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Night Watch (Discworld #29)
One moment, Sir Sam Vimes is in his old patrolman form, chasing a sweet-talking psychopath across the rooftops of Ankh-Morpork. The next, he's lying naked in the street, having been sent back thirty years courtesy of a group of time-manipulating monks who won't leave well enough alone. This Discworld is a darker place that Vimes remembers too well, three decades before his...more
Paperback, 408 pages
Published
September 30th 2003
by HarperTorch
(first published November 4th 2002)
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Somehow Terry Pratchett seems to go down particularly well when I'm not feeling at my best. I've read several that I've enjoyed but not been particularly grabbed by. In comparison, the times that I've read one of his books while sick or exhausted, I have liked them a whole lot more.
A few Christmases ago, the Christmas of the sick, when I ended up in the bathroom all night at my in-laws in absolute misery, I grabbed a couple of books from my mother-in-law's bookshelf. Let me tell you, sick and fe...more
A few Christmases ago, the Christmas of the sick, when I ended up in the bathroom all night at my in-laws in absolute misery, I grabbed a couple of books from my mother-in-law's bookshelf. Let me tell you, sick and fe...more
17 likes · like · see review
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While Terry Pratchett is known for the humor in his Discworld series, I enjoy them primarily because-- while on the surface, his books do indeed classify as humor, he also writes these almost painful realities, very human thoughts and incredibly immersive emotions in situations that you generally don't find in most humorous fantasy/sci-fi which tends more towards parody and caricatures. Though, I wouldn’t exactly say that the Discworld series isn't a parody-- because his books are parodies, or s...more
20 likes · like · see review
"Night Watch" by Terry Pratchett. Duke Sam Vimes is Ankh-Morpork City Watch Commander, one privileged to don a purple sweet-scented lilac sprig for 25 May memorial of the Revolution. Many, including fellow officers, lost their lives, and corrupt dictator Patrician Winder was assassinated. Our hero is no longer the naive inexperienced novice recruit of weeks, mentored by senior John Keel of the night shift. Nor is pregnant wife Sybil young, her firstborn is due within hours.
Perhaps continuity wi...more
Perhaps continuity wi...more
I may have said this when I finished the last Discworld book but this was by far the best Discworld book yet. Perhaps the best Pratchett book I've read. I loved it. It was not laugh out loud funny the way many of Pratchett's books are but it was so good. It was darker, delving into the history of Ankh-Morpork (Discworld's largest city) and allowing us glimpses into the past of several repeat characters, primarily Sam Vimes, Commander of the Night Watch, but also Lord Vetinari, Patrician of Ankh-...more
My favourite Pratchett novel, but I'm not really sure why.
I think that Sam Vimes' being in it definitely helps: I think my favourite "series" in the Discworld novels are the City Watch series (along with the witches of Lancre and Death). His character arc really comes to a head in this one, even though he still has another level to go to in Thud!
I also think that time travel being in it also definitely helps. Though not the quantum, metaphysical, zany fun of Thief of Time (though Lu Tze makes an...more
I think that Sam Vimes' being in it definitely helps: I think my favourite "series" in the Discworld novels are the City Watch series (along with the witches of Lancre and Death). His character arc really comes to a head in this one, even though he still has another level to go to in Thud!
I also think that time travel being in it also definitely helps. Though not the quantum, metaphysical, zany fun of Thief of Time (though Lu Tze makes an...more
Pratchet is brilliant. The story is part of the 'Guards' sequence in the Disc World series. For non-Disc Worlders you have to understand that prolific Pratchet created a comic fantasy world called the Disc World and then proceeded to write stories set in different parts of it, with different characters etc that sometimes meet each other.
The Guards sequence centres on Sam Vimes who is a cop in the city of Ank-Morepork. It is kind of medieval, kind of modern. In this story Sam has risen to be comm...more
The Guards sequence centres on Sam Vimes who is a cop in the city of Ank-Morepork. It is kind of medieval, kind of modern. In this story Sam has risen to be comm...more
Great book! Great series! Not a romance series, but there are some love interests.
