Guards Guards, by Terry Pratchett

[watervole]

'Guards Guards'  is Pratchett on top form (much though I love his books, some are much better than others...).

 

It's the first book about Sam Vimes and the Night Watch, and we get to know and love the characters who will make many appearances in later books.

 

It's got a plot that makes sense, and has some good twists in it.

 

It's funny, but it also has characters who feel like real people. Sam Vimes the drunk captain of the Watch has pretty much given up on everything, finds there are some things that even he won't give up on.  

 

The various mystical brotherhoods that meet in Ankh Morepork are hilarious.

 

My favourite character is Lady Sybil Ramkin, breeder of swamp dragons.  The kind of person whose family goes back so far that she is perfectly comfortable spending all her days dressed in old clothes and mucking out dragon pens, and feels no need to attend balls and the like.  

 

This is the story where the Librarian (an orangutan, for those who don't already know) gets enlisted into the Guard, and we discover the mysteries of L-space... 

Comments

[vivdunstan]

It’s long been my absolute favourite Discworld book. Though I do feel the plot is a little too much reused in later Watch ones. 23 years ago I was rereading it while working as a research assistant on an academic project in Montrose, a short train journey up the coast. And at the same time trying to get access to local masonic lodges to have a look at their old records. Certain key scenes in this book were especially resonating with me then! And so I was often found chortling on the train commutes.

[igenlode]

Yes, this is one of the really good ones, back when everything was still fresh and new. (I've just been rereading "The Fifth Elephant", which is also really impressive in the way that it manages to develop the characters and their backstory *and* have a Message without hitting you over the head with it -- and Sybil is brilliant in that too.)

[vilakins]

That's a favourite for me too. I particularly enjoy all the guards books.