The City Watch - Terry Pratchett

Terry Pratchett is, to my mind, one of the finest authors of the century. I discovered the Discworld series back when I was 11, and have been reading and rereading it ever since. For those who don't know, the Discworld series is a fantasy series, based on a flat, -world standing on the back of four giant elephants which, in turn, stand on the back of a huge turtle (but, as Pratchett points out, only huge in a relative sense - i.e. huge in terms of normal turtles, as this turtle is the size of a planet, but small in terms of the size of the universe, which is mind-bogglingly big. Seriously.). There have been, as of 2008, 36 Discworld novels published. The ...  Read the complete review

The City Watch Trilogy (Guards Guards! Men at Arms and Feet of Clay) are three of my favourite Discworld novels, simply because they contain the characters of the City Watch. There never was a more perfectly imbalanced group. There's Carrot who is so much larger than life; totally naïve, and innocent, and believes the best of everyone. Yet he doesn't need handling with kid gloves, because somehow the world just forms around him the way he believes it to be. There's Sam Vimes the Commander, who does all the deep philosophising for the group in a very cynical bitter way that offsets Carrot's optimism. And then there's a whole bunch of complete ...  Read the complete review

The City Watch must be one of the most wonderful group of "policemen??" ever created. All those characters that you see in everyday life are there but with the added attraction of Terry Pratchett's embellishment. Do you recognise the thick but dutiful? The scruffy little man with a dog end in his mouth? The heavy drinking boss? However, no-one would recognise Carrot anywhere else. The City Watch stories are unusual but not as a weird or zany as some of Terry Pratchett's stories. They all have a plot which is worth reading for itself. A story that you want to read to the end. Add to that a lot of humour and a little bit of ...  Read the complete review

These 3 novels are easily my favourite Discworld books. In some of the other novels the way characters are used together can seem awkward or contrived, not so here. All the characters are well-developed, they have their own purposes and most importantly are funny. The plots in all three of these novels are brilliant, the only disadvantage is they are slightly less weird than other Discworld novels, but for some that can be a bonus. My favourite is Feet of Clay, but that isn't to say they aren't all brilliant. If you like Terry Pratchett, you'll like these, if you don't like Terry Pratchett you may still like these. ...  Read the complete review