The Discworld City Watch Adventures Begin - "Guards! Guards! Book Review

Jul 3

Another day, another book finished! And what an absolutely fantastic journey it was!

After finishing Jane Eyre at the end of June, I decided that I needed a light-hearted, humorous next read, which can act as a sort of "palate cleanser" before I dived into another heavy classic. "Guards! Guards!" has been sitting on my TBR list for some time now, so - having read several other novels from Terry Pratchett’s series - I decided to give it a go and get a firsthand introduction to the Discworld City Watch of Ankh-Morpork. And it turned out to be one of the best picks I've done in a while.

So today, I'll give you my honest thoughts on the book and why I'd recommend it to anyone looking for an earnest laugh and a break from the seriousness of reality. Needless to say, there will be massive SPOILERS AHEAD, so read at your own peril.

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"Guards! Guards!" in the Discworld Reading Order

Right, so where do I even begin? Perhaps, let's first figure out where the book falls in the (very loose) chronology of the Discworld series.

One of my favourite things about Terry Pratchett's Discworld is that the series has a very loose canonical structure. There are a total of 41 novels, which would undoubtedly rank it as one of the largest fictional universes ever created, and a proper challenge for any self-respecting reader (or a student lost in the Unseen University's Library's L-dimension). Thankfully, there isn't a particular reading order, per se. Readers can pick any book at random and enjoy it to it's full capacity as a stand-alone read. Yet if anyone attempts to go through all 41 books, they will start bumping into familiar characters and locations at every turn.

So how can that ever make sense? Is there no character development across books? Well, to make sense of the walking amalgamation of misfits that inhabit the Discworld, I recommend two approaches to tackling the series: in chronological reading order and in thematical reading order.

Discworld Chronological Reading Order

It is what we like to call "the obvious" route. New readers will get the chance to experience the Discworld and all it's splendor the same way people did when the books where still coming out. You'll not only be able to follow the development of various character groups, but also the development of Pratchett's own style and literary voice.

Discworld Thematical Reading Order

As I said earlier, many characters either play a pivotal role or make hilarious cameo appearances throughout most of the books. If we were to break these down into a thematical order, we'd end up with the following categories:

The City Watch (8 novels)
The Witches (6 novels)
DEATH (5 novels)
Moist von Lipwig (3 novels)
Rincewind/The Wizards (7 novels)
Tiffany Aching and The Nac Mac Feegles (5 novels).

Which category does "Guards! Guards!" fall into?

"Guards! Guards!" is actually the first novel that introduces us to the main characters within the Discworld City Watch. It was originally published in 1989, making it the 8th Discworld novel to see the light of day.

Story synopsis

Alright, now that we've established where the book falls into the Discworld reading order, let's take a look at the story itself. Again, I will issue a SPOLER WARNING here for those that have decided to forego learning any major details before reading the book.

"Guards! Guards!" follows the story of a plot by the secret society of the Unique and Supreme Lodge of Elucidated Brethren of the Ebon Night to overthrow the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork and install a puppet-king in his place, in order to battle severe social injustices - such as having more successful brothers-in-law, or vegetable vendors who have the audacity to look at you askew when you try to steal the occasional fruit from their stall.

To usher in a new age of social equilibrium and enlightenment, the secret society steals the only edition in existence of a book on summoning dragons, which they use multiple times to summon (to their own surprise) an actual dragon under their control, which causes panic, fear, and the rise of dragon-related memorabilia sales in Ankh Morpork.

As the whole city is trying to figure out what's causing buildings (and the occasional unlucky thief) to spontaneously combust, the task to deal with the dragon, and the secret society, falls on a group of social outcasts, who actively try to avoid going anywhere near anything that might resemble danger (or actual police work). And they could have actually succeeded in staying below radar, had it not been for the latest addition to The City Watch's ranks - lance-corporal Carrot Ironfoundersson - a 6'6" foot (1.98 meters) tall "dwarf", whose enthusiasm and uncanny ability to motivate his compatriots awakens something resembling a sense of duty in "the rank".

As Captain Vimes and his crew start to actually earn their wages, the leader of the Elucidated Brethren slowly starts to lose control of the dragon, which manages to take over and install itself as king of Ankh-Morpork, using the unlucky cultist as its mouthpiece. It demands a steady supply of gold and jewels to lay upon, regular virgin (ideally) sacrifices and advocates for a rather aggressive foreign policy, involving relieving the city's neighbouring states of their riches, lands and potentially their heads.

One would think that in a city as large as Ankh-Morpork, people will never stand for such tyranny and would rise up to take the beast down. One is then clearly not familiar with exactly the type of people the city is home to. For if they cannot bribe it, corrupt it or assassinate it, they would adopt it and act like it was their own idea to do so in the first place.

While the dragon is busy redecorating the palace and trying to find an actual living virgin in Ankh-Morpork before starving to death, the Discworld City Watch's investigation gains them several unlikely allies, such as Lady Sybil Ramkin, a noble-born breeder of swamp dragons; Errol - an underdeveloped and gastronomically unstable dragon that becomes the Watch's mascot; and the Librarian - a 300 lbs mo-... Orang-utan!, which curates the Unseen University's magical archives and has a particular dislike for people that steal his books.

