Pratchett, Terry - Guards! Guards!

[oyceter]

Someone stop me! I am eating these up like candy. I don't know what it is, except I just don't feel up to reading anything angsty, emotionally significant, or serious right now, much less anything with a complicated plot.

Anyway, I've been a little wary about starting the Watch books, just because everyone likes them so much.

Carrot Ironfoundersson is told one day that he's not actually a dwarf (which handily explains his two-meter height); he's sent off to join the Ankh-Morpork City Guard with his birthright sword and the knowledge that he was found on a hillside. We all know where that leads....

Meanwhile, Captain Vimes of the Night Watch is trying to either get drunk or stay drunk, the Librarian has to find a missing book, and some suspicious hooded figures seem to be wandering around and siccing a dragon on Ankh-Morpork.

This was much better than I had expected, given the quality of the early Witches and Death books; the plot's coherent, all the parts fit together, the villain is actually creepy (the dragon? is scary! although it has a good point about people), and even though the characters are still more at the caricature stage, Vimes has a surprising amount of depth, considering that this is his first appearance.

Ok, I admit it, I suspect I will be a complete sucker for Vimes. It is his strange belief in people despite his drunk and cynical exterior! And the way he goes "Er" a lot at Lady Ramkin.

I like Carrot and Colon and Nobby, but they're more sketches than full-fleshed people right now; I adored Lady Ramkin, who is awesome awesome awesome; I laughed a lot at Errol the dragon and his strange digestive system; and in general had a good time. The points about humans vs. dragons and imagination and Vetinari vs. Vimes were a little anvilly, but whatever.

I think my favorite parts were Errol, Vetinari's prison, and the strangely charming interactions between Vimes and Lady Ramkin.

And... am already halfway through Men in Arms...

Comments

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm coming from a place where the assumptions people make based on my looks are way, way off from my actual upbringing, and dealing with massive cultural disconnects and passing issues after moving from a state where the majority looks more like my mother to a state where they look more like me, but I feel less at home. So really, with that set of goggles, I could hardly help seeing Carrot as a sort of Disc version of a TCK. :)