I have to say Terry Pratchett is my favourite author at the moment (actually for the past five or so years) his books are entertaining but at the same time they say a lot about human nature and the world we live in (despite not being set on the world we live in!!).
Guards! Guards! is part of the discworld series and is the first book about the City Watch. For those of you who don’t know, and where have you been?, the discworld is a flat world, carried on the backs of four elephants which in turn stand on the back of Great A’Tuin, the sky turtle who is swimming through space to who knows where. It is a place of magic and among its inhabitants are witches, wizards, werewolves, vampires, dwarves and trolls.(See what I mean about it not being the world we live in?)
Anyway, down to specifics, Guards! Guards! opens with a secret society and their attempts to summon a dragon. This band of disgruntled misfits is lead by a sinister Grand Master who, it becomes apparent, is set on the overthrow of the ruler of Ankh Morpork (a chief city on the discworld) and replacing him with a puppet leader whom he can manipulate.
Enter Carrot a six foot dwarf (his mother had him ’’by adoption’’) who has been sent from the mountains to join the City Night Watch, a job which no one has ever volunteered for before. However when people begin to get killed in mysterious circumstances (i.e burnt to a crisp) and magical books go missing and finally a dragon is spotted in the city, the City Watch are forced to come to the rescue! It’s a million to one chance but it might just work!! Do they succeed? Sorry but I’m not going to spoil it for you if you want to find out then you will just have to read the book!!
If you have never read any of Terry Pratchetts books, he is a very funny, very entertaining writer who you may well find you are unable to put his books down once you have started them. Guards! Guards! is not the first of the discworld series but as I said before it is the first to feature the City Watch so it is a good place to start reading as, in my opinion, it is the best of his early discworld books.