Rave Review: "Guards! Guards!" by Terry Pratchett
Quick Summary
Genre: Fantasy, humor
Back Cover: "This is where the dragons went. They lie... not dead, not asleep, but... dormant. And although the space they occupy isn't like normal space, nevertheless they are packed in tightly. They could put you in mind of a can of sardines, if you thought sardines were huge and scaly. And presumably, somewhere, there's a key..."
Read Time: 1 day
Rating: 5 stars
Review
This is an early Discworld novel, and many of the Discworld novels I read before it mentioned the City Watch quite a bit as a present force, so I was surprised to learn that the City Watch was, in the early Discworld, a non-factor full of nobodies and drunks. I think it adds color, though, so I enjoyed their interactions and unwillingness to really do anything, as well as Carrot's culture clash.
And of course, I'm a fan of pretty much any book that has dragons in it. Both of the dragons in this book were great.
I also liked Lord Vetinari's depiction in this installation. In the other Discworld novels I've read, I've understood that he's a tyrant, but he always comes off more as an administrator or bureaucrat. Which is true, but in this novel, I saw him in a completely different light. Specifically, the realization that in his cell, the door is locked from the inside, protecting him from the outside world instead of vice versa. That, combined with his cold ruthlessness and the fact he had a key to the cell the whole time, made me see him much more as a tyrant than anything in the other books I've read.
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