Appearance
Men At Arms (Turtleback School & Library Binding Edition) (Discworld Novels)
Pratchett's Discworld novels are consistently amusing, often touching, and brilliantly creative. Men At Arms manages to be all these things and more . . .The misfit Night Watch we met in Guards, Guards! Is in danger of becoming almost respectable. Carrot and Sgt. Colon have new recruits of all shapes and sizes. Captain Vimes is retiring to become a respectable gentleman as Sybil Ramkin's husband. What could go wrong . . .Well, this IS Ankh-Morpork, a city so corrupt that if the gods took vengeance on it, no one would notice. Things get complicated when an exploding swamp dragon, a mysterious invention, warring guilds, and an assasin who is NOT killing for pay send the city into more turmoil than usual. Who can save the day? It's up to the flattest of flatfoots in the Night Watch, and their new recruits to set the city right, or at least not so wrong.There is the usual Pratchett wordplay and humor, as well as the thoughtful emotional interplays he has developed over the years. There's also an interesting mystery at the center of the whole piece, and some of his most interesting characters trying to deal with it. There are also some scenes of real poignance and heart that will make you think, and make you feel.If you haven't read Discworld, read Guards, Guards!, and then this novel. You'll be glad you did!
Men At Arms (Turtleback School & Library Binding Edition) (Discworld Novels)
Terry Pratchett has done it again! "Men At Arms" offers a laughable look at some of the biggest problems facing our world today. Prejudice, crime, anarchy, and segregation are all addressed in his unique, farcical style. This is what parody is all about! Join Corporal Carrot and the rest of the Night Watch as they encounter Trolls, Dwarves, a talking dog and gargoyles in a search for a murderer and a "gonne." You'll never look at the world the same way again
Men At Arms (Turtleback School & Library Binding Edition) (Discworld Novels)
I was very disappointed to find the footnotes missing from this edition. If there's a way to get to them, I couldn't find it & Pratchett's footnotes are a significant part of the humor. So buy the print version of the Discworld books - and do buy them. Prachett is always entertaining!
Men At Arms (Turtleback School & Library Binding Edition) (Discworld Novels)
Captain Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch is retiring and getting married in a few days. But an explosion at the Assassins' Guild attracts his interest, and soon a trail of bodies is forming. The Guilds don't want his help, the Patrician has ordered him to lay off and his fellow Watch members seem more concerned about the new intake of ethnic minorities (Lance-Corporal Cuddy of the dwarfs and Lance-Corporal Detritus of the trolls) than the mystery. But somewhere in Ankh-Morpork a killer is on the loose with a very powerful new weapon...Men at Arms is the second Discworld novel to focus on the City Watch, introduced in the classic Guards! Guards! As told in that volume, the City Watch saved the city from a marauding dragon and at the end of the book the Watch gained fresh resources from a grateful city government. However, it is still regarded as a joke, as Men at Arms makes clear.Pratchett once again uses the cliches and ideas of police procedurals to generate humour and satire, although this volume is much more of a hard-bitten (in some cases, literally) mystery novel. Sam Vimes is portrayed as the cynical, weathered old cop doggedly pursuing his case in the face of all opposition, whilst Corporal Carrot is his enthusiastic young sidekick. Of course, that would be a bit too cheesy, so Pratchett subverts this idea earlier on and takes the story in a more interesting and original direction.The city of Ankh-Morpork comes to life in this book more successfully than in any prior volume, to the extent that Pratchett's playwright and friend Stephen Briggs was able to use information in this book (and the prior ones) to map the city so everything tracked and made sense (the results can be found in the spin-off product, The Streets of Ankh-Morpork). The city's ethnic make-up, the political structure of the guilds and the office of the Patrician are all portrayed convincingly. In addition, Pratchett aims high with his characterisation, with the most affecting death of a Discworld character to date and some brilliant development for Carrot and Vimes. There is even a reasonably well-portrayed romance and some (tastefully off-screen) sex, a first for the series. Men at Arms is Discworld aimed at a slightly maturer level than arguably any of the previous books bar Small Gods.Which isn't to say that Pratchett doesn't bring the funny. The Colon/Nobbs double-act is excellent, the return of Gaspode the Wonder Dog (from Moving Pictures, but much better-utilised here) is genuinely funny and there is some fantastic material to be mined from the Cuddy/Detritus relationship.Men at Arms (*****) is Pratchett yet again firing on all cylinders, delivering a novel that is by turns brilliantly funny, genuinely thought-provoking and consistently entertaining. The novel is available now in the UK and USA.
Men At Arms (Turtleback School & Library Binding Edition) (Discworld Novels)
There's something to be said for reading a series in chronological order, but it seems somehow more in the spirit of Discworld to just read them however they come to hand. This one features the Night Watch (my favorite sub-series) on the cusp of becoming the reorganized and expanded City Watch. Carrot is presently a corporal and trolls and dwarfs are just being added to the roster in the spirit of affirmative action. Captain Sam Vimes is facing both imminent retirement and imminent marriage to Lady Sybil Ramkin, both of which have put him into a strange state of mind. And on top of all that, there has been a mysterious series of murders of guild members, committed with an unknown weapon. Carrot, a six-foot-tall adopted dwarf, gets a lot of play this time, with special attention to his special talent: Everyone likes Carrot because he truly thinks everyone is basically decent underneath it all. As always, Pratchett, a master of stealth philosophy, combines off-the-wall humor and bent puns with thoughtful and humane digressions on the nature of right and good vs. wrong and evil, and what makes a good copper.
Men At Arms (Turtleback School & Library Binding Edition) (Discworld Novels)
The discworld series is by far one of the most hilarious series I have ever had the privlege to experience. I have read pretty much all of the books in this series, and I love them all to death. If your new to the series, you dont have to read the books in order, but it does help in order to fully experience some of the character ties, growths, and extremely bizzare happenings.Men at Arms is the second book featuring the Watch, the first being Guards! Guards!, another excellent book. I absolutely love the characters in this book, and both the humor and the plot is very entertaining.So pick up this book and the rest of the series, and you'll soon be a Discworld lover like me.