Reviews with content warning for Racism - Men at Arms

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Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett

11 reviews

kappafrog's review against another edition

adventurous funny mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.75

Pratchett is one of my favourite authors, but this was really disappointing. The gender/sexual politics were a little dull 30 years on but took a really unpleasant turn late in the book.

Carrot becoming Angua's master after they slept together was disgusting.

The mystery was confusing and I gave up trying to figure it out myself. I really didn't like the dog subplot. Also,

whatever happened to the people Cruces shot from the Tower of Art?

Bright spots were Detritus, Cuddy, and the Via Cloaca. And of course with Pratchett there were plenty of laugh out loud moments, like the Librarian playing the organ. Still, a rare dud from one of my favourite authors.

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mrstorycraft's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny lighthearted mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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theropfather's review against another edition

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adventurous funny lighthearted mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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theaceofpages's review against another edition

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adventurous funny lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Oh man, I think this is one of my favourite Pratchett books! I mean, it's Night Watch, has amazing humour and commentary and contains some of the best characters (we have the likes of Carrot, Gaspode, Detritus, Angua, and even have a Discworld version of Da Vinci!). And we get to see a bit of the Day Watch and how they operate (maybe the Night Watch aren't quite as useless as we thought. Maybe. At least they have Carrot! Oh Carrot, you are too smart and sneaky sometimes) I loved getting some more insight into the guilds (apparently even the dogs have one!) and their messed up politics. Although given it's the Discworld and Ankh-Morpork it's really not that surprising. Definitely an entertaining read, although I would recommend you read Guards! Guards! first for the full impact

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mrkusabi's review against another edition

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adventurous funny tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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billiesgotbooks's review against another edition

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adventurous funny mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Truly love how every discworld novel ive read has been a whimsical adventure that thinly veils one of Terry's opinions on the world.

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soupply's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny inspiring mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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woweewhoa's review against another edition

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adventurous funny mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Loveable characters? Yes

4.25

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bluejayreads's review against another edition

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adventurous

Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

This book is difficult to review, for a couple reasons. One is that it's not particularly remarkable. I mean that in the sense that there's not a lot to remark on - it's still a solidly good book, with the absurd humor and wacky shenanigans you expect from a Discworld story. But nothing really jumped out at me to say "this is worth remarking about."

I think a large part of that - and the second reason it's so hard to review - was because there were just so many characters running around. There's Corporal Carrot and Captain Vimes, of course, as well as Corporal Nobbs, all of whom I'm familiar with from the last City Guard book. Then there's the three new recruits, Lance-Constable Cuddy, Lance-Constable Detritus, and Lance-Constable Angua. The obnoxious talking dog from Moving Pictures is back and only slightly less obnoxious. And that's just the major characters! There's also an assortment of dwarves and trolls, some assassin's guild members, some fool's guild members, a couple beggar's guild members, Lord Vetinari, Lady Sibyl, and I'm sure a few more that I'm not remembering off the top of my head.

With that many characters happening, the plot feels spread out and disjointed even though it really isn't. The main plot is a mystery, trying to figure out who is committing a series of murders and how they're doing it. There are also subplots of Captain Vimes' impending marriage, romance between Carrot and Angua (she's a woman and he's the protagonist of this sub-series, it was predictable), a brewing race war between dwarves and trolls, and also a scheme to depose Vetinari and put a king on the throne of Ankh-Morpork that's brought up in the beginning like it's going to be the main plot and then almost completely forgotten until the end. If this book only focused on Carrot, I think it could have been manageable. But with so many sub-plots spread out across so many characters, it lost a lot of its coherence and also a lot of its impact.

It feels like this book is trying to do a lot of social commentary in a very small space. The Night Watch gets some "diversity hires," there's a plot to give Ankh-Morpork a king again, someone invents a gun. But this book is not spectacularly long and there's so much happening that very little actually came through clearly. The messages "kings = bad" and "guns make people more violent" came through, but not very strongly. The clearest message was in support of diversity.

Don't get me wrong, this book is good. It's fun, entertaining, wacky, funny, and occasionally emotional. It's just trying to do more things than it has space for, and ends up feeling diluted and occasionally disconnected. It's still a perfectly solid book and a very enjoyable read - one of those that you don't really start to notice the issues until you try to write a book review about it - but I think it could have used a little streamlining.

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crufts's review against another edition

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adventurous funny mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

How dare Terry Prachett write so many fantastic books...
Although Men At Arms is Book 15 of the Discworld series, you only need to have read Guards! Guards! (Book 8) to understand what's going on. You might be able to read Men At Arms as a standalone, but you would miss a lot of the references.

Times are changing in the Watch of the city of Ankh-Morpork. Lord Vetinari has decreed that the Watch must take on three new "diversity hires": a troll (Detritus), a dwarf (Cuddy), and a ~~werewolf~~ woman (Angua).
The Captain of the Watch (Sam Vimes) is awkward about this, especially considering the eons-old feud between trolls and dwarves. He's even more awkward about his impending marriage to Lady Sybil Ramkin, and the fact that it dumps him into the upper crust of society - a place he has never been, and, to be honest, kind of detests.
Fortunately, young Corporal Carrot, an adopted dwarf who is two meters tall, is there to take all of these changes in his (massive) stride. And when a dangerous weapon is stolen from the Assassin's Guild, it'll take the entire Watch to hunt down who did it, and why...

Does that description make the plot sound very complicated? Honestly, it is. There are a lot of threads woven in - the marriage, the racial feud, the werewolf angle, a romance, the stolen weapon, etc. Both Vimes and Carrot (and arguably even Angua) become the "main character" at different points in the story, and they all get their own character arcs. I was shocked to realize the book is only 377 pages long because so much is accomplished.
Now, usually this kind of thing would have me complaining the book is too "cluttered". But somehow Terry Pratchett pulled it off. Maybe because the book has 4 or 5 acts (with major turning points) instead of a standard 3 acts? In any case, the book never felt overly "busy".

As usual for the Discworld, the characters were a goldmine. Not only do we see adored returning characters (Vimes, Carrot, Lady Ramkin, Lord Vetinari) but we also get some fascinating new ones (Detritus and his unusual trollish mental state, Angua's double life). We also got some great worldbuilding that dives into the Fools' Guild and the Assassins' Guild. And need I even say that there was plenty of Discworld-style humour?
To top it all off, this is the book which introduces Sam Vimes' Economic Theory of Boots, which has gone on to enter popular culture.

Men At Arms is a wonderful book and I whole-heartedly recommend it.

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