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“Truth! Justice! Freedom! Reasonably Priced Love! And a Hard-Boiled Egg!��

I am still angry at the world for taking Terry Pratchett away from us. I miss him �� his razor-sharp wit, his pointed humor, the ridiculous clarity with which he must have seen the world. When I can get lost in the pages of his writing - competent, confident, and simply brilliant - the world becomes pretty tolerable.

“Every year he forgot. Well, no. He never forgot. He just put the memories away, like old silverware that you didn’t want to tarnish. And every year they came back, sharp and sparkling, and stabbed him in the heart.��

Night Watch along with its successor Thud! is the pinnacle of Sir Terry’s writing. It’s a story of grief and loss, of attractions and perils of nostalgia, of memory and things lost. It blends disillusioned cynicism and clear hope into something unique, something so “Pratchett�� that I, a mere mortal, lack words to precisely describe what it is. All I know is that it reduces me to a blubbering fan who still has something catch in her throat even after reading this book for the umpteenth time.

—�Ĕ�Ĕ���

“If you don’t know where *there* was, you weren’t there,�� he said in the same quiet voice.��



“You’re not me, he thought. I don’t think I was ever as young as you. If you’re going to be me, it’s going to take a lot of work. Thirty damn years of being hammered on the anvil of life, you poor bastard. You’ve got it all to come.��

To reduce this book just to plot description �� it is a time travel story and a homage to “Les Miserables��, but with Ankh-Morpork flavor. Commander Vimes accidentally ends up being thrown 30 years back in time when he used to be just a green Watch recruit Sam, and the city was just about to go through an attempt at a bloody revolution against a tyrant �� just for another tyrant to take up the mantle. And once Sam’s nostalgia wears off, he realizes that all these people he’s seeing in his past and their “now�� are about to die. History is a wheel that’s about to crush those in its way.

“Don't put your trust in revolutions. They always come round again. That's why they're called revolutions. People die, and nothing changes.��
—�Ĕ���
“As soon as you saw people as things to be measured, they didn’t measure up.��

I’m only slightly exaggerating when I say that Sam Vimes is my moral compass. He’s not an optimist or a pessimist �� he’s the ultimate realist who tends to see the world just how it is, but who will stubbornly make sure it ends up just a bit better. He’s angry, he’s gruff, he’s not always keeping up with the times, and he’s not always the sharpest spoon in the drawer �� but he’s ultimately GOOD. Not preachy-good but bristly-good, without rose-tinted glasses.

“Yes, thought Vimes. That’s the way it was. Privilege, which just means “private law.�� Two types of people laugh at the law; those that break it and those that make it.��

He does not let incompetence slide. Or look the other way when it’s easier to do so. He upsets those who are used to being unbothered. He won’t let the big guy bully the little guy - even if interfering is most inconvenient. And all I can do is nod in appreciation - after all, that Beast inside all of us is really just an animal that can be leashed. Every fragging time.

“He wanted to go home. He wanted it so much that he trembled at the thought. But if the price of that was selling good men to the night, if the price was filling those graves, if the price was not fighting with every trick he knew �� then it was too high.

It wasn’t a decision he was making, he knew that. It happened far below the levels of the brain where decisions were made. It was something built in. There was no universe, anywhere, where a Sam Vimes would give in on this, because if he did then he wouldn’t be Sam Vimes anymore.��

Oh yeah, and Commander Vimes, the Duke of Ankh, a Blackboard Monitor and a former gutter rat still remembers how to survive and how to fight dirty. (Just ask those oxen about that ginger!)

“You’d like Freedom, Truth, and Justice, wouldn’t you, Comrade Sergeant?�� said Reg encouragingly.
“I’d like a hard-boiled egg,�� said Vimes, shaking the match out.
There was some nervous laughter, but Reg looked offended.
“In the circumstances, Sergeant, I think we should set our sights a little higher—��
“Well, yes, we could,�� said Vimes, coming down the steps. He glanced at the sheets of paper in front of Reg. The man cared. He really did. And he was serious. He really was. “But…well, Reg, tomorrow the sun will come up again, and I’m pretty sure that whatever happens we won’t have found Freedom, and there won’t be a whole lot of Justice, and I’m damn sure we won’t have found Truth. But it’s just possible that I might get a hard-boiled egg.��

It’s a pleasure for me to see again and again, on all those countless rereads, how well-done Pratchett’s books are. He trusts his readers to get it without beating them over the head with it, and the readers can trust him to get it right, every time.

5 hardboiled eggs. 5 lilac sprigs. And those seven graves.

It gets me every time, this book.

“No,�� said Vimes, coming to a halt under a lamp by the crypt entrance. “How dare you? How dare you! At this time! In this place! They did the job they didn’t have to do, and they died doing it, and you can’t give them anything. Do you understand? They fought for those who’d been abandoned, they fought for one another, and they were betrayed. Men like them always are. What good would a statue be? It’d just inspire new fools to believe they’re going to be heroes. They wouldn’t want that. Just let them be. Forever.��

—�Ĕ�Ĕ���

Thanks for buddy read, Carol. I hope this time around Sam Vimes wins your heart just a little bit.