Night Watch isn't as witty the previous two books. Not so much word play. Not as much political satire. This book is a more poignant novel, where Vimes is a young man, new to the City Watch, learning the ropes. It's a book about believing passionately in a cause and getting the job done!
See my review of the series embedded in my review of Guards! Guards!
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
The City Watch series...more
Night Watch isn't as witty the previous two books. Not so much word play. Not as much political satire. This book is a more poignant novel, where Vimes is a young man, new to the City Watch, learning the ropes. It's a book about believing passionately in a cause and getting the job done!
See my review of the series embedded in my review of Guards! Guards!
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
The City Watch series...more
1 like · like · see review
I've always enjoyed books from the Discworld series. Part wit, part social commentary, they're almost a genre on their own.
This particular book is noticeably different from the rest. The tone here is more serious, though that classic Discworld wit is still there.
While the main character Sam Vimes is interesting, I didn't really find him riveting. He's constantly determined, slightly pessimistic, usually morose, and this continues almost consistently throughout the novel. It got boring. I found...more
This particular book is noticeably different from the rest. The tone here is more serious, though that classic Discworld wit is still there.
While the main character Sam Vimes is interesting, I didn't really find him riveting. He's constantly determined, slightly pessimistic, usually morose, and this continues almost consistently throughout the novel. It got boring. I found...more
I admit, I like Terry Pratchett a lot anyway, but "Night Watch" is hands down my favorite Discworld novels (Jingo comes in a distant second). One of the darkest and most complex of the City Watch stories, while pursuing a truly depraved criminal named Carcer, Commander Sir Samuel Vimes is thrown back through time on the eve of the birth of his son to help... well, himself. Ankh-Morpork is on the brink of revolution, and somebody's got to make sure young Sammy doesn't die before his time.
But it's...more
But it's...more
Night Watch is the last of a bunch of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels that my husband bought for me two years ago. As the title implies, it follows the Watch again with Vimes as the protagonist. This time, though, Vimes is doing double duty, having found himself back in time thirty years to train himself as a young recruit.
Ankh-Morpork was a much rougher city back then and it's on the brink of revolution. Vimes remembers this time and how his commanding officer, John Keel, kept him alive and...more
Ankh-Morpork was a much rougher city back then and it's on the brink of revolution. Vimes remembers this time and how his commanding officer, John Keel, kept him alive and...more
Aug 20, 2007
Beboots
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
people who enjoy wit and/or cop shows
This book is a part of the massive Discworld series, and one of Mr.Pratchett's best works, in my opinion (aside from Good Omens, but that was a collaberation). It's something like the fifth or sixth book in the series of books invovling Ankh-Morpork's Night Watch, but I read "Thud!", the one right after it, first of all before I realized there were more "before" it, and it's realatively easy to follow. None of the jokes really need to be explained, so it could exist as a stand-alone book.
It ess...more
It ess...more
While halfway through this book, I wondered why it took me a year to start it (having bought it on impulse at Logan Airport on my way to Denmark last year). It's classic Terry Pratchett satire, and is a hilarious and insightful send-up of leadership and politics. While thoroughly enjoying this book, it made me realize that I need to read more fiction. Non-fiction business books comprise the bulk of my reading list, but there's no better way to learn to tell a story than by reading fiction by aut...more
The Ankh-Morpork City Watch series is easily my favorite of the Discworld novels, because of my particular interest in Public Administration. The AMCW series asks all the right questions about law, jurisdiction, enforcement, and vox populi, without resorting to cheap preachy answers.