Following some actually decent detective work, Captain Vimes of the Watch manages to unmask the leader of the secret brotherhood, but is caught immediately after and locked into the palace's dungeons (where he discovers that the Patrician is actually having a pretty comfortable time for a man that's been imprisoned in a cell with rats, snakes and scorpions). The Librarian helps Vimes escape his confounds and reveals that Lady Sybil has been chosen for the king's sacrifice.

As the final showdown against the dragon takes place, and everything seems lost, a one-in-a-million chance allows Errol to reorganize his digestive system in something akin to a supersonic propulsion engine (thus becoming the first dragon to shoot fire from places other than his mouth), and causes a shock wave that neutralizes the King and causes it to plummet down and become trapped under building debris.

Right about this time, the entire population of the city find their courage (upon seeing the dragon is finally out of it) and decide that now would be a great time for a royal beheading. Their efforts are put to rest by Carrot, who, in true civic servant fashion, decided that the dragon has committed too many civil violations to simply be slain, and must thus be arrested. Before the crowd can come to their senses and rob Carrot, and the rest of the Watch, of theirs, Errol reveals that the Dragon is actually a female and their battle had been nothing more than a courtship dance.

The two dragons fly off into the sunset, and while the entire city is deciding what it is precisely that they should celebrate (for a celebration is indeed the natural order of things after an ordeal like that), the job of the City Watch is not done. Vimes and his crew proceed to corner the Grand Master of the Order, revealed to be none other than the Patrician adage, and as the man attempts to summon yet another dragon under his control Vimes decided that the best course of action was to "throw the book at him". Unfortunately for the Grand Master, that order was given to Carrot, who - having been raised by dwarves and is quite literal - throws his copy of the Laws and Ordinances of Cities of Ankh and Morpork at the man, causing him to fall off a broken ledge to his death.

At the end, the Patrician is re-instated as the head of state, the Discworld City Watch is actually celebrated for once and gets a pay raise, and the citizens of Ankh-Morpork once again prove that there is no damage so great as to make them learn any lesson whatsoever or make any lasting change to the ordinance of the city.

Character Overview and Development

While the book has the typical sarcastic and satirical undertones, characteristic for Pratchett, what I particularly enjoyed was that underneath all the jokes, mishaps and blunders, we can actually see several of the key characters grow and change as the book goes on.

Captain Vimes: started off as a cynical alcoholic, who shrugged off any duty and ended up remembering why he loved police work (and how to actually do it), as well as finally realizing that he was worthy of companionship.
Carrot - started off a human, raised by dwarves, who was completely rigid and literal, and ended up learning how the world actually works and finding his place in the world. Of all characters, I think he had the best character development, as his letters to his mother back home gradually reveal that he becomes more and more accustomed to the human world - did any of you notice that by the last letter, he is no longer asking about his old flame back home? I guess that living in a brothel would do that to a man...
Sergeant Colon - who started off terrified of any actual responsibility and ended up finding his courage and taking charge of the situation when the world needed him to.
Corporal Nobbs - who... By the end of the book finally took a shower. Well... To be fair, he was thrown off a roof into the river, but we're still going to count it!
Lady Sybil - who started off living a life of seclusion and ended up taking her right place in society.
And finally Errol - who I honestly thought was going to explode before the book ends, but by some miraculous chance made it to the end and taught us all that evidently size doesn't matter, so long as you can shoot fire out of your backside.

Favorite Plot Twists

There are two plot twists that I utterly enjoyed.

Firstly, when the Supreme Leader of the Elucidated Brethren was revealed to be none other than Lupine Wonse - the Patrician's secretary. The reveal was made even more amazing by the striking contrast we've been seeing until that point in the mild-mannered, calm and collected Wonse and the power-hungry, impulsive and relatively unstable Grand Master. The true plot twist was when Wonse revealed that the whole thing was initially started off by the Patrician himself, who, as it turns out, starts all the plots to overthrow him, in order to get ahead of the competition.
My second favorite plot twist was that Carrot didn't end up becoming king. The whole book was building up to the fact that a chosen one must appear to slay the dragon and by doing so, he will be revealed as the true king. From the very onset it was apparent that Carrot was supposed to fill that role. He had the shady background history, had the sword, and even had the crown-shaped birthmark. But when he decided to arrest the dragon instead, he turned the whole prophecy on its head.

Later on, it is revealed that the Patrician, Colon and even Carrot himself have realized that he's probably the long-lost king, but in true Ankh-Morpork fashion they all decided to let someone else deal with it. Plus, Carrot seems genuinely happy in his new role as Constable and has finally found a place where he belongs. All is well that ends well... Or with very minor changes from the starting point, in the grand scheme of things.

Final Thoughts

Again, I absolutely enjoyed reading "Guards! Guards!" and with a whole heart give it a 5/5 rating. Hilarious dialogue, great character development and all sorts of Dragons! What more can you want in a book :)

You can buy Guards! Guards! here.

If you've enjoyed this review, let me know in the comments below (or on Instagram) and let me know which Discworld book you'd like to hear more about in the future.

Thanks for making it this far,

Alex

Aleksandar Nikolov