Reviews with content warning for Violence - Guards! Guards!

This is where the dragons went. They lie... Not dead, not asleep. Not waiting, because waiting implies expectation. Possibly the word we're looking for here is... dormant.

I wanted to start 2023 off with something more light-hearted, and Guards! Guards! ended up fitting the bill perfectly. I'd never read a Discworld book before, the sheer number of them had intimidated me in the past. However, I discovered a little while back that there were subseries that were mostly self-contained, and off to the races I was!

As for Guards! Guards! itself, I have to say that I really enjoyed Terry Pratchett's style of humor, underlaid with a bit of seriousness. It was wonderful being dragged along through the streets and back-alleys of Ankh-Morpork, getting to know the City Watch, the locals, and their customs (good and bad).

I'm looking forward to working my way through the rest of the City Watch series.

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breadwitchery's review against another edition

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funny lighthearted fast-paced

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

4.0

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crufts'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? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I "read" Guards! Guards! twice: once in the original novel format and once in the BBC radio play. Both are good.
Although this is Book 8 of the Discworld series, there's minimal connection to the preceding novels and you can read it as a standalone.

Samuel Vimes is the Captain of the Watch in the sprawling city of Ankh-Morpork. But his cynical, jaded, depressed attitude is shaken up by the arrival of a naive and idealistic new recruit (Carrot Ironfoundersson). Tasked to retrieve a magic book stolen from the Unseen University, the watch discovers a conspiracy seeking to summon a dragon, unseat the city's ruler and take the throne. With the help of dragon breeder Lady Sybil Ramkin, can the watch restore order to their beloved city?

There's a lot to enjoy about this book. My favourite points were:
(1) Cynicism vs Idealism
This is one of the thematic conflicts of the novel, with wholesome results.

(2) The romance
This wasn't crucial to the plot, but it was cute and it added to some characters' development. Also, the romantic interest character subverts a lot of tropes/stereotypes of what the romantic interest character is "meant" to be.

(3) The red herring "sordid past"
There is a running reference about the Captain's depression being caused by his mysterious sordid past, when he was supposedly "brung low by a woman". This is a red herring, and the actual cause is much better than the mystery.

A good read overall. If you enjoyed this, you might also enjoy other books in the Discworld City Watch storyline, such as Night Watch.

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woweewhoa's review against another edition

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adventurous funny lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes

4.5

A fun time! I'm working through all the Discworld books in order and currently this is my favorite one! I really enjoyed all the characters and the comedic timing was top notch. I listen to the audiobooks of the books and the narration was really good and characterful for this one for sure!

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leanneymu's review

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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? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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theirgracegrace's review

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adventurous funny lighthearted medium-paced

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

4.25

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caseythereader's review against another edition

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adventurous funny lighthearted fast-paced

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

4.0

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booksthatburn's review against another edition

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adventurous funny reflective fast-paced

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

3.5

GUARDS! GUARDS! is about the City Watch, the folks who come running when someone else is in danger, but lately they've mostly run into their ale cups. Then someone summons a dragon...

I like the guards, and the dragon lady. The stuff about the swamp dragons was great! The villains were fine but underdeveloped. They mostly existed to make the large dragon appear. The main villain had a lot more development and many complex thoughts about what he was doing and why/how, but since it's mostly him monologuing in his thoughts it felt flat in places.

I'm getting tired of this air where everyone but the main character knows what sex is and how it works. It's been in the other Discworld books I've read until this point, and in GUARDS! GUARDS! in particular the density of sly references to the idea of sex felt so high that it crosses over from "joke that older readers will get" to "joke that younger readers won't get but will probably notice that there's something they're not getting". The series isn't specifically aimed at kids, thought it would be fine for teen readers, so it's not inappropriate, really, just tiresome.
A good start to the City Watch sub-series, worth reading if you're trying to read a bunch of the series, but not spectacular on its own. It's clearly setting up something with Carrot to pay off in a later book, so it's important for that arc.

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