Guards! Guards! (Arrest that dragon!)

Book:  'Guards! Guards' by Terry Prachett
Series: Discworld series (book 8, but standalone)
Genre: Comic Fantasy

I'm a bit of a sucker for a beautiful book. I'm talking here about a really beautiful looking book (though obviously beautiful writing is good too). This is the way the publishing industry is going too, publishing really lovely hardback editions of books to try and entice readers to buying actual physical books for way over the odds. It worked for me. This is one of those gorgeous, textured hardcover books that feels great to hold. It's stylistic cover is all oranges, yellows and silver, with a large fire breathing dragon gliding over the cityscape of Ankh Morpork.

They do say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover though, so lets go and see what's inside. 'Guards! Guards!' by Terry Pratchett is a Discworld^* novel, the eighth in the series. For those that don't know, the Discworld novels - of which there are about forty to date - is a series of comic fantasy novels by Terry Pratchett, set in the fictional Discworld. Novels can, by and large, be read in any order and in fact many Pratchett fans would argue that the first couple of books aren't the best starting point. This book is the first book to feature the City Watch^{^} - Captain Vimes, Carrot, Nobby and Colon amonst others and is as good a starting point as any (Mort is another really good one to start with).

I'm not a diehard Pratchett fan by any means, I've read a few books before, but never any of the City Watch books, though friends have suggested these are some of their favourite Pratchatt books. So I thought I'd give this one a go. The premise of the book is that the City Watch is at an all-time low, the Captain is a hopeless drunk and his two sub-ordinates are just...hopeless. Then Carrot, an eager six foot plus dwarf joins the watch, the first volunteer in... well, a long time. Soon after his arrival a dragon arrives in mysterious circumstances and the Watch actually have a job to do for once.

I really enjoyed this book. Pratchett is a very funny writer. He makes a lot out of metaphors and word-play - for instance when one Vimes tells one of the Watch to 'throw the book' at the bad guy, that's what he does, literally. He makes good use of footnotes^# for particularly amusing additions to the main story, and so it is always worth reading those. Sometimes 'comic' authors try to be funny but just fall short, but not this author, he actually is very funny. What's more though, there is actually a good story - it is a somewhat stereotypical fantasy story - dragon threatens city - hero arrives to challenge it - but that is entirely the point here! This completely turns the story on its head and makes much fun of the stereotypes.

So that's good humour, good story and to add to that, there's good characters which you really care about too. They're funny and a bit silly, but sincere too, you believe in them. The main character Captain Vimes, starts out a drunkard who barely does anything, he doesn't want to be that way, but doesn't know how else to be. The arrival of danger in the city gives him the impetous to actually change, and be more the person he always wanted to be. Then there's Carrot, an eager young recruit who believes in (and knows off by heart) the law, when no one else does. He also takes everything literally, which is rather funny a lot of the time.

Pulling off both being funny and telling a good story is quite a challenge, but Pratchett really manages it well in this novel. I'm going to give this a solid 8/10.

If you enjoy this book, then you'll probably enjoy the rest of the Discworld novels. If you particularly like the characters in this book, then you'll want to check out the other two books in the City Watch trilogy - 'Men at Arms' and 'Feet of Clay'.

^*These are 'must read' books for  members of the Flat Earth Society, as the Discworld is literally that, a flat disc. Resting on top of four elephants. Who are atop a giant turtle. Which is flying through space. All fairly normal really.
^Watch is probably an apt name, as it is not like they actually do anything.
^# Like this. Not that I'm copying or anything. Erm.

'The Final Empire' by Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn Book One)

First book of the New Year was 'The Final Empire', the first book in the Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson. As with many people I suspect, I first heard about Brandon Sanderson when it was announced he had been chosen by Robert Jordan to finish off his Wheel of Time series, and have what I've heard he's done a good job of it. I haven't read those books yet, I gave up on The Wheel of Time many years ago. I promised myself that one day when it was complete I'd go back to it, but not got around to it yet.

