Men at Arms

I really loved this. I do believe I'll be reading the whole City Watch series, before sampling any other Discworld threads again. Somehow the other stories never please me like Vimes & company.

I guess the heart of it is the characters. I can't decide on my favorite - of course I love Carrot (as everyone does), but Angua is awesome, Cuddy and Detritus as enemies turned buddy cops are a lot of fun, Gaspode is a delight, and Colon and Vetinari are highly entertaining. And of course Vimes is Vimes (this story includes his famous theory on how the rich stay rich by their ability to spend less money, among other cynical and poignantly true observations). The only person who gets short shrift is Sybil - hopefully she'll play a bigger part in future tales.

In its way, this winds up being surprisingly political and topical, for all the silly puns and slapstick jokes. I'll say no more to avoid spoilers, but it cemented Pratchett as an author I admire.

I listened to the audio book, and its quality was very uneven. Nigel Planer is a brilliantly talented reader, and invents gorgeous voices and accents for each distinctive character. He conveys Carrot's earnest goodness particularly artfully. But it escapes me why he styled the female lead with a voice lower and more gormless than the trolls! Also, the sound quality varies from “acceptable” to “awful,” sadly.