Night Watch

by Terry Pratchett

Terry Pratchett is revered across the globe as a witty fantasy writer and creator of the Discworld series. My understanding is that various of his books focus on different characters and areas of not just the world, but particularly the dusty city of Ankh-Morpork. Night Watch, then, is a book that focuses on the police force of that city.

A little context as to how I got here. The thing is, I never really "got" Terry Pratchett's work. When I was younger, I had a friend who was deeply into his books, to the point that I wondered what I was missing out on. I read through The Colour of Magic, which was... horribly, horribly dull. It felt like it was trying to tell a massive in-joke that I wasn't a part of, especially earlier on. I thought it would get better with The Light Fantastic, but I simply couldn't make it all the way to the end of Rincewind's irritating mis-adventure. Years later at university, the ameteur dramatics society were taking in pitches for the end-of-year play, to which several plays of Pratchett's work were pitched by different individuals. I was eventually cast as Leonal Felmet in Stephen Briggs's stage adaptation of Wyrd Sisters. This meant I did a bit of research and read the original book... to my great dissatisfaction. For a story that was supposed to make Macbeth more humorous, it didn't half make a chore out of it. The play was arguably a better version, truncating a lot of the duller sections, although we did mercifully reinstate an end-scene to wrap things up a bit better. Cut to the Band of Bothers podcast. Tuomas (who plays Barlam) and Steve (the DM) are both big Discworld fans. Steve, in particular, simply couldn't fathom why I wasn't into it. He insisted I read Night Watch, lending me an old worn copy. So here I am, having read it, and cashing in my thoughts.

The Story

The story follows Sam Vimes, a stiff-upper-lip kind of officer, as he hunts down the slippery, silvery-tongued no-gooder, Carcer. After a slow and frankly drawn-out start, Sam finds himself whisked off into the past. I must admit, I didn't see that coming. I do prefer not knowing anything about the story of a book when going into it, as it encourages me to read it without preconception, so the timetravel aspect was a surprise. Carcer has also slipped back into the recent past, striking down a certain John Keel. Keel, as it turns out, was the man responsible for making Sam Vimes into the law-abiding enforcer he is. It then becomes his job to make sure the younger Sam will continue to become him in the future. Thus, the story follows Vimes as he forces his way into the old city night watch, teaches Vimes the things Keel taught him, and hunt down Carcer before he changes history in the worst possible way. How is best to do this? By pretending to be John Keel, himself.

It's a fun concept, one with plenty of ups and downs. Let's start with the ups. It's well written. The analagies and turn of phrase that Pratchett makes are all wonderful. His descriptives for setting up the city of Ankh-Morpork, including later additions, make for some excellent world-building. Vimes is also a lot of fun as he blusters his way into the city watch and his struggles to earn the respect of his fellow watchmen. The trials Vimes faces, in particular how he deals with people from the public to the watch themselves, is compelling.

The downs are plentiful. The biggest being that it's a story about time travel. This actually ruins a lot of tension, although didn't necessarily have to. For example, Pratchett contiuously has Vimes refer to future versions of events and his knowledge of what happens to people of the city and the watch. It should give a sense that not all's right, but it instead really took me out of the narrative whenever those aspects were brought up. It didn't happy just once, either. It happened a lot. Knowing about the future gives Vimes a bit too much complacency in some situations where he actually comes across as annoying to read and the conversations he's in a bit pointless. A lot of the book feels very superfluous when he knows what things are going to happen, tells the reader about them, then we get to witness everything that then happens in real time. It's very annoying. Vimes is also very concerned with how he will get back to the future, understandably so, but as he takes the place of John Keel in history, I rather expected... a different turn of events to happen. A much better one than what actually happens by the end.

There are plenty of broad characters to like in Night Watch, not least of all Nobby - a street child who keeps his ear to the ground and stolen spoons in his pockets. As for the watchmen, themselves, they often get lost within one another. It's bizarre, as there are plenty of interesting ones to read about, but only later on in the story. Earlier on, they're all very much the same character and blend into one. Whether that's intentional or not, it actually was difficult to distinguish between them until certain incidents involving barricades, by which point they were suddenly very trusting of Vimes (as Keel), on the whole. It's sort of bizarre to read sections that feel like they take an age to move along, then suddenly read a section where it feels like you've skipped two pages. The book does a lot of this rubber-banding kind of style, and I'm not sure I enjoyed that all too much.

Overall

Overall, Night Watch is perhaps the best Discworld book I've read out of the paltry selection that have thus far failed to enthrall me. The aspects I liked best were most certainly the world-building of Ankh-Morpork city, itself, with names of streets and sectors constantly being dropped in perfectly to intrigue me further. The aspects I liked least involved the way time travel actually works, as well as Carcer's somewhat muted involvement to immediate incidents, even if he had a sort of quiet threat that would grow if left unchecked by Vimes.

Do I recommend it? Not really, but at least it was better than everything else so far. I haven't given up on Pratchett yet, though. If you feel I should read a particular Pratchett book, then by all means suggest away!

Night Watch by Terry Pratchett