If you’ve never read a Discworld novel, please go out and buy one. Try not to be daunted by the volume of work, as you really aren’t required to read them in any specific order. However, the characters do intertwine with each other, such as the persistent appearance of Death as a worldly agent, but in no way does this diminish the quality or readability of any one story. If you’re particularly insistent, here is a handy guide made by someone else:
Guards! Guards! is the first book in the Watch series. It focuses on the city guard of Ankh-Morpork, a rank of three men, plus one recruit, and an orangutan librarian as an honorary member. Rank, as in rank and file, but not enough to form a file, so really, they’re just a rank. Plus, they’re a little rank. These five men (actually four and an ape), serve as the entire guard for a city of hundreds of thousands. How? Why? Exactly.
The how is achieved by staying out of the places that the crime occurs. If you do happen to come across someone committing a crime, and they run away, you chase them very slowly. No sense in chasing a person that’s running away. You might catch them, and that’s not a good thing, unless you don’t plan on living very long.
The why is because that’s how the Patrician, ruler of the city, wants it. To summarize his position, his city functions far better when crime is out in the open. That way, he can do things like make theft the responsibility of the thieves’ guild. Thus, the thieves start policing themselves. A freelance thief will get the entire union in trouble, so it’s best to deal with them internally.
This entire situation begins to crumble when someone attempts to overthrow the Patrician by summoning a dragon. In predictable fashion, the proverbial Pandora’s Box has been opened and the evil won’t go back inside. This leaves the rank of the watch to deal with a dragon, because they’re the only ones with the heart to do it. Unfortunately, heart is all they have, with talent, wit, and drive placing themselves at respectable distances.
Terry Pratchett is, in his own quiet way, an astute philosopher of human behaviour, and I will never grow bored of reading his works. His ability to convey complex concepts with hilarious imagery is unparalleled (woe to anyone that gets trapped in the wrong trouser leg of time, for example). Many times, I caught myself grinning at the ridiculous hilarity of it all. Unfortunately, in no way am I able to do justice to the quality of the presentation in the book without directly quoting it, so I will let the words of the Patrician speak for me, from a scene in which he is a prisoner in his own castle.
“Never trust any ruler that puts his faith in tunnels and bunkers and escape routes. The chances are that his heart isn’t in the job.”
Guards! Guards! is an underdog story of the best variety. You will find yourself cheering for any number of characters in the band of total misfits, from the drunken Captain Vimes, “brung low” by a woman, to the thundering island of a proper lady, Cybil Ramkin, bred from centuries of the best stock.
On the downside, occasionally Pratchett’s wit adopts a beffudling presentation that necessitates reviewing a passage, which is frustrating at best, and I can only imagine how irritating it must be if you don’t enjoy his style.
There might be forty odd Discworld books, but I will one day read them all, and then I will be sad that there aren’t any more.
