.

I don't have the time to write the essay I want to write about the Librarian, the Library, what the Librarian did to save the day, and so on. But I really wish I did (besides, I'm pretty sure someone else has—several someone elses). It's not the—or a—main focus of the novel, but it really could be. Instead, I'll just note that the Librarian was a highlight for me, and I hope we get a lot more of him in the future.

SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT GUARDS! GUARDS!?

“I mean, [the dragon] wouldn’t want us to go around killing its own kind, would it?”

“Well, sir, people do, sir,” said the guard sulkily.

“Ah, well,” said the captain. “That’s different.” He tapped the side of his helmet meaningfully. “That’s ’cos we’re intelligent.”

One of the things I like to ask when thinking of a comedic novel is, would it hold up if you took the jokes out and played it straight? It's hard to answer that for Guards! Guards! because of the satirical and ridiculous aspects of the novel. But...on the whole, yeah...it'd work. Thankfully, it's not a question we really need to spend too much time on because it's so funny that you don't notice parts of the story/plot/characters that might not work—and with the comedy this book is so successful it doesn't matter.

It took very little time for me to get invested in the story—maybe not the characters (as much as I enjoyed watching Carrot fumble through his new life), but the story and the storytelling carried me until the point that I started to see the various members of the City Watch as anything other than comedy delivery systems (although that's primarily what they were). I was entertained throughout, so much so that I didn't really spend much time thinking about comparing this to other Pratchett books or other Fantasy comedies I've read—I just wanted to have fun with this. Maybe I'll do the other stuff with later reads.

My journey to this book—and to giving Pratchett another chance—is pretty well documented. It's not that I disliked The Color of Magic or The Light Fantastic, but I didn't get the fuss over Pratchett after reading them. After reading Guards! Guards!? I think I get it. After reading less than a third of Guards! Guards!, I was pretty sure I got it, actually. I'm so relieved...I wondered what was wrong with me that I missed what everyone else saw in his work. There's this great combination of jokes, situational/character-based comedy, a skewed way of depicting the world that's honest and true while capturing the absurdities—and wonder—of the world. Pratchett respects the reader enough to not have to spell everything he's doing out for us, but not so much that he will avoid slapstick or bodily humor.

I'm sold. If you haven't gotten around to trying this mega-series (and surely there are like 5 of you reading this who haven't), stick your foot in. If you're unsure where to start, here's a great place.

I'll be back for more soon. show less

“I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are good people and bad people. You're wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides.”

Oh man, I absoloutely love Pratchett and this book was no exception. Im slowly making my way through the books again (started in September 2022) and will hopefully actually make it through the whole series this time. Life has always gotten in the way and for some reason I always feel the need to restart... I’m not letting that happen this time.

In this book, a secret brotherhood has stolen a book about summoning dragons from the local magical library located in the wizarding university (much to the orang-utan librarian’s show more dismay). Their goal is to overthrow the partitioner and replace him with a man that they can control. It is up to Carrot and the rest of the Night Watch (who, let’s face it, have been pretty useless up to this point) to save the day, with the help of Swamp Dragon breeder Lady Sybil Ramkin, Goodboy Brindle Featherstone/Errol (who is eating everything (although at least he sniffs it first?) and who may or may not explode) and the Librarian (who can only communicate with “ooook”s).

I love the way that Pratchett is able to criticise the horrors of humanity in such a humorous and tongue in cheek way. All without losing the significance and weight of the issues he is writing about. I’m picking up on and appreciating this more and more as I get older and the world gets worse. He does this both through the human characters (whom are often believably cruel to each other) and also through the dragon – a beast of fierceness and rage. The dragon notes, for example, “But we were dragons. We were supposed to be cruel, cunning, heartless and terrible. But this much I can tell you, we never burned and tortured and ripped one another apart and called it morality.” even while she is negotiating a treaty in which she will be fed people after being elected king, or queen.

Filled with Pratchett’s signature puns and literal translation of concepts, this is not a book to be missed. It definitely made me groan or laugh out loud on multiple occasions (which I must say, may humour books really don’t do for me). He definitely always manages to hit the spot. The characters are also incredibly enjoyable. I found Carrot’s struggles to accept he’s human and not a dwarf) and his struggles to understand the very new and crazy and corrupt world he’s been thrown into very relatable. I loved how the watch played off each other (even if they are more than a little mean at times) – how Carrot inspired them to do actual police work, and how they drew his idealistic self into more of a reality (even if it meant he couldn’t follow up on all of the laws in his book). And being a (swamp) dragon breeder as a job? Isn’t that just the dream! Although I do hate how much prejudice Lady Ramkin experiences. Although, it really is the case for any odd hobbies I guess. Especially when its one that no one really understands.

While this may be the eighth book of the Discworld series, it is the first of its story arc. So if it sounds like your cup of tea (made in the new tea kettle the watch requested after their old one got eaten by Errol) feel free to dive right in. show less