But this book stands out as the best of the series so far, taking all those questions and mixing them in with the science fiction device of time travel, and delving into not just Public Administration questions, but...more
But this book stands out as the best of the series so far, taking all those questions and mixing them in with the science fiction device of time travel, and delving into not just Public Administration questions, but...more
Commander Samuel Vimes of the capitol city's City Watch, is in hot pursuit of an arch criminal threatening Vimes' home and wife, who is in labor with his first-born child. As they grapple for control of a deadly crossbow in a thunderstorm on the roof of the Unseen University, home of Discworld's Wizards and source of poorly controlled magic at times, a lightning bolt catapults them 30 years back in time. There, Sam finds himself in the body of a legendary hero, Sergeant At Arms of the Night Watc...more
If I could give this book ten stars, I would. In fact, it makes me rethink all of the other books that I've given five stars, perhaps they don't deserve it...
Here's the problem: This book isn't going to have the right impact unless you've read, at the very least, three of the previous Ankh-Morpork Night Watch books. Please, if you have heard about Pratchett and are looking for some place to start, go with "Guards Guards!" or "Mort", and read a few more before you embark on this one. You'll thank...more
Here's the problem: This book isn't going to have the right impact unless you've read, at the very least, three of the previous Ankh-Morpork Night Watch books. Please, if you have heard about Pratchett and are looking for some place to start, go with "Guards Guards!" or "Mort", and read a few more before you embark on this one. You'll thank...more
5 likes · like · see review
Jan 04, 2009
Laura
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
discworld,
will-it-hold-up-to-rereading
Just when I thought Pratchett had about used up his Watch characters, he throws this one at us. I loved Sam Vimes and the Watch in their early appearances but felt that they were settling into caricatures of themselves in later books. I get the sense that this was the author's answer to that - on the one hand we get a look at the early days of the Watch, so the characters haven't yet grown into the ones we know. On the other hand, watching the whole story from the head of the older Sam Vimes (ac...more
Another Watch novel, in which Sam Vimes Is accidentally transported decades into the past in pursuit of a murderous psychopath, whereupon he must play the part of the old Sergeant who first taught young Lance Corporal Sam Vimes what it means to be a copper. Meanwhile, political unrest spreads across the city, the old Patrician is on his way out, and the barricades are going up. Vimes knows what’s going to happen – he was there after all – and he’s visited the graves every year since. And now he’...more
7 likes · like · see review
Sam Vimes is wrestling with a dangerous criminal on top of the unseen academy when lightening strikes sending them both into the past. Vimes suddenly finds himself taking up the role of a man he remembers from the past and making sure history goes according to plan
I am a pretty avid fan of the discworld novels, especially of the watch novels. I find the characters entertaining and moving and the stories compelling in and of themselves. The books tend to have a light nature to them, but more and...more
I am a pretty avid fan of the discworld novels, especially of the watch novels. I find the characters entertaining and moving and the stories compelling in and of themselves. The books tend to have a light nature to them, but more and...more
Read this five or six times, now, and hadn't realized I hadn't put it in Goodreads until now.
It's the seventh Watch book in the Discworld; I think it probably requires a little bit of background. This is a shame, since it's a book I love enough I would like to be able to recommend that people read it with as little wait as possible.
It's about fear, and the problems inherent in trying to manage people, and secret police, and what you are and are not willing to give up for the right thing. History...more
It's the seventh Watch book in the Discworld; I think it probably requires a little bit of background. This is a shame, since it's a book I love enough I would like to be able to recommend that people read it with as little wait as possible.
It's about fear, and the problems inherent in trying to manage people, and secret police, and what you are and are not willing to give up for the right thing. History...more
When I give Night Watch three stars, I'm comparing it to the rest of the Discworld series. It's still Terry Pratchett, so it's still well-written, it's still got great characters, and it's still entertaining in its own way.
