Night Watch
By Terry Pratchett
Hello again, dear readers. I am known as Gary T. Stevens (at least to my readers) and, at the invitation of our local book-reading, book-reviewing Devil Dog (He prefers the term Crayon-Eating Jarhead) (Does he now?[Why yes. Yes he does. {No, he doesn’t}]), I have contributed this review so that he might have time to prepare for the Atlantis Summer event. Today I am here to share the story of the Glorious Twenty-Fourth of May and the short, burning spark that was the People's Republic of Treacle Mine Road, whose defenders sought Truth, Justice, Freedom, Reasonably-Priced Love, and a Hard-Boiled Egg! (These all sound like reasonable demands.) (It was supposed to be "Free Love", but that did not meet the approval of one of the Revolution's supporting factions, the Guild of Seamstresses *hem hem!*)
By which I mean, I am here to review Night Watch, the 29th of Sir Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, and the sixth of those about Samuel Vimes and the Ankh-Morpork City Watch. It was published in 2002; the following year it won the Prometheus Award and was nominated for the Locus Award. In 2022 it ranked 73rd in the BBC's "Big Read" of the most-read novels in Britain. And it is, by my estimation, one of the very best in the series, and I believe would be fairly enjoyable even for first-time readers. Sir Terry is at his best in this work, bringing us strong character and thoughtful prose with all the expertise in the use of the English language one would expect of him.
In my last review, the 2021 Fangsgiving review of Carpe Jugulum, I gave a history of Sir Terry, and kindly ask you to go back to that one for the full paragraph (Please, for the love of Marx.). Suffice to say, he was a journalist turned novelist who became one of the English language's great satirists and humorists of the late 20th and early 21st Centuries, a thoughtful and wonderful human being who had a way with words and expressing ideas while making you laugh at just how silly Human beings can be (and you laugh because sometimes the alternative is crying at how cruel and foolish and just utterly stupid people can be[Have you seen The League of Fascist Karens Moms for Liberty? It’s both. I laugh and cry at the same time.]).
Much as Carpe Jugulum was one of the later books about the Witches of Lancre, this comes with the Ankh-Morpork City Watch having already enjoyed five books to get established to readers. This one is, however, a bit different. The Watch books have often been a tiered ensemble, with Sam Vimes and Carrot Ironfoundersson as the leads. This book, however, is centered on Sam Vimes facing his own past and character, in more ways than one. He grew up a poor boy in the sprawling metropolis of Ankh-Morpork, the largest city in the Discworld, and as a young lad sought to gain some purpose (and modest income) in life by signing up for the City Watch. Through a series of events passing over the prior Watch-related books, he has risen high indeed, marrying the wealthiest woman in the city aristocracy, rising from Captain of the Night Watch to Commander of the City Watch, and even being named the Duke of Ankh, the highest non-royal title in the city. Suffice it to say I could probably write an essay on Sam Vimes as a character to cover his journey to this point, but that's for later. Or reviews of the other Watch books.
Yet he was not always this high, and as happens, a part of him feels nostalgia for those old days when he wasn't running the Watch and hadn't yet become such an important figure in Morporkian civic politics that the Guild of Assassins now refuse to consider contracts on his life (well, that and all the Guild members he's humiliated and beaten over the years probably had something to do with it). The Guild has long considered itself vital to the smooth functioning of the city, so to take Vimes off the register shows their estimation of his importance to said functioning (Even the assassin’s guild. This is what was meant by Lumpenproletariat…). (As a note, the Guild of Assassins is a preferred institution among the gentry and remaining nobility of Ankh-Morpork, particularly younger sons, and daughters who won't inherit otherwise. Vimes feels a tad annoyed at their decision to remove him from the register, as he'd come to regard their efforts against him as a sign he was annoying rich and powerful people that ought to be annoyed.) He's gone from wearing thin-soled boots and battered breastplates on night patrols to meeting civic government committees in shiny, golden ornamental armor and uniforms. One such meeting calls him away from his home and the imminent delivery of his first child, into a city where the blooming lilacs remind him of betrayed ideals and fallen comrades.
