Night Watch:

by Terry Pratchett, Stephen Briggs, Sabine Pigalle

Commander Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch had it all.

But now he's back in his own rough, tough past without even the clothes he was standing up in when the lightning struck...

Living in the past is hard. Dying in the past is incredibly easy. But he must survive, because he has a job to do. He must track down a murderer, teach his younger self how to be a good copper and change the outcome of a bloody rebellion.

There's a he wins, he's got no wife, no child, no future...

A Discworld Tale of One City, with a full chorus of street urchins, ladies of negotiable affection, rebels, secret policemen and other children of the revolution.

Truth! Justice! Freedom! And a Hard-boiled Egg!

Genres: Audiobook

Audible Audio

Published May 25, 2023

About the author

Sir Terence David John Pratchett was an English author, humorist, and satirist, best known for the Discworld series of 41 comic fantasy novels published between 1983–2015, and for the apocalyptic comedy novel Good Omens (1990), which he co-wrote with Neil Gaiman.
Pratchett's first novel, The Carpet People, was published in 1971. The first Discworld novel, The Colour of Magic, was published in 1983, after which Pratchett wrote an average of two books a year. The final Discworld novel, The Shepherd's Crown, was published in August 2015, five months after his death.
With more than 100 million books sold worldwide in 43 languages, Pratchett was the UK's best-selling author of the 1990s. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1998 and was knighted for services to literature in the 2009 New Year Honours. In 2001 he won the annual Carnegie Medal for The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, the first Discworld book marketed for children. He received the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 2010.
In December 2007 Pratchett announced that he had been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease. He later made a substantial public donation to the Alzheimer's Research Trust (now Alzheimer's Research UK, ARUK), filmed three television programmes chronicling his experiences with the condition for the BBC, and became a patron of ARUK. Pratchett died on 12 March 2015, at the age of 66.

Reviews

[Alexander Theofanidis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This exquisite masterpiece, born of Terry Pratchett’s masterful pen, is not merely another chapter in the grand narrative of the Discworld — it is a heroic rhapsody of philosophical inquiry, civic upheaval, and psychic vulnerability, much in the way that a worn, timeworn shoe might harbour an entire cosmos of memories, pain, and perseverance.

Here, Pratchett is not jesting. Or rather, he jests as he always has — with that singular, penetrating irony that crushes the absurdities of power and satirises them with compassion. In Night Watch, Sam Vimes — that ultimate embodiment of the anti-hero with a core of iron-clad morality — finds himself flung backward through time, into the heart of a revolution he once lived through, yet never truly understood.

Pratchett writes here with a maturity and depth that only one who has traversed all the forms of his own world can wield. The introspective portrayal of Vimes borders on the Dostoevskian — his struggle with himself, with his “Shadow”, Carcer, with the burden of mentoring his younger self, John Keel, is a profound exploration of moral accountability to time, to society, and to one’s very self.

Ankh-Morpork, in this book, is a city on the brink of combustion; grimy, sullied, human and inhuman all at once, each stone sweating tension. Pratchett sets the board for a revolutionary game of chess, with pawns as Citizens, Watchmen, and Assassins — yet never loses sight of the soul behind each piece.

Terry Pratchett is no longer writing to entertain you, not solely. He writes to tell you the truth — and does so in the most courteous, mischievous, and deeply empathetic voice ever gifted to a reader by a writer of fantasy. This book looks you in the eye and says: “Do not wait for heroes. Be the one who rises to meet your moment.”

And Vimes… our Vimes… stands. Not to become a legend. But because he cannot do otherwise.

Rating: 11/10 — Not because it is perfect (though, to me, it is), but because it reminds you why you read in the first place.

[Patricia Greasby · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great read - as usual with this author there is more to the story than at first meets the eye. Such keen observation of life and clever writing. Can be an acquired taste, but once hooked one cannot get enough.