Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Guards! Guards!
Book Review: It's a million-to-one chance, but it might just work!
Summary: 5 Stars
In some ways, it's undoubtedly easier to keep track of events in Discworld if you read Pratchett's books in order, but jumping back and forth in the series is probably more in the spirit of things. This one is the first to feature the City Watch of Ankh-Morpork, Capt. Sam Vimes commanding. I had just finished reading *The Fifth Elephant*, written more than a decade later, and I have to say there are a few continuity errors -- but who cares. Here, we get to observe Vimes's first meeting with Lady Sybil Ramkin, breeder of swamp dragons and his future spouse, and we get some insight into the personality of the Librarian of Unseen University. We also meet Carrot, the six-and-a-half-foot-tall adopted dwarf, on his first introduction to the Watch. We see just how thorough and careful a hold Lord Vetinari has on the city. And we learn about the actual workings of dragons, how they create that fiery breath and so forth -- and why they so often have an abbreviated life span. As always, the author combines peculiarly bent Brit humor with a wise and witty take on serious social issues (in this case, the tendency of the People to go along with the loss of their own freedoms in embracing monarchy). However, as a lifelong librarian myself, I'm annoyed that Pratchett saw fit to reveal to the uninitiated the nature of L-space.Book Review: Long-Over Due Reissue of Classic Discworld Novel
Summary: 4 Stars
This book, long out of print, introduces Pratchett's best heroes, Sam Vimes and Carrot, and sets up the adventures to come. To my surprise, the plot in here holds its own against those in later Vimes novels, and the large space given to the supporting cast is a delight to those who know Colon and Knobby, Vimes' deputies, from later books where they share the guardhouse with a much larger cast. I read the Guards book out of order, and now feel like I should re-read them in order. The whole subseries, even the anticlimactic "Fifth Elephant," stand out from the rest of the Discworld books. Discworld is almost always good. Vimes is even better.Book Review: Meet the City Watch
Summary: 4 Stars
This was the first Discworld novel that I read. I still think it is one of the best. It is worth it just to be introduced to Carrot the 6-foot dwarf. He was by far the best character in the book. All of the watch were funny as was the Patrician (especially in the cell with the rats). The Patrician's secretary and his makeshift wizards' club was also a riot. And let us not forget CMOT Dibbler and the strange items he sells. This is a must read.Book Review: More Pratchett hilarity
Summary: 5 Stars
I read the Colour of Magic a long time ago, and while it was funny, I didn't really appreciate it. I haven't really had the chance to go back and read more Pratchett until I picked up the City Watch trilogy at the local library. Guards Guards! is the first book to feature the Watch, and it is a great introduction to them.The book hits the ground running with wonderful take-off on the idea of pass-phrases to get into a building. I couldn't stop laughing, especially because my wife and I have a running joke similar to this from something she read on USENET. Pratchett takes it about 10 steps further, though, and he does it with flair. Pratchett then continues the hilarity, even when he's making some good points on the human condition (like the human ability to do horrible things to each other). Just when things start to seem a little slow, he'll let loose with another bit of either silliness or wit, such as a Clint Eastwood riff that's simply wonderful.
As many people have said already, this is a book about those characters in most other novels who's job it is to die or be bonked on the head at the hands of the hero. This book celebrates them, gives them a personality and a reason for being other than to be cannon fodder. This time, instead of being just the downtrodden, they are also the heroes.
Vimes is an interesting character, a man who starts out as a man who totally despises what he has become. He loses himself in drink because, as head of the City Watch, he's nothing. He gets no respect from anybody (not even his men), and he doesn't have anything to really live for. In comes Carrot, a "dwarf" (actually, a human who was raised by dwarfs, and still considers himself one, even though he's over 6' tall) who comes to the city actually volunteering to be a member of the watch. Carrot's a simple man who's devotion to the rule book starts to rub off on Vimes himself. Between that and the attentions of Sylvia Rimken, the richest woman in the city and somebody who looks past Vimes' outer shell, he starts to become the man of integrity that he's always wanted to be.
That all sounds a bit heavy, but it's really not in this book. Pratchett is a master of making good points underneath all of the jokes, but if you don't want to think about things too much, the laughs are still worth the read. The other two characters, Colon and Nobs, are good for that. Colon is the sergeant who has been married for years mainly because of carefully arranges schedules that make it so he and his wife only see each other when they pass at the front door. Nobs is a very strange man who uses his position to steal things (though Carrot changes that pretty quickly). Carrot tries to arrest everything in sight, to often hilarious results. His introduction to the city at one of the local watering holes is simply hilarious.
All in all, this is a book that is well worth reading. As it's the first in the City Watch books, you certainly don't have to have read the previous Discworld books to understand what's going on. It takes a couple of fantasy cliches and turns them on their head. You won't be able to look at dragons the same way again after reading it.
Book Review: My favorite Terry Pratchett book
Summary: 5 Stars
This is IMHO one of the best of the Discworld series. Guards! Guards! is filled with all the wry humor that makes Mr. Pratchett so enjoyable to read, and has very real elements of basic human struggles (alcoholism, job respect and many other problems) that we or someone we know deal with everyday.
While reading this the characters are so real and yet so funny, you don't know whether to laugh at them or cry for them.
Terry Pratchett is one of the few authors that can make me laugh out loud. With this book, the laughter was non-stop.