Men at Arms

This remains one of my favorite Discworld books.

higher highs and lower lows than in “guards, guards!” but I'd say better on the whole. there's some very 90s takes on race relations which is, y'know, appropriate for a book from ‘93, but they're not too outdated and in some cases they are insightful. I think most of my misgivings are on me and my poisoned brain, not on the text, really. like, jesus, it's not like he set out to write an iffy trans narrative with Angua or like he meant to imply anything about black people through parallels between the Dog Guild and real-life reactionary movements.

at any rate the book excels with other areas that aren't easy to get right, then or now. his writing of troll intelligence is a great example - its a truly alien thing he's showing, fully another race and not just another flavor of humanoid like so many fantasy beings are. it could be read as a play on the way inner-city conditions cramp many kinds of potential, but it can also be appreciated as simply a cool take on an alternate kind of cognition.

but where this book truly shines is when it talks about class and power, specifically power as an outside thing and how that violence ties to autocratic rule. that's sort of the point of the book lol but i mean, it has that point and makes it well. people often quote the Sam Vines “boots” theory, right, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. also I loved how Carrot has developed from “guards, guards!” and I love how it's clear that, while he's certainly a kind of Superman, he's internalized and learned from regular old beat down Vimes (who is of course not as beat down as he seems, and who stands in for the reader, the person who thinks they'd be the same).

SO SOOO GOOD AND SO FUNNY how did sir terry do it... love the new additions to the guard, especially angua being kind of a pathetic wet dog and cuddy & detritus' sweet relationship. (spoilers) i miss cuddy :( curse you doctor cruces... i was so scared when i thought angua died too i was like NO? But what tips you off is that Death doesn't show up... clever...!

overall i enjoyed this a lot. hopefully there's more sybil in the other city watch books though because i like her a lot... onward to the next discworld book

12th May 2023:


If Guards Guards was about saving a city, that didn't have much worth, from a dragon, then men at arms sets our protagonists against saving a city from its own vices. 

I can imagine in any other series or book Vetinari's way of letting things be would be explained away by character quirkiness and left to its own devices.

Men at arms throws itself full force into the problem. 

It questions again and again, what does it mean to let things be if the system works. Is no change at all the only way to make things function in a stable environment? Then should everything be changed?

Sir Terry Pratchett never gives out solutions in addressing these question. In fact there's no solutions every provided at all. 

He just shows the reader what a person can do if they allowed themselves and others a moment of empathy. 


I honestly never expected at all that the book would go in the direction of ethnic differences but it did and everything was depicted so brilliantly. I couldn't believe the time it was written in with how well done it is and had to look at the publishing date twice. 


My one teeny tiny grip was just Lady Sybil. I wanted to see how she would address Vimes' silent disgruntlement. But I can also see why the relationship is not addressed because the book is more about individual struggles than focusing on romance. 

Final rating: 5/5

8/10

the new characters are delightful! still many laugh out loud moments, although the important bits with edward went right over my head haha. i was touched by the unlikely racial friendship as well - that was very sweet. the ending was wrapped up very nicely. carrot is still my fav! ❤️

3.5

“If the Creator had said, “Let there be light” in Ankh-Morpork, he'd have got no further because of all the people saying “What colour?”

On the Disc, Ankh-Morpork is the place to be. The books featuring the City Watch are part of the background, history, and atmosphere of the city. For this installment of the subseries, Corporal Carrot beats the odds to solve a series of murders, seemingly with the entire city against him. Meanwhile, old-timer, Captain Vimes, is stressing over his upcoming nuptials and his promise to his bride-to-be that he's leaving the Watch.

This is notable because a book or so later, the subseries became Vimes-centric, an unusual choice to make the mentor-type character the focus instead of keeping it on Carrot, the young, charismatic hero. But Discworld never goes where you expect.

This is the book that introduces the stream of recruits representing various races of the Disc, including dwarfs and trolls, those two always-warring groups. Angua and Detritus make their debut here.

You can't beat Pratchett and the Discworld series for funny dialogue and characters that feel real. Every page has an entertaining exchange and the pace never dips

“Have - have you got an appointment?' he said.
‘I don't know,' said Carrot. ‘Have we got an appointment?'
‘I've got an iron ball with spikes on,' Nobby volunteered.
‘That's a morningstar, Nobby.'
‘Is it?'
‘Yes,' said Carrot. ‘An appointment is an engagement to see someone, while a morningstar is a large lump of metal used for viciously crushing skulls. It is important not to confuse the two, isn't it, Mr-?' He raised his eyebrows.
‘Boffo, sir. But-‘
‘So if you could perhaps run along and tell Dr Whiteface we're here with an iron ball with spi- What am I saying? I mean, without an appointment to see him? Please? Thank you.”

I love that you can pick up any book of Discworld, start reading and not feel too lost. There's enough in the exposition to get you caught up and it's otherwise entertaining enough that you can fill in the blanks, or you're having too much fun to care about what you missed. I do think reading Guards! Guards! would be helpful though, for setting up Carrot's background, Vimes past, and the evolution of the City Watch.

Guards! Guards! was the first Discworld book I read and it's a terrific introduction to Carrot, Vimes, and the Watch. Men at Arms improves on the model—the plot moves faster, the characters get new layers, and the new additions to the watch, and the series, are a delight.

