Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


My reading of the Discworld series has been very eclectic; I read them out of order, and often with several years in between each time I pick up one. I reread the two first titles last year, and found them to be both funnier and less well-structured than I remembered.

"Guards! Guards!" however, is one of the very best Discworld novels I've read - maybe even one of the best fantasy novels, period.

I won't go into details on the plot or the characters, since I believe it is all quite well known. What I think is noteworthy here is how Pratchett manages to weave together a quite bizarre storyline that riffs on a number of stale fantasy tropes, a set of outrageous, but believable characters (who don't really need the overarching storyline to be interesting), and to make it all come together in a surprisingly dark meditation on the nature of power and human ambition - while being effortlessly funny throughout.

A detail I've never appreciated before in Pratchett's writing is his wonderful talent of finding exactly the right word in a given context. For instance, when the imprisoned Patrician orders a set of illiterate rats to provide him with books, the ensuing library is described as "baroque". Perfect.

A wonderful read.



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