{"id":2673,"date":"2011-11-30T17:21:35","date_gmt":"2011-11-30T22:21:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/?p=2673"},"modified":"2021-12-29T20:03:31","modified_gmt":"2021-12-30T01:03:31","slug":"men-at-arms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/2673","title":{"rendered":"Men at Arms"},"content":{"rendered":"

Men at Arms<\/a><\/em> (1993) Terry Pratchett<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Another reread<\/a> and another Night Watch story.<\/p>\n

This one also had several passages that stuck with me. Such as,<\/p>\n

And this was right<\/em>. And it was fate <\/em>that had let Edward recognize this just <\/em>when he’d got his plan. And it was right <\/em>that it was Fate<\/em>, and the city would be Saved <\/em>from its ignoble present by its glorious <\/em>past. He had the Means<\/em>, and he had the end<\/em>. And so on….Edward’s thoughts often ran like this.<\/p>\n

He could think in italics<\/em>. Such people need watching.<\/p>\n

Preferably from a safe distance.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But the passage that comes frequently to mind is the one where Vimes considers the difference between the rich and the poor.<\/p>\n

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.<\/p>\n

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable<\/em> pair of boots, which were sort of okay for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. These were the kinds of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.<\/p>\n

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years time, when a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet<\/em>.<\/p>\n

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socio-economic unfairness.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That is so true it’s actually disturbing. <\/p>\n

But there are still plenty of things that are true and hilarious.<\/p>\n

…when you hit your thumb with an eight-pound hammer it’s nice to be able to blaspheme. It takes a very special and strong-minded kind of atheist to jump up and down with their hand clasped under their other armpit and shout, ‘Oh, random-fluccuations-in-the-space-time-continuum!’ or ‘Aaargh, primitive-and-outmoded-concept on a crutch!’<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And I need to stop, or I’ll be here for hours typing in some of my favorite quotations.<\/p>\n

Oh yeah. Captain Vimes is getting married, the Night Watch is being forced to integrate dwarves and trolls and someone has stolen a terrible artifact from the Assassin’s Guild.
\nRating: 9\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n

Published by Random House<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Men at Arms (1993) Terry Pratchett Another reread and another Night Watch story. This one also had several passages that stuck with me. Such as, And this was right. And it was fate that had let Edward recognize this just when he’d got his plan. And it was right that it was Fate, and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13,30,2,291,41],"tags":[142,141],"class_list":["post-2673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-10","category-british","category-fantasy","category-paper","category-reread","tag-discworld","tag-terry-pratchett"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piQkW-H7","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13304,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/13304","url_meta":{"origin":2673,"position":0},"title":"Men at Arms","author":"Michelle","date":"July 25, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Men at Arms (1993) Terry Pratchett (Discworld, #15, Watch, #2) Someone has stolen something from the Assassins Guild. No one knows what it is, but they're pretty sure it isn't a good thing. And this was right. And it was fate that had let Edward recognize this just when he\u2019d\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "9\/10"","block_context":{"text":"9\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/9-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"Men at Arms","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/Men-at-Arms-e1511037252258.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2720,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/2720","url_meta":{"origin":2673,"position":1},"title":"Night Watch","author":"Michelle","date":"December 31, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Night Watch (2002) Terry Pratchett This book, for me, strikes far more political chords than funny bones. It doesn't make it bad, it just makes it a lot darker than some other Terry Pratchett book. (He) started in the wrong place. he didn't look around, and watch, and learn, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fantasy"","block_context":{"text":"Fantasy","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/fantasy"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Night-Watch.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2447,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/2447","url_meta":{"origin":2673,"position":2},"title":"Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agness Nutter, Witch","author":"Michelle","date":"July 31, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agness Nutter, Witch (1990) Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett With so much recent discussion of Good Omens on the web recently, what with its anniversary, and with my recent rereading of American Gods, I've been wanting to reread Good Omens. So a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "10\/10"","block_context":{"text":"10\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/10-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/good-omens-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1700,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/1700","url_meta":{"origin":2673,"position":3},"title":"Where’s My Cow","author":"Michelle","date":"May 1, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Where's My Cow? (2005) Terry Pratchett Children's Winner of the Ankh-Morpork Librarian's Award: OOK! Needed something to cheer me up after a particularly depressing mystery. Where's My Cow (click to read previous review) was the perfect palate cleanser. Except, of course, now I want to go read more Discworld books.","rel":"","context":"In "9\/10"","block_context":{"text":"9\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/9-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"Where's My Cow","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.klishis.com\/Books\/images\/wheres%20my%20cow.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":18487,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/18487","url_meta":{"origin":2673,"position":4},"title":"Making Money","author":"Michelle","date":"November 26, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Making Money (2007) Terry Pratchett (Discworld) The Post Office is going well (to the surprise of Moist as much as everyone else) and perhaps Moist is getting a little bored. Luckily, Vetinari has ideas. \u201cYou Have An Appointment Now With Lord Vetinari,\u201d said the golem. \u201cI\u2019m sure I don\u2019t.\u201d \u201cThere\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"Making Money","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/05\/Making-Money-e1511016248126.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10879,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/10879","url_meta":{"origin":2673,"position":5},"title":"Guards! Guards!","author":"Michelle","date":"May 23, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Guards! Guards! (1989) Terry Pratchett I love Terry Pratchett, and I think I may love the Watch story arc best of all the Discworld stories. It was a five hundred mile journey and, surprisingly, quite uneventful. People who are rather more than six feet tall and nearly as broad across\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "9.5\/10"","block_context":{"text":"9.5\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/9-5-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/Guards-Guards-e1511049756730.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2673\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}