I really loved this. I do believe I'll be reading the whole City Watch series, before sampling any other Discworld threads again. Somehow the other stories never please me like Vimes & company.

I guess the heart of it is the characters. I can't decide on my favorite - of course I love Carrot (as everyone does), but Angua is awesome, Cuddy and Detritus as enemies turned buddy cops are a lot of fun, Gaspode is a delight, and Colon and Vetinari are highly entertaining. And of course Vimes is Vimes (this story includes his famous theory on how the rich stay rich by their ability to spend less money, among other cynical and poignantly true observations). The only person who gets short shrift is Sybil - hopefully she'll play a bigger part in future tales.

In its way, this winds up being surprisingly political and topical, for all the silly puns and slapstick jokes. I'll say no more to avoid spoilers, but it cemented Pratchett as an author I admire.

I listened to the audio book, and its quality was very uneven. Nigel Planer is a brilliantly talented reader, and invents gorgeous voices and accents for each distinctive character. He conveys Carrot's earnest goodness particularly artfully. But it escapes me why he styled the female lead with a voice lower and more gormless than the trolls! Also, the sound quality varies from “acceptable” to “awful,” sadly.

Hunh, I don't remember reading this one, thank goodness Goodreads is there to remind me that my brain is aging. A good, twisting mystery that had me stumped to the very end. Some gasps at plot twists, some cheers at others, and lots of clarifying of how characters got from the initial City Watch book [b:Guards! Guards! 64216 Guards! Guards! (Discworld, #8; City Watch #1) Terry Pratchett https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1431127356l/64216.SY75.jpg 1128601][b:Guards! Guards! 64216 Guards! Guards! (Discworld, #8; City Watch #1) Terry Pratchett https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1431127356l/64216.SY75.jpg 1128601] to one of the first I do remember reading, [b:Thud! 62530 Thud! (Discworld, #34; City Watch #7) Terry Pratchett https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320495268l/62530.SY75.jpg 819104].

Excellent ending.

Discworld is something of a parody for all the normal fantasy tropes. And those have been shaken up and put in a blender. I was on the slow side getting involved with the series - seriously, I called myself a fantasy fan and I hadn't read the most well know humorous fantasy series ever. I couldn't even give the defense that I didn't like funny fantasy books, because I sure prefer them over the serious and dark ones.

This is the second book in the ‘inner-series series' of Discworld's City Watch - the brave men that keep the streets of Ankh-Morpork save for the innocent civilians. Or something like that. In this book, thanks to the events of Guards!Guards! (which, if you want to get involved with Discworld, would be a great place to start) we get several new recruits, all joining up to cover the ‘minority' problem the guard has been having.

You see, apparently the Watch had been entirely populated by white male humans up til now. Joining up, we have a dwarf, a troll and a woman. First thoughts on that ‘Oh, good, the Night Watch now has a female'. Ever since reading Guards!Guards!, I've liked the community feeling of the Night Watch. It had been a very small group, and the people didn't always get along but that made it all the more fun.

The plot was about like it always is in these novels, with so many things all going on at once that you cannot see how they will tie up by the end. But, oddly, tie up they always do - usually with many improbable events always drawing just the right people together for the finale.

There were several things in this book that made me chuckle, but it honestly didn't seem as humorous as the others in the series that I have read. That might possibly be because two of the characters that I find the funniest - the librarian and Death - didn't have very large roles to play in this novel. When they were around though, it was always good for a laugh.

A few other things that I must mention:

The first time I've ever heard of a dwarf abode being handled realistically. I mean, really, if dwarves are so short, why would they build to human specifications?

I loved the way trolls were depicted and especially troll and dwarf dynamics.

These books are some of the only (if not the only) to really capture the way a lot of people talk. Seriously, me and my family are always using terms like ‘thingy' and ‘what-cha-call-it'. Many, many people in this book do that, and for me that was very entertaining.

(Originally posted on my blog: http://pagesofstarlight.blogspot.com/)

Reviewed at SFF Book Review

I always worry about awarding a book five stars, because I know that one day I will read a book that deserves even more. Today is that day and this is that book. Were there a sixth star to give it, I would.

This is one of the best of the Discworld books: the writing, the characters, the story are all good. Remarkably, it's the fifteenth Discworld book, but only the second about the City Watch. Here we meet Angua, Leonard of Quirm, and Foul Ole Ron for the first time, but we'll be seeing more of them later. Sam Vimes gets married, and we marvel at the effect of cooling on the brain of a troll.

However, I'm rarely keen on Pratchett's baddies, and here he does it again: we have a caricature crazy-and-evil baddy. A baddy could just be bad, there's no need to overdo it. An author who's feeling subtle could give us a baddy who's not even really bad, but just on the wrong side through force of circumstance. Not many authors seem to be that subtle.

We also have a weapon that's not explicitly magical, and no magic has been put into it, but somehow it takes over people's minds. Also, its untrained and inexperienced users seem implausibly accurate with it; and it functions pretty well for a one-off prototype. If it's a magical weapon, I think that should be made explicit; if if isn't, then it shouldn't have quasi-magical properties. You may of course disagree.

These things don't spoil the book, which is a good book regardless, but it's not quite one of my top favourites.