Group Review by Burry Port Bookworms

'He is a satirist of enormous talent... His jokes slide under your skin as swiftly as a hypodermic syringe, leaving you giggling helplessly' - The Times. This was quoted on the Amazon website in reference to this book. Conversely according to our members who are familiar with the author, this is not as much of a light and amusing read as many of his.


Without prior knowledge of the peculiarities and a little background into the eccentricities and wackiness of Pratchett’s ‘Discworld’ this is not a simple story to follow. In fact, as a first glimpse into the author’s amazing mind it might well discourage curiosity towards reading anything else by him. This book is filled with humour, but that is over-shadowed, quite intentionally, in the dark, brooding, gloomy places where the most extraordinary characters are lurking.


If you were planning to make this your first encounter with ‘Discworld’ then those who understand what delights await you, would recommend you start with an earlier adventure such as ‘Wyrd Sisters’ because it is easy to follow, very cleverly composed and the perfect antidote to the greyest of weekends.


Having warned prospective explorers about the perils of tourism in ‘Discworld’ for the unprepared, this is how the narrative unfolds:


Sam Vines, now an effective, shrewd and commanding figure of ‘The Night Watch’ (the policing element of urban Ankh-Morpork) earned his stripes with the best of mentors. Not only does he have a mass murderer to track down now, but with the unwelcome intervention of magic, he moves back in time and finds that the murderer has travelled back too. Enlisting in the Night Watch to rally forces against the killer he becomes aware of a particular officer, Samuel Vines, who is his younger self. Out of necessity he unwittingly repeats history by becoming a mentor himself and drags the young man into his charge. Together they hurtle into a fast-paced, multi-faceted exploration into what is good and what is evil.


We would have to give this a low mark out of 10 because it did not appeal to most our readers, except one, who were new to the Discworld universe and the others would recommend starting with almost any other novel in the series.