Review: Discworld: Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett

Mass market paperback, 355 pages
Published 2001 (originally 1989)
Borrowed from my wife
Read August 2019

Guards! Guards!: A Novel of Discworld by Terry Pratchett

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 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!)