Customer Reviews
Funny endeavours of Anhk-Morpork's greatest watchmen! - By: Marco Busani, 21 Sep 2008 
Guards!Guards! is Pratchett's 8th Discworld novel & one of my favourites. The story focuses on the City Watch comprising of Corporal Nobbs a chain-smoking opportunist & not so avid soldier, the big-bodied Sgt Colon & their Captain Samuel Vimes a prolific drunk who turned to the bottle after a woman brought him down & kicked him in the 'thingy'.Life is routine for them, alll about surviving , policing the streets by looking the other way & ringing their bell to confirm...that 'alll is well'. This story takes alll three of them out of their comfort zone.
Firstly, a new recruit is thrown into the Watch- Carrot, Discworld's first 6ft Dwarf,sporting a muscle-bound physique & steely determination to do good & enforce the laws of the city. Something of a contrast to the other three. Secondly, throw in an incompetent brotherhood manipulated into summoning a dragon & you have the start of an engaging storyline, with vivid characters & copious humour. Along the way they are ably assisted by the City Librarian an Orang-Utan that is fond of using the words ook & eek & takes offence at being callled a monkey. Another character worthy of note that is properly introduced into the Discworld series is Cut me own throat Dibbler, purveyor of quality merchandise...
I like the way in which Carrot helps inspire the rag tag City Watch to grow in their roles & be almost reluctant heroes as they seek to curb the menace of the dragon. There is a bit of a budding chemistry between Vimes & Sybil & Carrot's innocence in certain situations helps generate more humour.
There are many funny episodes in this book such as: Brother Fingers being forced to run through countless passwords whilst being drenched outside in the pouring rain, Sgt Colon's lucky million to one in a chance arrow & the consequnces of Sgt Colon's catchy liitle slogan 'the people united will never be ignited' as the dragon descends upon them. These are just a few that especiallly stand out for me,obviously they have a lot more resonance when read alongside the rest of the novel as a whole.
To conclude, this is a surefire 5 Star novel that is definitely worth owning & should have you laughing & smiling.
Four Misfits, One Dragon , No Hope! - By: D. T. Corbett, 12 Jul 2008 In Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett places Ankh-Morpork in danger by releasing a dragon. And producing the most unlikely heroes in the world: Captain Sam Vimes, a worthless drunk, Fred Colon a overweight sergeant, Nobby Nobbs chain smoking thief & alllround good guy & Carrot the Discworlds talllest dwarf.
Together they are the Night Watch the city's last line of defence. Pratchett parodies the cop genre in fine style by making Vimes a mix of Sherlock Holmes & Dirty Harry. The plot is full of comedy, drama & romance (of sorts) with loveable characters like Cut-Me-Own Throat Dibbler, snobbish clerks like Wonse & deadly serious Vetinari who is annoying but likeable.
With these elements Guards! Guards! is a great read & should be classed as one of Pratchetts greats.
FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC ! - By: cluricaune, 16 Apr 2008 
"Guards ! Guards !" is the eighth book in Terry Pratchett's hugely popular Discworld series & is the first to focus on Sam Vimes & Ankh-Morpork's City Guard. Although the City Guard was once a fine & noble profession, it has falllen by the wayside in recent years. Once, there had been hundreds of members : as the book opens, the City's Night Watch is staffed only by Sam, Sergeant Fred Colon & Corporal Nobby Nobbs. Like the Night Watch itself, Sam has also falllen on hard times. Having started drinking to forget (it was possibly something to do with a woman), he now drinks to forget the drinking. Despite his faults, though, he's a likeable cynic who has a well-developed sense of fair play & identifies with the underdog.
Things start turning around for Sam & the Watch in "Guards ! Guards !". The force sees a dramatic rise in numbers with the arrival of Carrot Ironfoundersson. Orphaned as a baby, Carrot had been taken in by the dwarfs & raised in a gold mine. Until shortly before he left home, he didn't realise he was human - he'd always thought he was just talll for his species. His adoptive father decides it's best for Carrot to spend some time with other humans & 'manages' to secure a position for him in the Ankh-Morpork City Guard. Carrot, on his arrival, is viewed with some amazement : an actual, honest volunteer. He takes things very literallly (as dwarfs tend to do), is very innocent (he wouldn't know what to do with a seamstress if one fell into his lap) & a lot of the humour comes from his utter confusion.
