Guards! Guards!

Guards! Guards! (1989) Terry Pratchett

I love Discworld.

That’s not to say I love all the books, but some of the character arcs in this series feature some of the best writing around.

Guards! Guards! is the start of the Night Watch story arc.

When we meet Captain Samuel Vimes, he’s drinking himself into the gutter to make dealing with his job even slightly tolerable. And of course there are the remaining two members of his squad: Sargent Colon and Corporal Nobby.

Carrot–a strapping young man who was adopted by dwarves is distressed to discover that he is not himself a dwarf, and that it would probably be best for everyone if he made his way out in the world for awhile, and through various circumstances, he ends up a lance corporal in the Night Watch.

I love all these characters, but even better, this book spends a great deal of time with my all time favorite Discworld character, the Librarian.

Very senior librarians…once they have proved themselves worthy by performing some valiant act of librarianship, are accepted into a secret order and are taught the raw arts of survival beyond the Shelves We Know. The Librarian was highly skilled in all of them, but what he was attempting now wouldn’t just get him thrown out of the Order but probably out of life itself.

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

With a badge.

I love the Librarian.

But of course, one of the strongest parts of the Night Watch arc (and really, of all Discowrld books) is the biting social commentary.

They avoided one another’s faces, for fear of what they might see mirrored there. Each man thought: one of the others is bound to say something soon, some protest, and then I’ll murmur agreement, not actually say anything, I’m not as stupid as that, but definitely murmur very firmly, so that the others will be in no doubt that I thoroughly disapprove, because at a time like this it behooves all decent men to stand up and be almost heard…

But no-one said anything. The cowards, each man thought.

Have you read a better description of how atrocities occur?

‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘So we’re privy councillors now. Just fancy.’

‘Hmm,’ said the assassin.

‘I wonder what’s the difference between ordinary councillors and privy councillors?’ wondered the merchant aloud.

The assassin scowled at him. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘it is because you’re expected to eat shit.’

And then there’s this:

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

Yeah, I love Terry Pratchett.
Rating: 9/10

Published by Random House

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