Night Watch

From LeoWiki

Score	Title	Author	Genre
7.7	Night Watch	Terry Pratchett	Comic Fantasy

Technophilia	8
Secularity	8
Personal Tilt	7

Night Watch is yet another one of those books about the midlife crisis of Commander Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch and how he automartyrs himself. In that subsubgenre, it's not as good as Jingo or Feet-of-Clay, but it is probably better than The Fifth Elephant, Men-at-Arms, and Guards!Guards!.

This time around, Vimes falls through a time portal 30 years into the past of Ankh-Morpork. Back there, he meets himself as a young recruit and re-experiences first-hand the fun of living under the mad Lord Winder and the secret police of professional torturers. Oh, and the city watch at the time is entirely composed of WASPs (wHuman Ankh-sMorpork Pagans).

Conveniently enough, a serial killer also drops into the same branching time portal and murders the mentor of Young Vimes just as Old Vimes begins looking much like that same mentor. I dare you to guess where that is going.;)

What remains for Old Vimes to do but to take to the streets, erect barricades along with the rest of the oppressed masses, sing the national anthem, and lead the Revolutions? Exactly. Well, actually, he only does three of those four things. I'm not about to break with ancient reviewing tradition and make an accurate synopsis. That wouldn't be about square.

This is a book I would love for to have been written by China Mieville. In fact, there are quite a lot of Pratchett books that I would love for to have been written by China Mieville. In other words, they'd have the same plot and basic cast, but they'd be far more immersive and R-rated.:)

Anyways, Night Watch is a decent Pratchett book. I am highly looking forward to the paperback release of Monstrous Regiment. It sounds like a very promising stand-alone novel.