Opinion

Night Watch

Written by: Terry Pratchett
Published by Doubleday

Due to a complicated convergence of circumstances during the chase after a violent criminal, Sam Vimes, Commander of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, is thrown back in time to the day when, as a probationary member of the watch himself, he was taken under the wing of Sergeant John Keel and started down the path that led him to become to man he now is. Unfortunately Carcer, that same violent criminal, has travelled through time with him, and one of his first acts is to murder John Keel. Vimes is faced with the job of taking Keel's place as the city grows restless under the heel of a despotic ruler and the train of events which will end in the creation of The People's Republic of Treacle Mine Road and Keel's scheduled death rolls inevitably on.

Rather a change of pace for the Discworld here, and generally that's a good thing. Taking Sam Vimes out of his own era and into one only dimly familiar to him and entirely unfamiliar to the reader is a definite bonus, as much of the established elements of the Ankh-Morpork-set stories were tending towards the formulaic: the Guilds, Vimes's regular manipulation by the Patrician, ongoing jokes about the Guild of Seamstresses, etc. Night Watch shows many of these elements at the point of their establishment, and in some cases the ways this happens are exactly as we might expect, while others (actually seeing Vetinari in action during his pre-Patrician career as an assassin, for instance) are a pleasant surprise. By putting Vimes into his own history, Pratchett opens up all of the traditional fantasy quandries of changing events, while supplying a useful get-out clause via recent additions to the series The History Monks (See Thief Of Time).

The downside to this approach, unfortunately, is that in terms of the overall series, the book is of almost no consequence. The city's history remains intact, if more fleshed-out, the characters of the present aren't really changed, and there are no ongoing ramifications that I can see for the world that he has so carefully developed over the last twenty six books. Of course, on another level, discussing the lack of consequence in a fantasy book is somewhat redundant anyway.

Still, this is primarily a character-driven book, and alongside the Vimes and Vetinari we know are the younger Vimes, as well as earlier versions of Sergeant Colon and Nobby Nobbs, and various other characters who have previously been supporting players, such as Rosie Palm of the Seamstresses. As a character study, the book is actually one of the strongest for some time, and asks interesting questions about motivation and conviction in difficult circumstances. That the People's Republic ends up partitioning over a quarter of the city, essentially by being non-violent and untroublesome, offers an ironic twist on the real world, where violence and aggression tend to be the tools of first choice.

Indeed, reading this book, one can't help but wonder how much specific comment on current real-world events Pratchett intended. At a time when a real focus is being placed on governmental over-reaction to perceived security threats, the use of comments such as Hard times demand hard measures. Every leader knows that and You must understand that in times of national emergency we cannot be concerned with the so-called rights of- can surely be no coincidence.

A break with what some were starting to regard as a rather formulaic approach is probably no bad thing for the Discworld, and Night Watch certainly offers that. At times, it almost feels like a book from a totally different series, which could be seen as a drawback, but which I'm choosing to view as a good thing. It's a darker book than its predecessors, but then Pratchett's tendency has been towards the dark as the series has progressed. At times it's a surprisingly difficult read, perhaps because even on the Discworld, the inevitability of Death has never been more apparent.

Recommended.