"Guards! Guards!" by Terry Prachett

I’m really not sure if I liked this book or not. This was my first foray into the Discworld (and my introduction to Terry Prachett as an author) and I’m sad to say that I was disappointed by it. It’s frustrating because I found myself really enjoying Prachett’s writing style—his sense of humor certainly worked for me—but I could not get invested in the characters or story being told. My gripe with “Guards, Guards!” was that for so much of it, I just didn’t care. It’s a difficult criticism to levy because I don’t know what the solution to it would actually be. Over the course of the book, Vimes becomes more compelling, but still not to an extent that I really felt invested in him or his comrades.

Many elements of the story are intentionally predictable. Prachett is playing into and/or satirizing various fantasy tropes and is not ashamed of it. It’s a very positive mark in this books favor; several of the satirical works I’ve engaged with recently act embarrassed to be what they are. Prachett knew exactly what he was writing and reveled in it. For something to be recognizable as satire, it has to in some ways be the thing it’s satirizing.

At the same time this subversion works against it sometimes. Carrot is initially painted to be the hero of the novel (this is also alluded to later in the book very directly) but after the opening segment it really felt like he fell to the wayside. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this but the end result was that he didn’t feel worth the introduction he got.

I wouldn’t go as far as to call any single aspect of the book entirely lackluster. Despite my complaint about a lack of investment in the characters, I do think that the characters were fleshed out and consistent. In concept the story sounds appealing, and there were many elements that I did like—both in terms of plot and character moments—but as an entire package it was marred by a nagging feeling that something was missing. I could not say exactly what.

While I’m still not sure if this book worked for me or not, it has increased my interest in Discworld. I will definitely seek out more of it at some point in the future. Though probably not another book in the City Watch series.