Back to the future IV (Night Watch - Terry Pratchett)

Member Name: michaird

Product:	Night Watch - Terry Pratchett
Date:	15/01/03 (176 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A solid, amusing and easy to follow plot

Disadvantages: The Discworld series needs some new life breathing into it, and this isn?t it.

Now I wouldn't say I was a fan of anything. It's quite hard to find the time and energy for fanaticism when you have so many other things to be doing. But its rather telling that I have read every single novel in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series and I'll even buy the books in hardback at full price!

So last night on the way home from a very, very dull day learning management strategy I wandered into WH Smith in search of something to double our DVD collection (i.e. increase it to two) and I spotted a new Discworld novel at £8 of the publishers price (£17.99). I was in the mood for something amusing and not particularly intellectual and this seemed to be the very thing (along with the Monty Python Holy Grail DVD I bought)

For those who are blissfully unaware, the Discworld series of books are a set of comic fantasy novels centred around the highly implausible and colourfully painted world called, you guessed it, Discworld. The disc slowly travels through the universe carried on the back of four giant elephants who stand on the shell of the gargantuan star turtle Great A'Tuin. Well, I did say it was implausible.
The stories usually centre on one of four sets of marvellously idiosyncratic characters The Wizards, DEATH, The Witches and The City Night Watch.

This Particular book is, as you may have already guessed, a city watch story. The city watch police the nocturnal streets of the great Discworld city Ankh Morpork. A place were thieves leave you a receipt and you may need to be very specific when employing the services of a 'seamstress'. The Commander of the watch is Samuel Vimes. Vimes, a former drunkard using cardboard to help the soles of his boots last longer, he is now a reluctant Duke, the richest man in the city and about to become a father for the very first time.

A hardened gargoyle of a man that believes in doing the right thing, even if a swift kick in the nuts is the right thing, he
is the Discworld equivalent of Columbo or inspector Frost. His attitude to authority is to 'look to authority for orders and then filter them through a fine mesh of common sense, adding a generous scoop of creative misunderstanding and maybe even a little incipient deafness if circumstances demanded'

A copper at heart, Vimes sometimes wishes that he could still pound the beat, feeling his way using the cobbles in the street, and leave his life of politics and uniforms with plumes behind. Following a gruelling chase, on top of the great dome of the Unseen University of magic, Vimes comes face to face with a vicious, and very intelligent, killer. A storm, a flash of lightening, the shattering of glass and a good healthy dose of rogue magic transports Vimes and the killer, Carcer into the past, and Vimes gets his wish.

With the murder of the mentor of Vimes youth Carcer begins to change the past and Vimes has to catch him, teach his younger self how to be him and see to it that the future happens as it should otherwise he'll have no future to return to. Back on the beat Vimes begins to understand the meaning of the phrase, be careful what you wish for.

It's a good story, not entirely unpredictable but it has humour, politics, morality and boiled eggs. It has a rather dark disturbing element and the overriding moral of the story is no matter what you do the people in charge will always be gits. It's a depressing theme, but in a sense of gritty British realism, its true.

The setting is also a little fresher. Whilst there are a number of familiar characters they are all younger and a little different, but not really different enough. With in excess of twenty-five books in the Discworld series it seems that they are running out of steam and cry out for a fresh new look and new characters to breath some life into them. Without this I don't think the concept can carry on much longer.

Also, each new book
in the series seems to suffer from a seriously convoluted plot that, frankly, gives me a headache. Pratchett seems to confuse a plot twist with an overly complex story line. The plot of this book has been kept relatively simple and although the book is a little longer than I thought it needed to be, it is easy to follow and enjoy. Hey I only bought it yesterday and I've finished already.

I did enjoy this book and I will read it again, if you like the Discworld series I'd be fairly confident in saying you will like this. If you've never read a Terry Pratchett book I can assure you that it is not necessary to read any of the previous books to get enjoyment out of this volume. If you have tried Pratchett and you found it hard to get past the first few pages, don't bother, it one of those things you either love or hate and I doubt you'll fair much better here.

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