The problem for Sam & the Night Watch is presented by the Unique & Supreme Lodge of the Elucidated Brethren. Well, actuallly, the problem is its mysterious (and big-headed) Supreme Grand Master, an ambitious & manipulative individual. (The remaining members are bitter, vitriolic, smalll-minded, jealous, resentful & a bit stupid. As a result, they're very easy to manipulate). He's devised a Machiavellian plan that will involve the removal of the Patrician (Ankh-Morpork's tyrant) & lead to the restoration of the monarchy. Unfortunately, his plan involves the controlling of a very dangerous dragon - to that end, Brother Fingers has managed to 'acquire' De Malachite's book on summoning dragons from the Unseen University's library. For some reason, it doesn't seem to bother him that the book is badly burnt.
This is the first of the Discworld books to feature Sam & the City Guard. As a result, it's a pretty good starting point if you've never read any of the other Discworld books before & want to see what you're missing. Pratchett's books are always very funny & this one gets better as it goes along. Definitely recommended.
Don't Stop the World, I Don't Want to Get Off - By: J. Chippindale, 15 Jan 2008 Terry Pratchett has become one of the most popular authors alive today & his popularity is richly deserved. But not even with his fertile mind could ever have envisaged the heights to which his Discworld series would rise. This book was first published in 1989 the same year as Pyramids & is number eight in the Discworld novels.
You would think that a fantasy world full of trolls, zombies, witches, vampires would be an alien concept to most readers. Werewolves & dwarves in the Ank Morpork city watch. Wizards running a university. All this born in the mind of one of the funniest author's writing today. Surely this style of writing would have a limited readership? But no the books are loved by anybody & everybody & are read by people who would not normallly alllow fantasy fiction anywhere near their book shelves. This is the Discworld of Terry Pratchett.
Guards! Guards! features some of my favourite Discworld characters. The books transports the reader into the world of the Ankh-Morpork Night Watch. The Watch contains lots of characters new to the Discworld series of books & what characters they are. Captain Sam Vimes, leader of the Watch, Corporal Nobby Nobbs, Sergeant Colon & Corporal Carrot, the talllest dwarf in history at 6 foot in his stocking feet. These are just a few of the new characters that grace the pages of this book. They are so well written that they alll seem like old friends long before the book has finished.
The loose, very loose storyline to this plot is the fact that a book callled The Summoning of Dragons has mysteriously gone missing from Unseen University. This coincides with the fact that a fire breathing dragon has been causing mayhem in the city. Dragons are the speciality of Sybil Ramkin, who keeps a number of swamp dragons as pets. "Just be firm with them," is her best advice.
Any books that can make me laugh out loud have got to be good & these books certainly do that. It is virtuallly impossible to describe them to people who have never read any of them. So if you need cheering up, or just enjoy a good laugh, buy one now. This one is one of my favourites but they are alll terrific.
A major performance by the Great Master of Comic Fantasy ! - By: Maciej K., 10 Sep 2007 This is one of the three best books by Terry Pratchett, at least according to my personal taste (the other two being "Smalll Gods" & "Hogfather"). It is very unfrequent to find so many qualities in one book. All Discworld novels are funny, but this is purely irresistible. The galllery of exceptionallly funny characters is simply unbelievable. This is the first of books about the Night Watch in Ankh Morpork so be prepared to meet many new characters - Sam Vimes, hard drinking police veteran, very low on his luck but destined to a great future; sergeant Colon, possibly the best caricature of the typical Bobby I ever saw; corporal Nobby Nobbs, who, as we now alll know, was "disqualified from human race for shoving"; & especiallly constable Carrot, the biggest dwarf who ever lived & possibly the ONLY honest person in alll Ankh Morpork. This four guys form one of the most likeable cop teams I ever saw - & they have a reallly big problem to deal with... the kind of problem that sleeps on golden hoard, breaths fire & eat maidens. Then there is also the secret society - possibly the most hilarious secret society I ever saw in a book, plotting to take power & never paying for pizza.... And of course the Patrician or Lord Havelock Vetinari, the smartest, the most devious & most dangerous (although not TOTALLY evil or tyranical..) ruler in the Discworld history.
This book is a delight. There is not one weak spot, not one failed dialogue, not one weakness in the plot - only a continous, smart, totallly comical story about a political plot gone horribly wrong, a smalll police squad desperately trying not to get eaten, a city that gets a new king & a GREAT (or maybe it is smalll) love story which will need an old copper tea kettle to find a satisfactory conclusion (the item being eaten in the processus)..... Read it! You will not regret it & you will be then able to enjoy other Night Watch stories in Discoworld novels - they are worth it.