Writing a book is, of course, very hard work. But you're not supposed to be able to tell. Not if the writer is very good. Prose that good, that flows that well, is very rare, but Terry Pratchett usually manages it. This is where the problems begin. Night Watch wants very, very...more
Writing a book is, of course, very hard work. But you're not supposed to be able to tell. Not if the writer is very good. Prose that good, that flows that well, is very rare, but Terry Pratchett usually manages it. This is where the problems begin. Night Watch wants very, very...more
This is my third Terry Pratchett book after *Guards! Guards!* and [*Small Gods*](http://nprasanna.com/2012/02/book-rev...).
After finishing the two books, ecstatic with the humor found in them, I started a massive hunt for "the best terry pratchett books". *Night Watch* was there on every recommendation. People touted it as the best TP book ever. That translated to me as, "the book with more laughter-inciting instances than there were in *Guards* and *Small Gods*." And I bought it without even re...more
After finishing the two books, ecstatic with the humor found in them, I started a massive hunt for "the best terry pratchett books". *Night Watch* was there on every recommendation. People touted it as the best TP book ever. That translated to me as, "the book with more laughter-inciting instances than there were in *Guards* and *Small Gods*." And I bought it without even re...more
May 25, 2012
Michael F. Feeney
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
read-some-time-ago
Today is a good day to implore everyone to start reading Terry Pratchett, if you haven't yet.
I can't say this is the first book I'd recommend you start with. The interweb is littered with lists created, suggested orders to read, but I'd point you to one of two:
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch - the first one I read, back in high school, because we were all nuts over The Absolute Sandman, Vol. 1Neil Gaiman. This is my all time favorite book. Oddly took me 5 year...more
I can't say this is the first book I'd recommend you start with. The interweb is littered with lists created, suggested orders to read, but I'd point you to one of two:
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch - the first one I read, back in high school, because we were all nuts over The Absolute Sandman, Vol. 1Neil Gaiman. This is my all time favorite book. Oddly took me 5 year...more
Easily my favourite Discworld book, and a high water mark in Terry Pratchett's writing. The book is an unalloyed delight, taking Commander Sam Vimes back into his past to chase a killer and right a few wrongs. There's a pleasingly sharp edge to the narrative, although the main fun is had by meeting the familiar Ankh-Morpork cast of characters as young men and women, and in the case of Nobby Nobbs, possibly boyhood, possibly not. The time travelling premise is elegantly handled, and the tradition...more
1 like · like · see review
One of the best books in the Discworld series. The story revolves around Sam Vimes, and it's a very good example of the author's shift from slapstick comedy to a subtler form of humor and to targetting in his imaginary world real problems from the world we live in.
Using the plot device of time travel, the author throws the Commander of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch back to a revolutionary episode of the city history and to his own apprenticeship in the Watch. The theme offers the author rich picki...more
Using the plot device of time travel, the author throws the Commander of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch back to a revolutionary episode of the city history and to his own apprenticeship in the Watch. The theme offers the author rich picki...more
4 likes · like · see review
Man, this book is amazing.
I've always liked Sam Vimes. He's a good character, and in this book one of the main reasons I like him is explicitly stated why. Every moment of his life is spent in struggle between his desire to just let go and tear up people he knows the world would be better off without and his knowledge that doing so would be the beginning of something worse.
One such instance is the fact that, from the beginning, we know that when it comes down to it Vimes will try to make things...more
I've always liked Sam Vimes. He's a good character, and in this book one of the main reasons I like him is explicitly stated why. Every moment of his life is spent in struggle between his desire to just let go and tear up people he knows the world would be better off without and his knowledge that doing so would be the beginning of something worse.
One such instance is the fact that, from the beginning, we know that when it comes down to it Vimes will try to make things...more
Una nueva aventura del Mundodisco. Y esta me ha encantado pero de verdad. No sé por qué siento una extraña fijación con todas las historias que tratan sobre viajes en el tiempo.
