Night Watch by Terry Pratchett

Night Watch (City Watch, #6) (Discworld, #29)

by Terry Pratchett

Commander Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch had it all. But now he's back in his own rough, tough past without even the clothes he was standing up in when the lightning struck...Living in the past is hard. Dying in the past is incredibly easy. But he must survive, because he has a job to do. He must track down a murderer, teach his younger self how to be a good copper and change the outcome of a bloody rebellion. There's a problem:if he wins, he's got no wife, no child, no future...A Discworld Tale of One City, with a full chorus of street urchins, ladies of negotiable affection, rebels, secret policemen and other children of the revolution. Truth! Justice! Freedom! And a Hard-boiled Egg!

Reviewed by MurderByDeath on

3.5 of 5 stars

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I'm probably not doing this book justice with my rating, but as much as I think the writing is brilliant, it dragged for me badly.   I started it thinking it would work for my werewolf square in bingo, and by the time I realised it definitely wasn't (Agula the werewolf is only mentioned and never appears), it was too far in to stop.   This is a much deeper, more serious storyline that any of the other Discworld books I've read so far and there's a lot of political philosophy (and a fair amount of quantum physics).  It's brilliant political philosophy, but I was expecting werewolves, so Poli-Phi and string theory was more work than I was prepared for.  (Also, I'm not a fan of time travel plots.)   Still, this is Pratchett and as MT said, for a book I was complaining was hard work to get through, I was laughing out loud an awful lot.  Pratchett is a genius at using his words, and the scene involving the ox and the raw ginger had tears coming to my eyes (and likely theirs).  So many laugh out loud moments in this one that even though I'm glad it's over, I'm definitely also glad I've read it. 

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  • Started reading
  • 16 September, 2017: Finished reading
  • 16 September, 2017: Reviewed