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Terry Pratchett: Night Watch (2005, A&C Black)

112 pages

English language

Published May 4, 2005 by A&C Black.

ISBN:
978-0-413-77444-6
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5 stars (3 reviews)

One moment, Sir Sam Vimes is in his old patrolman form, chasing a sweet-talking psychopath across the rooftops of Ankh-Morpork. The next, he's lying naked in the street, having been sent back thirty years courtesy of a group of time-manipulating monks who won't leave well enough alone. This Discworld is a darker place that Vimes remembers too well, three decades before his title, fortune, beloved wife, and impending first child. Worse still, the murderer he's pursuing has been transported back also. Worst of all, it's the eve of a fabled street rebellion that needlessly destroyed more than a few good (and not so good) men. Sam Vimes knows his duty, and by changing history he might just save some worthwhile necks—though it could cost him his own personal future. Plus there's a chance to steer a novice watchman straight and teach him a valuable thing or three about policing, an …

22 editions

Time travel, barricades and a mix of humor and darkness

5 stars

It's been ages since I read any Discworld, but it seems appropriate that I came back to it with a time travel story involving a rebellion and barricades.

It's an interesting mix of serious and silly, sometimes both at once, often treating serious things as comedy and vice versa. The situation is messy, with good cops, bad cops, really bad cops, time ~cops~ monks, and a rebellion that today's Sam Vimes knows won't accomplish what it hopes to, even if it nominally succeeds. There's plenty of comedy in Vimes mentoring his younger self and trying to clean up the "old" watch just enough to keep history on track, how the ordinary citizens handle the rebellion [2], and yet it can still manage to punch you in the gut when you finally find out what the lilac sprigs in the present are all about.

Night Watch is in the …

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5 stars