Night Watch
This isn't quite my favorite Discworld book, but I'd argue that it's the best Discworld book. This is Pratchett at his peak - tackling a timely and timeless issue with compassion and humor and forcing the reader to reckon with their own point of view.
Pratchett makes excellent use of a time-travel paradox to send Vimes back to the past thirty years to mentor his own, younger self. This happens to coincide with a brutal regime change in Ankh-Morpork. No peaceful transition of power here - there are assassinations and revolutions, blood and fire, and Vimes just trying to prevent as much death as possible.
On my first time through the series, this is the book where I finally fell in love with Vimes, where I finally saw what everyone else was seeing. He lays a foundation of morality for his younger self, one that will stick with him through the ups and downs (mostly downs) to come. It's a neat little origin story, one that acknowledges how much growth is still to come and how much change has to happen, has to be lived through, for Vimes to become the man he is.
Outside the personal journey, this is also an endlessly quotable book about revolutions and grand gestures and small changes. It's about how easy it is to get lost in rhetoric and grand ideas, how hard it is to change the world, and how inevitable that change is anyway. It's about one of Pratchett's favorite themes: each small life has uncountable ripple effects, so each small act counts more than you can ever know. There's comfort in that. As dark as this book gets, it's ultimately hopeful about the future.
Pratchett makes excellent use of a time-travel paradox to send Vimes back to the past thirty years to mentor his own, younger self. This happens to coincide with a brutal regime change in Ankh-Morpork. No peaceful transition of power here - there are assassinations and revolutions, blood and fire, and Vimes just trying to prevent as much death as possible.
On my first time through the series, this is the book where I finally fell in love with Vimes, where I finally saw what everyone else was seeing. He lays a foundation of morality for his younger self, one that will stick with him through the ups and downs (mostly downs) to come. It's a neat little origin story, one that acknowledges how much growth is still to come and how much change has to happen, has to be lived through, for Vimes to become the man he is.
Outside the personal journey, this is also an endlessly quotable book about revolutions and grand gestures and small changes. It's about how easy it is to get lost in rhetoric and grand ideas, how hard it is to change the world, and how inevitable that change is anyway. It's about one of Pratchett's favorite themes: each small life has uncountable ripple effects, so each small act counts more than you can ever know. There's comfort in that. As dark as this book gets, it's ultimately hopeful about the future.
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