In the satirical novel Guards! Guards!, a secret brotherhood of (mostly witless) Ankh-Morpork citizens is led by the Supreme Grand Master, who wants to summon a dragon to the city to wreak havoc. They plan to invent a long-lost king to defeat the dragon and end the oppression they think they are experiencing. Of course, plans go awry and this story intersects with that of the Night Watch, a small group of officers who get no respect because their role is essentially pointless given that crime in Ankh-Morpork has been organized and legalized (e.g., a guild of thieves, a guild of assassins, etc.).
This is my 4th Discworld book, and I think it’s time to admit that these books, and maybe Terry Pratchett in general, are just not for me. This saddens me because it’s such an extensive world with so many different focuses across the novels, and Pratchett’s writing is just so funny. However, there’s just something about them that keeps me from ever thinking about them as more than just “fine.” I’m usually happy I read them, but they’re not as compelling as I wish they were.
The humor of these books is what kept me reading Guards! Guards! I love the cleverness and the puns and the way that Pratchett starts a sentence and subverts your expectations of how that sentence will end. For example: “Thick coils of smoke hung in the air, perhaps to avoid touching the walls.” The footnotes also add humor: “He nodded to the troll which was employed by the [tavern] as a splatter*” with the added footnote “Like a bouncer, but trolls use more force.” I love clever word-play and unexpectedly laughing at what I’m reading. The world-building is also interesting and so far seems to be consistent across the novels (e.g., comments about how the river is practically solid).
It’s hard to say what didn’t work for me. I think it’s partly that the characters just didn’t grab me. Two members of the Night Watch in particular are nearly indistinguishable from each other. We jump around a lot from POV to POV and get very little information about the internal experiences of any of the characters, with the possible exception of Sam Vimes, the captain of the Night Watch. There was also some fatphobia that I didn’t care for. I’m not sure what else keeps these books from being more engaging for me, but I suspect that this is going to be my last Discworld book for quite a while.