I normally write my-version-of-reviews after I’m done reading a book, but this time I thought I’d do things differently because of the nature of the book I’m reading, which is, Guards! Guards! by Sir Terry Pratchett. It is the 8th book in the publishing order and the 1st in the City Watch series.
Initially, it seemed as though the book was following the Hero’s Journey …well…not so much a Hero but the journey of a dwarf who is not quite a dwarf – Carrot. He’s sent to the City of Ankh-Morpokh to do that which is the highest calling of a human – “join the City Watch”. Quite voluntarily as opposed to how people normally join the Watch. It is here that he meets his reporting officer Captain Vimes, Corporal “Nobby” Nobbs and Seargent Colon. They’d been quite content in their lack of a purpose for quite a while, allowing crime to thrive and all that. But Carrot’s arrival has coincided with a genuine need for the Watch to well…watch. And act. A dragon has been sighted flying and razing the city and it’s the Watch’s duty (among other aspirational, self-proclaimed Dragon Hunters) to take it down, so to speak.
– Page something“Thunder rolled….It rolled a six”.
An intersectional arc is also taking shape with a Grand Wizard presiding over a rag-tag bunch of aspirational wizards is summoning a Dragon every now and then. Curious how both these events involve a dragon. Very curious. Can’t be connected surely <blink>.
That’s where I am so far. And I am thoroughly enjoying myself.
This is not OZ 