Men at Arms

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 there's some very 90s takes on race relations which is, y'know, appropriate for a book from ‘93, but they're not too outdated and in some cases they are insightful.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).