Bookish Ramble: Night Watch

Ally

Title: Night Watch
(Discworld #29)
Author: Terry Pratchett
Year: 2002
Country: UK

Format: Hardback
Pages: 475
Read: 21-30 December 2025
Reread

Night Watch is the twenty-ninth Discworld book, and the sixth starring Sam Vimes and the Ankh Morpork City Watch. Vimes is on the trail of Carcer, a vicious and unrepentant killer, when a freak accident transports them both back in time. Vimes finds himself stuck in the Ankh-Morpork of his youth, right as the Glorious Revolution of the Twenty-Fifth of May is about to kick off. But Vimes and Carcer’s arrival has changed history: John Keel, the man Vimes once knew as his mentor, is dead before his time. Vimes is forced to take Keel’s place and mentor his younger self, at least long enough for the History Monks to patch up history and send him back to the future.

‘I mean, doesn’t it change history even if you just tread on an ant?’
‘For the ant, certainly,’ said Qu.

This is certainly one of the most dramatic Discworld books. Pratchett’s work is never completely devoid of humour, but in Night Watch the scales are tipped more towards tension, drama, and righteous anger. Pratchett incorporates themes of civil unrest, police brutality and torture, social inequality, nostalgia, grief, and corrupt politics, all within the framework of a fantastical time travel romp. It’s definitely Pratchett at the height of his powers.

‘They attacked the other Houses, and what’s the Night Watch ever done to hurt them?’
‘Nothing,’ said Vimes.
‘There you are, then.’
‘I mean the Watch did nothing, and that’s what hurt them,’ said Vimes.

In fact, Night Watch seems to have a reputation among my fellow Terryvangelists as The Best Discworld Book. When I first read it, my expectations were high—perhaps too high, so I ended up faintly disappointed. But even then, I had a feeling it would improve on rereading. And it did! This time round, I absolutely loved it. This is a powerful book with a lot to say, and it manages to say it between—or sometimes with—silly puns and dirty jokes. Well, if it’s good enough for Shakespeare…

And the foreshadowing was much more effective when, like the older and wiser Vimes, I already understood the full significance of the Twenty-Fifth of May and its lilacs.

How do they rise up?

Ankh Morpork City Watch, book review, bookish ramble, books, booktube, discworld, fantasy, fiction, reading, Sam Vimes, Terry Pratchett

Jan 2, 2026 3:59 PM

judy thompson

·

March 21, 2026

Every time I dive into Pratchett, I come away a bit changed. And NightWatch is his tour deforce…he throws himself into it, and drags us along too. Something to think about here. Every few hundred years a writer comes along who changes the way we think, the way we are entertained. The first one was Chaucer, the first to write for the English speaking people, rather than the rich and educated. He wrote his stories in English. At that time French was the courtly language, Latin was for priests and lawyers, English was for the peasants. Shakespeare, a few hundred years later, added to the list with his plays, his poetry. Again, for the English. Dickens (notice the time distances between them) came next, writing book after book about all manner of society, and he did it with a series in the newspapers of the time. And now, a few hundred years later, we have Pratchett. I always wonder that the next one will be doing with our language.

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1. Ally
  
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  March 22, 2026
  
  Thanks for the wonderful, insightful comment, Judy! I definitely regard Pratchett as highly as you, his work rewards the same level of scrutiny as Shakespeare or Dickens. (Admittedly I’m quite unversed on Chaucer, I must go back and explore his work properly.) And it was through my love of Shakespeare that I found my way into Pratchett, via Wyrd Sisters. I had read a smattering of Pratchett in my teens, but reading Wyrd Sisters about 5 years ago is what really made it click for me. What a gift his work is. And yes, I wonder who will be the next in line.
  
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judy thompson

·

March 24, 2026

I know little about Chaucer directly, but I do know he was the first writer to write ‘in English” for the English peasants, rather than French for the aristocrats. What delighted me was that Sir Terry was knighted by the Queen, you don’t get much firmer approval than that in Britain.
And even Pratchett leaves me cold in his “girls only” books, which, after you’ve read one or two you realize the ending is going to the unmasking of yet another hidden female. Just a tad too obvious and preachy, for me.

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A Genteel Black Hole