books:

	Guards! Guards! Terry Pratchett HarperTorch, 2001 - 384 pages average customer review:based on 76 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

This book is a great place to pick up the Discworld series, if you haven't read any of the others don't feel threatened by it being the...like 9th book. A whole new cast of characters is introduced along with the wonderful Ankh-Morpork. It's more than just a comedy about a dragon running through the streets. (With Pratchett nothing is that easy.) It has some serious commentary on Law and on human behavior. I see Pratchett as a kind of teacher, who hides his lessons in his hugely entertaining stories.

All that said, buy this book!! I apologize for all of you who will read it and need to read the rest of the series as soon as possible. It will cost you some money (he's got somewhere around 26 Discworld books alone) but you may end up thanking me.

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I'd give it 6 stars if I could.

Guards Guards! is an amazing book. It's the first Discworld book to take place solely in the smelly city of Ankh Morpork, and Ankh Morpork being one of Pratchett's greatest creation, this book already has a charm of its own. The plot focusses on the Night Watch, a group of three drunken men. A "dwarf" who has firm beliefs about the law. He unfortunetely doesn't realize that in Ankh Morpork, there's such thing as "legal crime" so he goes about arresting thieves guild members, and Vimes has to teach him how Ankh Morpork works. Meanwhile, some cultists are trying to summon a dragon in an effort to take over the city...

The best character is Captain Vimes. When the book starts out, he is at the bottom of the pecking order of the city. He begins to straighten up, though, and near the end, he is a competent and witty officer of the law. There's a good part where Vimes has two men put in jail, and when he is told that the jail isn't very strong and that the prisoners will eventually be able to break out, he responds "I hope so, because the very first drain we come to, you're going to drop the key down it."

The other characters have their ins and outs. Vimes is the star of the show, but the rest of the Night Watch has its moments. Lord Vetinari, ruler of Ankh Morpork, is also a good character. His dark philosophy and strange opinions on how to run the city make the book even more fun to read. And the dragon just makes it better.

So overall, GET THIS BOOK, it's one of the best in the Discworld series, and should not be missed.

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Who Dares Wins

There are two books in the diskworld series that stands out before all others: "Guards! Guards!" and "Reaper Man". In Guards! the reader has the exquisite pleasure of following the exploits of the hopefull new recruits in the Night Watch. Meaning, the recruits the Day Watch in Ankh-Morpork passed over... I really would not spoil your enjoyment of this book by revealing too much beforehand. Suffice to say that this is one of Terry Pratchetts Masterworks.


Funny, funny man.

I don't like to do things easy. I picked up this book in an airport on a business trip. I had never read Terry Pratchett before, but had heard him mentioned by some people that I work with. All I can say is that they are correct! The book was filled with vivid characters that made me laugh. It included a dragon that wasn't quite right, and alcoholic and some bad guys. Seems simple doesn't it? Well this author has created a world with it's own rules. All of the above characters are woven into a tapestry that takes a comical look at a society of laws. There is a message in there somewhere and when I finish wiping the tears of laughter from my eyes I'll figure it out. It is now my understanding that there are 20 something Discworld books and I will have to find them all now. Guess my business trips will be covered for the foreseeable future.

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One of my favorites of the series so far

This was my sixth visit to Discworld, and the most enjoyable stay so far. This is the first of the ?City Watch? sub-series, which fans often nominate as their favorite. These stories focus on the criminally understaffed city guards of Ahnk-Morpork (four employees total), lead by the depressed, sotted, but nearly heroic Captain Vimes. Pratchett gets a lot of heroic fantasy parody material out of this concept, but it also gives him a chance for good character work. In this novel, he also plays around with the stereotypical fantasy dragon and has quite a blast with it (excuse the pun). The story construction is the best I?ve read from Discworld. Unfortunately, I?ve noticed that my attention always begins slipping in the last third of any Discworld novel; Pratchett?s ceaseless comic parading eventually becomes wearisome after two hundred pages of it. Nonetheless, the series continues to strengthen with each episode I read, and I'm eager to read more of the City-Watch series.

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, page 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16

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