Stunning (The City Watch - Terry Pratchett)

Member Name: Pingu

Product:	The City Watch - Terry Pratchett
Date:	04/07/00 (20 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: see above

Disadvantages: none

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 incompetents such as Corporal Nobbs, and Sergeant Colon who provide a Laurel and Hardy style slapstick approach to each case they investigate. Not forgetting Detritus the Troll, who dents his helmet every time he salutes, and carries a crossbow which makes small nuclear weapons seem puny.

The best part is the way these characters all develop. This is not some kind of static investigative group that comes back for episode after episode, like the A-Team or the Avengers. There is a very steep dynamic to the Watch, which makes for developments almost as interesting as the cases they tackle.

The genius of Pratchett's writing is that when he is borrowing a cliché, not only is he aware that he is doing it, but he points it out very loudly, and then twists it subtly. For instance the whole Carrot thing. Ankh-Morpork apparently has a long lost royal line, and along comes a young man with a crown-shaped birthmark, a magic sword, super-human strength and the ability to make everyone do what he wants. Pratchett is not the least bit coy about it. He goes to some lengths to point out just how much he is using fairy-tale cliché....so is Carrot the king? That would be telling. Read it and find out. This is a superb trilogy which I love to bits.

Summary: