Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett
355 pages
Published 1989
Read from June 25 to June 27
Rating: ★★½ out of 5
This is my first Pratchett book. Well, I did read Good Omens last year, but Pratchett only co-wrote that one, and it had Gaimain's Nebbishy Hero and Über-competent Pixie fingerprints all over it. Aside from that I've only read Pratchett's short story "Troll Bridge," which I found "really cute, and quite enjoyable." Guards! Guards! is likewise cute, and generally enjoyable, but after the first hundred pages or so Pratchett's single joke ("These fantasy cliches are pretty silly when you play around with them!") wears thin. The conceptual high point is reached in the dedication, for crying out loud. Well, to be fair, that isn't his only joke -- there's also the constant patter of puns and wordplay -- but after a while that gets too cutesy and precious for my tastes. Not to the point where I start to actively dislike it, and there were occasional flashes of hilarity that pierced even my joyless heart, but I'd say this was an average read at best.
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