But today will not go as planned, as word comes that one of Vimes' coppers has been slain at the hands of a sociopathic killer named Carcer. Carcer is the primary antagonist of this story; the only life that matters to Carcer is his own, and he will kill simply because it amuses him. When (not if) you find him standing over his victims with their stolen belongings bulging out of his pockets and the blood still on his hands, he'll look at you and go "Who? Me? What, haha, did I do wrong? Just getting along in life, can't blame a man for trying, right?" It'll be said with an expression of surprised innocence confused at what you're so mad about. Just don't look too deeply into his eyes; not because you'll see the demons within egging him on but because you'll have taken your eyes off his hands, which will most likely have something pointy in them by the end of this sentence (Sounds like a person who’s like The Joker. You shouldn’t be mad. You shouldn’t arrest him. Just kill him.). (One good comparison I saw from an online commentary is that this story is Les Miserables flipped: Carcer is a psychotic counterpart of Valjean while Vimes is Javert if his devotion to the Law was tempered by actual interest in justice and protecting the innocent [Hmm. That isn’t bad.]).
Given Carcer's skill and just plain meanness, Vimes joins the manhunt into the confines of the wizards' Unseen University, coming to grips with the knife-wielding maniac in the dome of the University Library as a thunderstorm rages overhead. Unknown to either, this thunderstorm is not entirely natural. The events of the prior Discworld novel Thief of Time are beyond the scope of this review, but as the Doctor would say, timey-wimey happened. And now timey-wimey happens to Vimes, who through a series of rough events will eventually find he has been thrown into the past by thirty years. And what was once a painful old memory has become a stark present. A paranoid tyrant governs a city ready to explode into revolution and violence, secret police wait to spirit people off to be broken in the name of a madman's pseudoscientific conviction, and revolutionaries plot to seize power no matter how much blood might be spilled in the process.
Even worse, he is not alone. Carcer has been dragged back through time as well, and his first victim is John Keel; the man who was to become mentor and hero to young Lance Constable Sam Vimes, the poor rookie watchman from Cockbill Street. Vimes must assume the place of Sergeant-at-Arms John Keel and be that mentor to young Sam — whatever the cost, given the consequence of setting the young lad wrong — while trying to chart his way through the tempestuous History happening around him. (At least he has spoilers? Also, that is a damn fine grandfather paradox there.) As if that wasn't hard enough, he'll also have to find a way to deal with Carcer, who is clever and brutal enough to find opportunity in this dangerous time. The closest thing he has to an ally are the mysterious History Monks, guardians of Time working to fix the damage done by the events of Thief of Time. They play a mostly minor, if still key, role, with just enough characterization and agency that they aren't reduced to a mere plot device.
Night Watch is a character piece. Sam Vimes, on some level, has gotten what he wanted in that he's back on the streets, a regular copper, not a man of influence and power, yet this forces him to confront the truth that he loves his wife, that no amount of grousing can make up for the fact that he believes in his work, and that he wants that life back (It’s A Wonderful Life? Is that you?). Yet he is lost in the past, with allies whose attempts to explain the intricacies of his situation flummox and confound him, and has been warned that the future he knows might be lost if he doesn't play the role. Time travel plots always run the risk of getting away from the author (Yes. Yes they do. I wish I had my wink emoji…) due to the inherent contradictions and matters of causality involved, so Sir Terry avoids the technobabble and theorizing (with sufficient humor) to focus on the very real feelings Vimes has at his perplexing situation. The history he knows does not change, yet between his actions and Carcer's, the history he is now experiencing is not the same. Things are changing, and he has to wonder if the world he knows will still be there before this is over.
