Guard! Guards!

It's funny the sense memories I get with these books. I read the majority of Guards! Guards! lying in the bleachers of a baseball field in Arlington. I was visiting Kevin (for the first time!) and he was umpiring a game. The library in Ballston was closed, and the mall sucks, so I just read for hours. It's funny to think that I now work just a few blocks from that baseball field.

To be honest, I didn't remember a ton about this book. There was a tiny, beaten down police force and a dragon and a long-lost king (both a fake one and a real one). It wasn't until much later in the series that I began to appreciate Sam Vimes as a character or really become interested in the City Watch. I just wanted more books about the witches and was tearing through the rest to get there faster.

On re-read, this book is fantastic. I have more experience with Pratchett's style so a lot of the twists became obvious to me, in a fun, familiar way. It was great to go back and see the beginning of Vimes, a run down, alcoholic man with nothing left to live for. Knowing that this is truly the lowest spot of his life, as well as a turning point for him, gives everything that warm glow of nostalgia.

And then there's the plot and the jokes and the absolutely fantastic social commentary. This book is leaps and bounds better than the ones that came before. Not only is it sharp and thrilling, the language has really come together. There's barely a wasted word in the whole story. And many sentences are so clever or funny or brutal you have to read them again to appreciate them fully.

This isn't quite the point where Discworld gets great. Next up is Eric, which I don't much care for. But I'm close to the golden age of these books, where every one of them feels like a classic.

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