Nearly twenty years ago I gave Pratchett’s Discworld books a chance. I had a long commute and been gifted audiobooks of the first few books in the series. I listened to about the first three books and then decided they weren’t for me. They felt gimmicky with a focus on clever ways of saying modern things without using current words. For some reason, calling popcorn ‘banged grains’ sticks out in my memory as an example. But over the years I kept seeing the devotion readers have for Discworld and multiple suggestions of entry points to the series (there seems to be some consensus that the first few books aren’t the best of the bunch and many of them standalone just fine). When needing a book for the ‘Elephant’ square in bingo, Emmalita suggested any Discworld book would count since the world rides on the backs of four elephants. Guards! Guards! has been suggested for Dungeons & Dragons players so I decided to put a hold on it from the library. Unfortunately it didn’t arrive in time for bingo and I used (another Emmalita suggestion!) Of Dragons, Feasts, and Murder instead.
At the beginning, I was amused by a secret cult trying to get rid of the Patrician and institute a monarchy by summoning a dragon and having their chosen ‘hero’ slay it. Everyone knows that by killing a dragon one can become king (here come the tropes!). This was immediately followed up by a D&D reference.
Thunder rolled…. It rolled a six.
Good, good. However, the portrayal of Captain Vimes, head of the Watch, and his constant drunkenness was very off putting. The way Vimes is depicted screams that he is an alcoholic. His lack of sobriety is played for laughs and while that would have been amusing to me in the past, it now rubs me the wrong way. Alcoholism shouldn’t be portrayed as an amusing trait.
Overall, I did enjoy the book. I agree that if you are a D&D fan, this could be a good entry to Discworld. The send up of fantasy tropes was entertaining. One doesn’t need to be particularly deep into fantasy to appreciate what Prachett has done in that regard. And I greatly enjoyed one of the Patrician’s speeches as it still (sadly) resonates today, 30+ years since the book was published.
“Down there, ” he said, “are people who will follow any dragon, worship any god, ignore any iniquity. All out of a humdrum, everyday badness. Not the really high, creative loathesomeness of the great sinners, but a sort of mass-produced darkness of the soul. Sin, you might say, without a trace of originality. They accept evil not because they say yes, but because they don’t say no.”