Anyway, I picked up 'The Final Empire' and decided to have a go, despite the fact that I've read and enjoyed relatively few fantasy books in recent years, I've tended to go more for science fiction and other genres. I was pleasantly very surprised. I'll come on to why in a minute, but first a bit of a synopsis.

The book follows Vin, a street urchin in the Empire capital of Luthadel (I know, I know it's always either a street urchin or a farm/kitchen boy but it just works so well...). It's a rather grim sort of place, ruled over by the evil Lord Ruler, who is basically a god. He encourages the nobles to oppress and kill the poor (the "skaa") at every opportunity. She falls in with a rebel crew looking to overthrow the Lord Ruler. No one has even come close in over a thousand years, after all you can't kill a god, but then there's never been anyone like Kelsier before. A mistborn, the only person to ever survive the Pits of Hathsin, he believes he has found the key to defeating the Lord Ruler, and Vin has an important part to play in that.

For me, there are two things that really make this book stand out as different from other fantasy books that I've read. The first is that in this book, there isn't a looming threat of an evil overlord - he's already won and been in power for over a thousand years. The second is that the author has come up with a really interesting, unusual type of magic. Rather than wave a wand, cast an incantation or gather your will, focus etc, in this book all magic stems from metals. There are ten metals which you swallow and then 'burn' in your stomach to give yourself power. Each metal does something different. Really unusual, found this aspect fascinating.

The book isn't incredibly dense and is an easy read, but at the same time it isn't 'fantasy-lite' as some books I've read have been. There's meat on the bones, and a deep back-story that only starts being revealed in this first book.

A really good read and an excellent introduction to this talented fantasy author. I'll be reading more from this author in 2015, starting with the rest of this trilogy and moving on from there. 9/10.

Game of Thrones Season 4 - Thoughts so far

I have been neglecting my blog of late, despite having lots to blog about so am going to try to rectify that over the next couple of weeks. Some board gaming posts coming up, but first I wanted to share my thoughts on Game of Thrones Series 4. Major spoilers coming up for the first three episodes of season 4 (episode 3 aired in US on Sunday 20th April, UK Monday 21st April).

SPOILER ALERT

SPOILER ALERT  

"Switch to red alert."

"Are you sure sir, it does mean changing the bulb?"

Sorry, little off-topic quote there, not from Game of Thrones. You probably have to be in your 30s to get that old science fiction reference though!

Anyway, back to Game of Thrones.

Firstly, the first two episodes were a bit so so I thought. After the drama of the last season, I felt it started quite slow but maybe that was just me. Plus I'm watching episode by episode now rather than having a full season's boxset to consume in one go, so only getting bitesize chunks at a time which makes it a bit different. The ending of episode two really shook things up a lot with Joffrey dying and a whole whodunnit thing going on. Though if you've read the books you'll know of course. Unless they change things.

Episode Three had a lot going on, with bits of rather a lot of storylines. The most interesting of which (if you don't count Danaerys marching on yet another city, always a fun watch particularly as she's far and away the hottest female character in the series) is events in King's Landing, with a new King soon to be crowned, Tyrion standing trial for poisoning Joffrey (which he blatantly didn't do) and a rather unsettling encounter between Cersei and Jaime Lannister which looked a lot like rape. This is causing a lot of debate, not because it appeared to be rape, but because in the books it isn't rape and the context is very different. Plus it seems completely at odds with Jaime's redemption character arc. 

Anyway, on the subject of a new King, I can't quite remember what happened to Gendry, Robert Baratheon's bastard son, but I'm sure he's still around somewhere. Could he be putting in an appearance at some point? Of course I'm not sure who would support him, maybe Margaery Tyrell could marry him and they could kick out the Lannisters? Wishful thinking, I couldn't see it happening, but you can dream...

My biggest problem, after the Red Wedding, is I just don't know who to root for, certainly who to root for that can actually do anything about the Lannisters... Other than Danaerys that is, but she's across the Ocean and not looking like she'll be coming to Westeros anytime soon. 

Oh well, that's it for this week. As compelling viewing as ever, roll on the next episode.