Review of The Night Watch by Terry Pratchett (2002, Doubleday)

It’s the anniversary of the Lilac uprising and the more senior members of the Night Watch make their annual pilgrimage to the Cemetery of Small Gods and the grave of John Keel and the six other watchmen who gave their lives. Commander Sam Vimes was a week-old lance-corporal at the time of the revolution that saw the fall of a tyrant patrician and the end to his secret police. Thirty years later he’s head of the Night Watch and a Duke and about to become a father for the first time. He’s also in pursuit of a charismatic psychopathic killer, who’s been cornered at the Unseen University. As Vimes pursues Carcer over the rooftops a terrible storm is brewing and with a large lightning strike the duo find themselves back at the time of Lilac revolution. Carcer’s first act is to kill John Keel leaving Vimes to step into the role to make history unfold roughly as intended while a group of monks seek a way to get him back to the future. Making history repeat, however, is not straightforward, especially with Carcer doing his best to stop the revolution and Vimes having to keep an eye on his younger self.

The Night Watch is the sixth book in the City Watch series, and #29 in the Discworld series. In this outing, Commander Sam Vimes has to contend with quantum physics, revolution, and a serial killer as he’s hurtled back in time to the Lilac uprising. It is a time when Sergeant John Keel of the Treacle Mine Road Watch House sought to barricade the surrounding streets to protect citizens from the secret police and a mad patrician seeking to cling onto power. Only Keel is dead at the hands of Carcer, the serial killer he’s pursuing, and Vimes has to take his place to ensure that history maintains it approximate course. While he does his best to organize his old watch house and lookout for his youthful self, a monastic order of time-altering monks work on a way to send him back to the future. As usual, Pratchett uses the Discworld series to explore (pseudo)scientific ideas such as quantum physics, time travel and craniometry, and social themes such as secret police and social revolution, through a lens shot through with humour and observational insight. The story is a little slow to get going, but by the latter half it’s found its stride gaining verve, pace and wit. Vimes is in his element as he organizes his lacklustre Night Watch, seeks to ensure that the Lilac Revolution takes place, and that he’s a future to return to. It’s engaging and entertaining fare, light-but-big hearted, with a good dose of incidental, thoughtful, reflexive social commentary.

Review of Mort by Terry Pratchett (Corgi, 1987)

Unsure what to do with his awkward, gangly child, Mort’s father takes him to the local village fair in the hope that he is offered an apprenticeship.  The last boy left, shortly before midnight a stranger arrives on a large stallion and offers Mort a post.  But being Death’s apprentice is not quite what Mort has in mind, especially when his new master seems distracted, his adopted daughter is distant, and his manservant standoffish.  After only a couple of mentoring trips, Mort is tasked with shepherding two souls into the afterlife.  But rather than simply witnessing Princess Keli’s death he intervenes, slaying her would-be assassin, altering fate and history.  It’s not the wisest of career moves, but rather than coming clean he persists with his folly.  

The recent passing of Terry Pratchett prompted me to scan along my shelf and half of his books to re-read one.  Mort was the most obvious given the topic is death and one of its two principle characters is Death.  Through a story that’s a kind of sorcerer’s apprentice for the Discworld, Pratchett approaches death, fate and history with his usual wit, imagination, invention and humanism.  The characterisation is excellent, especially Death and his mid-existence crisis.  Whilst the story is quite linear it’s difficult to fault its execution, being entirely captivating and it was a rare moment when I didn’t have a smile on my face.  In the tale Pratchett speculates that when one dies they get the afterlife they foretell, in which case I suspect he’s now playing the role of Mort and no doubt loving it.

Review of Snuff by Terry Pratchett (Corgi 2011)

Commander Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch is a city man and workaholic and has little interest in a holiday in the countryside at the ancestral home of his aristocratic wife, Sybil.  Nevertheless, he’s been packed off for two weeks of rest and recuperation in the stately home and to introduce Sam junior to the delights of rural pursuits.  The staff and tenants of their vast estate are as happy with Vimes’ presence as he is himself and they become even hostile when he starts to pick away at their social norms and to investigate rumours of a terrible crime.  After finding the mutilated body of a goblin and being accused of murdering a local blacksmith he swings into full action, along with the local constable and Willikins his gentleman’s gentleman, despite the fact that he is out of his jurisdiction and operating in a culture very different to the streets of his native city.

Both Terry Pratchett and Commander Sam Vimes are in fine form in Snuff.  Pratchett uses Vimes’ visit to his wife’s ancestral home to parody rural high society and the novels of Jane Eyre and her contemporaries, as well as more recent productions such as Downton Abbey, as well as explore heavier issues such as racism, exploitation and slavery.  To this end, Vimes performs his usual role of flawed emancipator and mediator, who believes in fairness and justice, but is happy to bend a few rules to combat prejudice and discrimination.  The story lacks some of the light humour that pervades most of the Discworld series, instead relying on some fair obvious satire, but makes up for it in the fullness of the plot, the action sequences, and its thoughtful engagement with somewhat weighty themes.  The characterisation is very nicely done, as are the keen social observations.  Overall, a solid, entertaining edition to Vimes’ thread in the Discworld series.