Product Description

The 27th novel in the Discworld series

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5801 in Books
• Published on: 2003-10-01
• Released on: 2003-09-25
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
The new Discworld novel Night Watch has the power and energy that characterizes Terry Pratchett at his occasional best, as well as the wild surreal humour he always gives us. Sam Vimes, running hero of the Guards sequence, finds himself cast back in time to the Ankh-Morpork of his youth--a much nastier city, with an actively deranged Patrician and a sadistic secret police--and finding himself filling in for Keel, the tough honest copper who teaches the young Vimes everything he knows. And, more worryingly, who dies heroically in the insurrection Vimes knows to be imminent. With a psychopath from his own time rising in the vile ranks of the Cable Street Unmentionables complicating things, Vimes has to ensure that history takes its course so that he will have the right future to go back to, and to keep his younger self alive--this is Pratchett's plotting at its most thoroughly constructed and wonderfully devious. Ankh-Morpork has for a long time been one of the most thoroughly imagined cities in fantasy--here Pratchett gives us a fascinating gloomy glimpse of its past and of the younger selves of some of his best-loved characters, and of the brief-lived People's Republic of Treacle-Mine Road. --Roz Kaveney

Review
And still they come - Terry Pratchett's prodigal invention shows not the slightest sign of flagging, and his wonderfully witty Discworld books make up for the occasional thin patch by a colourfully orchestrated succession of brilliant gags and sardonically bizarre plotting. Commander Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch had finally achieved all that he has aimed for in life. But at a stroke he finds himself back in the past, courtesy of an unfortunate flash of lightning. He finds living in the past hard, but as always he has a job to do: tracking down a murderer, teaching his younger self out to be a good policeman and incidentally altering the course of history. This 27th Discworld novel has much of the energy and panache that been missing from some of the books of late. The comic possibilities of the time travel paradox have brought out Pratchett's winning skills in full force once again, and Sam Vimes is, of course a much-loved character. Pratchett is one of the few authors who is a real celebrity - and Night Watch reminds us that such celebrity is justified. (Kirkus UK)

Another Discworld yarn-#28 if you're counting (The Last Hero, 2001, etc.). Commander Sam Vimes of Ankh-Morpork's City Watch has it made: he's a duke, rich, respected, and his wife Sybil is about to give birth. But then Vimes is called away to deal with a notorious and ruthless murderer, Carcer, now trapped on the roof of the university library. Amid a furious storm, lightning and magic hurl Sam and Carcer 20 years back in time. Sam's younger self is a rookie Night Watch cop. History, and Sam's memory, tells that Sam learned his street smarts from a skillful, straight-arrow cop named John Keel. But Carcer's arrived in the past, too-and he's murdered Keel. In the same fight (coincidentally?), Sam received an injury he remembers Keel having. Must he somehow impersonate Keel, and teach young Sam how to survive? What will the History Monks-the holy men who ensure that what's supposed to happen, happens-do? Adding further complications, Sam knows that the current ruler of the city, Lord Winder, is both mad and utterly corrupt: revolution's a-brewing, with riots, street barricades, cavalry charges, and thousands dead. And the horrid Unmentionables, Winder's secret torturers and jailers, must be curbed-especially when Carcer turns up in charge of them. Not a side-splitter this time, though broadly amusing and bubbling with wit and wisdom: both an excellent story and a tribute to beat cops everywhere, doing their hair-raising jobs with quiet courage and determination. (Kirkus Reviews)

Mail on Sunday
'His spectacular inventiveness makes the Discworld series one of the perennial joys of modern fiction.'

Customer Reviews

An Excellent Pratchett
Sam Vimes, one of the recurring characters in Terry Pratchett's "Discworld" series, has been doing well. The humbly-born, pragmatic, streetwise, but basically honourable cop has risen to become Watch commander in Ankh-Morpork, chief of police in one of the wealthiest and most powerful cities of the Discworld. He has married late, and it is a love match, but the fact that his wife is an aristocrat and the wealthiest woman in the city has done his career no harm. He has come to the notice of the city's ruler Lord Vetinari (the Machiavellian politician's Machiavellian politician), who uses him for diplomatic missions where his talents will be more useful than those of the usual run of diplomats. This happened most memorably in "The Fifth Elephant", one of the best books of the series.
But now something has gone horribly wrong. A psychopathic cop-killer has been cornered in the wizards' university and Vimes is about to make the collar when an accidental discharge of magical energy throws them both thirty years into the past. In the less well-run city of those days he must act as mentor to his younger self, a rookie Watchman, he must try to foil, and then lead, a revolution, and he must try to get home, while keeping both his selves safe from the cop-killer who has quickly found a natural place in the secret police.
The "Discworld" novels can vary in quality, but overall seem to be getting even better as the series progresses. Entertaining and thought-provoking, "Night Watch" is definitely in the top rank.

There are no words...
...for how wonderfully written this book is.

The story it tells is tragic and dark, but is done with that Pratchettian wit that we've come to adore. Vimes' cynical take on things is our mirror into the events of the revolution (and revolutions in general), and it's so brilliantly done that the book is simply kissable!

The villain, Carcer, was engaging and a very suitable anti-Vimes. It was nice that Lu-Tze made a cameo, another character with whom Vimes is destined to interact to our amusement. A glimpse into the life and times of a young Havelock Vetinari provided an interesting branch from the main storyline, without revealing too much of his "idiosyncratic despotism".

This is my favourite Discworld book of all time, on equal par with Hogfather and Thief of Time.

Well done, Mr. Pratchett. I salute you.

This is one of Pratchett's best
Having been a HUGE Discworld fan for over ten years, I am always eager to read every new book. This, the 29th in the adult Discworld canon, is one of the best Pratchett books ever. Sam Vimes is a creation of genius. Pratchett has been gradually developing him from the drunk, cartoon copper of Guards! Guards! and he is now a fully-rounded individual that the reader is able to really relate to. He is cynical yet soft-hearted, a powerful man in present-day Ankh-Morpork, yet still keen to be on the street with the rest of his coppers. In this book he and the murderer he is chasing are thrown back in time by a magical storm, to a time just before a revolution in Ankh-Morpork. Vimes appears in the past as the Sergeant who taught him all he knows, and has to ensure that history happens as it should in order to get back to his future with his wife and their unborn child. We meet younger versions of many popular characters such as Colon, Nobby, Rosie Palm and even Havelock Vetinari, as a somewhat bullied member of the Assassin's School. There is also a welcome appearance for Lu-Tze, the most well-travelled Monk of History, follower of the Way of Mrs Cosmopolite, etc. There's intrigue aplenty as Vimes tries to save his friends while also knowing that some of them have to die for History to work.
This is a brilliant read, rightly making it into The Big Read Top 100, along with a number of other Pratchett novels. It is funny, sad and clever and it had me totally enthralled from beginning to end. Readers new to Pratchett should probably try one of his older books first, though, to get used to his style. If you want to follow all the City Watch books in the correct order, they go like this: 'Guards! Guards!', 'Men At Arms', 'Feet of Clay', 'Jingo', 'The Fifth Elephant', 'Night Watch', and 'Thud'. Various members of the Watch also appear in a number of the other Discworld novels, including 'Maskerade', 'Hogfather', 'The Truth', 'Monstrous Regiment' and 'Going Postal'.