More to the point, he is still Samuel Vimes. He believes in the Law applying to everyone, in trying to make his city a better place and protecting people from sociopaths like Carcer or Findthee Swing, Captain of the "Particulars" and head of Lord Winder's secret police. Yet he is in an era festering with injustice. He knows the revolution breaking out is just going to bring to power another petty tyrant, yet the current one is having innocent people tortured into catatonia because his secret police captain believes he can judge someone's truthfulness by measuring their skulls! (For some reason it always goes back to measuring skulls with people like that. Judging truthfulness, Jewishness, sexual market value; whatever it is they are trying to determine, there’s always skull measurement.) He's supposed to uphold the law, but when the army's in the streets to enforce the tyrant's rule and common citizens are raising the barricades to keep them out of their communities, where does the law lie? (Philosophically speaking, upholding something just because it is the law is an indefensible position. Ethics lie independent of the law.) The law whose chief enforcer has become the enemy of public peace and justice? For that matter, what about the price of going home? There are seven graves that have to be filled for Vimes to get his future back, seven decent (or relatively so) people who have to die for history to progress, but Vimes is not the kind of person to just let those graves get filled if he can stop it.
There comes a point in this book where these pieces, and his existential despair over the fate of the future he knows, nearly break Vimes down. It's a good moment to be sure, a reminder that for all he can sometimes seem in control, the indomitable hero wrestling with historical inevitability, Vimes is human and fallible. He despairs, he bleeds, and he struggles with his own inner darkness (which he dubs "the Beast", representing his capacity for violence, including lethal and unchecked violence). It makes his triumphs sweeter.
Carcer is depicted as being something like what Vimes would be if he succumbed to his darkness, someone who has decided no rules apply to him because he doesn't want them to and will do as he pleases, no matter whom it hurts. This not only adds to the conflict between them but finds a mirror in the terrible leadership of Ankh-Morpork in the past, with a leader and associates who see themselves as free to do as they please with their city, treating it solely as something to extract wealth from until the entire place breaks down. The law, the rules of society, simply did not apply. Also the same with Findthee Swing who feels he is perfectly justified in having people tortured to justify his insane "craniometrics", much less to protect the city. And when enough people break these unspoken rules, when the Beast is unleashed, everything breaks.
While Vimes is by far the majority of the book, we do see glimpses of other characters, including the younger version of Vimes' own boss, Lord Vetinari, at this point a young graduate of the Guild of Assassins who is due to play his own role, and his connections to those seeking to bring down Lord Winder and his corrupt administration. They add to the tension, particularly as it's clear they regard "John Keel" as a wild card whom they can't control but aren't sure about eliminating themselves. We never get anything from Carcer's perspective for that matter, which lends a certain force to him. He's an unpredictable element, exploiting the situation to his own benefit and whim, and clearly enjoying the prospect of getting to hurt Vimes in the end… and perhaps more.
Altogether this is a brilliant book and I cannot recommend it highly enough. I do recommend reading the Watch books in order if you're interested since seeing Vimes' development up to this point does add to the piece, but it's not strictly necessary. As for criticisms? To tell the truth, I can't even think of one. Sir Terry wrote the book in such a way that you don't need to have read any of the prior books, even the one with the events that set off this book's main plot. Night Watch is, on its own, a powerful tale and has all the usual witticisms and observations about human nature that Sir Terry is known for. I can't single them out, or even go into more detail, because I can't think of which one to mention first nor do I think the editor or main reviewer would appreciate me writing ten thousand words of book quotes and related gushing. You'll have to read for yourself.
If I were to start assigning these books grades as our reviewer wishes I would, this would be an A+. It is by far one of the best books in the series and in the canon of fantasy literature, and I will always treasure it.
Next week, we get more Vimes, albeit in a guest-star role, as we move to the next novel in the Discworld series (not counting the YA fiction introducing Tiffany Aching): Monstrous Regiment! It's a book about soldiers and war, just in time for the holiday that reminds us of the prices those soldiers pay when we call them to war. See you then.
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