Guards! Guards!

My first Discworld book was The Colour of Magic. I left it mid-way (despite being a Pratchett fan from reading the Johnny Maxwell trilogy) to not come back to Discworld until a year later. This time I picked up Mort, got hooked and went on to read a couple of others books in the DEATH sub-series. Then I picked up Guards! Guards! to have some variation, and have thus ended up thinking why wasn't I recommended Guards! Guards! by friends who have read Pratchett as the first book to read in Discworld. I wouldn't have lost a year of NOT reading Discworld books if I was told to read Guards! Guards! at the very first. Guards! Guards!, despite not having those singularly memorable one-liners, has an ensemble of characters that are a joy to read about. It is astonishing that Pratchett wrote 350 odd pages on a plot that where it all boils down to is: a dragon as a king of a city. Absurd, but it is really remarkable how that single abstract concept can be used to develop characters that would eventually prove to be some of the most famous of all Discworld books. Pratchett's crafty humor that satirizes everything under the sun, minute traits that we humans would miss in ourselves so very often, is all there as well. Together with the incredible cast, this makes Guards! Guards! one of the best Discworld books I've read so far, and the very first I'd recommend a Discworld newbie to pick up.

Who but Terry Pratchett could have created a copper like Sam Vimes? Years of "mystery" novels have given us the image of witless, plodding, unimaginative policemen, easily bested by private detective geniuses. When we first meet Sam, he falls right into the stereotype, as well as into a gutter. He doesn't even have the sense to come in out of the rain. That's because his senses have been dulled by Old Bearhugger's - an elixir well suited to numbing the brain to life's injustices. And justice, or the lack of it, is a persistent theme in Sam's life. Sam's a copper. Policemen are there to enforce the law. In this case, the Patrician of Ankh Morpork has arabesqued normal law enforcement with the creation of Guilds. There's an association of thieves, of burglars, of prostitutes, even of murderers. The latter are known as Assassins - the taking of life is a gentleman's business, not something to be left to the rabble. Against all logic, the Patrician's plan works - the Guilds keep order within their own ranks. That leaves Sam with little to do - and the elixir's appeal is irresistible. A murder, unlike anything the Assassins might perpetrate, confronts Sam with a novel situation. Assassins, while neat, leave more than a pile of smoking ash in their wake. Nor do they leave such arcane clues as a footprint resembling a raptor's claws. A mystery, indeed. One which could lead to the City terrorized by an unprecedented threat - the arrival of a giant dragon. Neither Sam nor his boss the Patrician want the City subjected to that kind of threat. It's not controllable. It doesn't fit into the design. And it's bloody dangerous. In pursuing his quarry, Sam wends his way to a home for sick and abandoned dragons. Run by the city's richest . . . umm . . . woman?? If any Pratchett character evades description, it's Sybil Ramkin. We know she's rather Valkyrian, well bred, and consumed with a fervour for swamp dragons. We don't know how old she is [although her family line reaches far into the past], and although matronly in mien, she's not a widow, grass or otherwise. Vimes, a product of the City's Shades [and a few gutters], is daunted, but not overwhelmed. A relationship, however unlikely, builds. Pratchett draws a fine set of characters in this book. The City's Night Watch, with its cast of unlikely, but wholly believable, characters is introduced. Including a dwarf two metres tall, Carrot Ironfoundersson, who's come to the City to become a Man. Colon, "one of Nature's Sergeants". Nobby Nobbs, whose species remains uncertain. And another whose species is unquestioned, but whose fitness for the City Watch requires further scrutiny. And always, there is Vimes. Vimes, confronted by a dragon metres long and with tonnes of mass, still has an edge. The dragon wants to be king of Ankh Morpork. And Vimes' ancestor, Old Stoneface, once held similar views of justice about kings . . . Pratchett has a hack at a number of sound, established, institutions. His swipe at the

Discworld really doesn't get any better or funnier than this. For the first time in the series, we get an extended up-close view of life in the remarkable city of Anhk-Morpork. We are introduced to such wonderful characters as Captain Vimes of the City Watch and his singular subordinates Nobby, Colon, and the giant dwarf (adopted) Carrot; the formidable Lady Ramkin; and Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler. The remarkable fashion in which the Patrician Lord Vetinari runs the city is explained in some detail, we begin to really get to know the Librarian of Unseen University (who was of course turned into an orangutan some type back as a result of a magical accident), and Pratchett gives us a basic rundown on the theory of L-Space under which all libraries work and are magically connected. Everyone knows that dragons do not exist, not the type of giant mythical creatures who fly around breathing fire all over the place. Thus, it comes as something of a surprise to people when Anhk-Morpork begins experiencing incidents of the body-melting variety; such a perpetrator can only be dismissed for so long as a giant wading bird, however. It seems that a group of unimportant have-nots has been wooed into a secret society bent on teaching the haves a lesson or two by magically summoning a dragon to carry out their wishes. Naturally, things get out of hand, and the dragon finds a way to establish permanent residence in reality. Declaring himself king of the city, preparations are made to turn over treasure and begin sacrificing maidens. The City Watch has long been nothing but a joke in town, especially after the establishment of proper guilds virtually eliminated illegal illegality, and Captain Vimes and his men have no desire to enforce the law anyway, unless enforcing the law somehow involves drinking copious amounts of alcohol. Young Carrot (who has just found out he is a human and not a dwarf after all, all six and a half feet of him) amazingly volunteers for the Watch and actually tries to enforce the law, thereby causing a bit of controversy at first. Then the dragon business comes along, and the City Watchmen take it upon themselves to try and overcome the wossname since no one else, aside from the noble swamp-dragon enthusiast Lady Ramkin, seems to offer much resistance at all (even when extolled by Sergeant Colon's rally cry "The people united can never be ignited!"). Of course, the odds of solving such a crisis as this are a million-to-one; odds of a million-to-one guarantees success, as everyone knows, and the problem comes in making sure your plan's chance of success does not miss the mark; it can't be a thousand-to-one or even 999,999-to-one odds because you've never heard of anyone succeeding with those odds against them, now have you?There is so much that goes to the very heart of the Discworld in this novel that one cannot begin to list it all here. Captain Vimes and the City Watch members are some of the most human characters in the serie

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 prev

This is the first Discworld book I read and 24 books later it is still my favorite. The plot is so twisted, and the characters well developed, its a must read! It is a fun series to read and I would recommened to everyone to read this one first. You don't have to read the series in order. Each book can stand alone although there are several "mini-series" of books in the whole series. Guards! Guards! is full of humor yet thought provoking. While you enjoy the story you also realize the point that Mr Pratchett is making about problems in our own world. So buy it now! And enjoy!