Sam Vimes, el comandante de la Guardia Nocturna de Ankh-Morpork, se encuentra de repente en el pasado, tras una pelea con un malo maloso cerca de unos campos temporales creados por los monjes del tiempo (que también tienen su libro de la serie, Thief of Time). Ha retrocedido treinta años en el tiempo. Se encuentra en una...more
Sam Vimes, el comandante de la Guardia Nocturna de Ankh-Morpork, se encuentra de repente en el pasado, tras una pelea con un malo maloso cerca de unos campos temporales creados por los monjes del tiempo (que también tienen su libro de la serie, Thief of Time). Ha retrocedido treinta años en el tiempo. Se encuentra en una...more
Out of all the Discworld books I have read, this book is by far my favourite so far.
The transition from modern Ankh-Morpork from old Ankh-Morpork is very well done, you can actually tell it was actually worse back then, haha. Once again Terry Pratchett amazes me with his numerous and distinct set of colourful characters including the ever-surly Samuel Vimes and the ironically named psychopath Carcer Dun who travel back in time and become opposing figures in a brutal revolution of the times. As w...more
The transition from modern Ankh-Morpork from old Ankh-Morpork is very well done, you can actually tell it was actually worse back then, haha. Once again Terry Pratchett amazes me with his numerous and distinct set of colourful characters including the ever-surly Samuel Vimes and the ironically named psychopath Carcer Dun who travel back in time and become opposing figures in a brutal revolution of the times. As w...more
I had a quick scan of other people's reviews before adding my own. I've read a lot of the Discworld books over the years, but this one stays longer in the mind than the rest. Where many of the others are purely knockabout humour and darkness of a Dickensian-parodic variety, this one gets SERIOUS. There is a darkness here that stops the laughter. There are still many laughs, but this one mines a deeper vein of intensity than any other Discworld novel I've read.
Having perhaps become just a little...more
Having perhaps become just a little...more
I am a Terry Pratchett-phile, through and through, so my reviews of his short novels are always delivered through rose-tinted glasses. But if I were to recommend a seminal jumping-off point for readers who weren't familiar with his work, Night Watch would be my pick.
Pratchett's Discworld series is a (largely) chronological series exploring and satirizing philosophical and societal themes through the prism of a fantasy realm. It's difficult to explain Pratchett's tone through his novels to those...more
Pratchett's Discworld series is a (largely) chronological series exploring and satirizing philosophical and societal themes through the prism of a fantasy realm. It's difficult to explain Pratchett's tone through his novels to those...more
True fact - it is very hard for me to review anything written by Pratchett without sounding like a ten year old on a sugar rush (and it's going to show in the next few lines), so I am just going to control myself and say that I am extremely blown away by everything I have read so far by this amazing man.
Night Watch has everything one can expect from a Discworld novel - Pratchett's witty comments and intelligent humor are what immerse one into an "discworldy" hard-to-describe feeling (known to e...more
Night Watch has everything one can expect from a Discworld novel - Pratchett's witty comments and intelligent humor are what immerse one into an "discworldy" hard-to-describe feeling (known to e...more
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quantum | 5 | 88 | Dec 16, 2012 10:47pm | |
| SciFi and Fantasy...: BBC Radio serial of Night Watch | 9 | 34 | Dec 05, 2011 11:26am |
Sir Terry Pratchett sold his first story when he was thirteen, which earned him enough money to buy a second-hand typewriter. His first novel, a humorous fantasy entitled The Carpet People, appeared in 1971 from the publisher Colin Smythe. Terry worked for many years as a journalist and press officer, writing in his spare time and publishing a number of novels, including his first Discworld novel,...more
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3 trivia questions
More quizzes & trivia...
“No! Please! I'll tell you whatever you want to know!" the man yelled.
"Really?" said Vimes. "What's the orbital velocity of the moon?"
"What?"
"Oh, you'd like something simpler?”
—
1,105 people liked it
"Really?" said Vimes. "What's the orbital velocity of the moon?"
"What?"
"Oh, you'd like something simpler?”
“We who think we are about to die will laugh at anything.”
—
457 people liked it
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