Book twenty-nine of Discworld is another book of the Watch and also the History Monks, and Lu-Tze in particular. When Vimes chases the reprehensible Carcer across the library dome of UU, they both end up in Ankh-Morporks’s past, thanks to the mix of powerful storm and ancient magic buried there.
Things start strong but on the darker side. A man known as Carcer has been a thorn in the side of the Watch for some time, and with the death of Sergeant Stronginthearm by Carcer’s hand, Vimes goes after the man personally. This leads to a manhunt and chase that ends up with Carcer and Vimes being sent back in time several years, although still in Ankh-Morpork. They arrive in the past right before the lilac revolution, in which Lord Winder, the Patrician of the day, was removed from office and replaced with Lord Snapcase, who is Lord Vetinari’s immediate predecessor.
Vimes is confused and displeased, to put it mildly. He ends up impersonating John Keel, the sergeant that originally taught a much younger Sam Vimes the ropes and got him through the upcoming revolution. Carcer complicated this situation by murdering the original Keel, and the history monks help him take the other man’s place so things will work out in the long-term, although being around his younger self so often feels odd. Luckily, Sir Terry refers to our Vimes as Vimes and his younger self as young Sam, to avoid confusing the reader.
We meet all kinds of characters we know or at least heard about as well. A very young Nobby Nobbs, Fred Colon pre-sergeant, CMOT Dibbler before he uses his trademark phrase, a young assassin named Havelock Vetinari (!), Mrs. Palm as a young woman before she heads the seamstresses and ‘ladies of negotiable affection,’ Reg Shoe before he becomes a zombie, and a few other characters that aren’t as prominent as others listed here, but are still recognizable from other books.
Once we arrive back in time, the Ankh-Morpork of that era immediately feels wrong. There are few, if any, dwarves and trolls, and they keep a very low profile here. With Winder’s paranoia on the rise, his ‘Unmentionables,’ essentially his secret police, operate at a particular Watch house that no one wants to go to, and few ever emerge from again. The curfew makes the entire city feel like it’s under siege and lacks the light-hearted feeling we get from the twin cities in other novels. The oppression of Winder’s regime can be felt to a palpable degree. The change in tone from something like Guards! Guards! is so striking that it’s jarring, although in a good way, as it makes the situation feel real, the darkness darker, and the idea of rebellion all the more appealing due to such a dreary state of affairs.
With Vimes taking on Keel’s role, and Carcer worming his way into the Unmentionables, their conflict continues despite them nominally being on the same side. The difference here is that Vimes works for the city first, and the Unmentionables are Winder’s enforcers, torturers, and murderers, they are no more than brutal thugs with badges, something reflected all too accurately in both past and current roundworld events, and something we should be aware of and oppose at every opportunity. Vimes has always at least tried to be a good copper, even when we first met him and he was deep in the bottle, and he’s only grown since then, so his version of policing is in direct conflict with the horror of what the Unmentionables do, and he gets in their way almost immediately as sergeant-at-arms, demanding receipts for the prisoners they want him to turn over, and keeping them in his own cells instead of allowing them to be taken away. This conflict comes to a head once the revolution is in full swing, and it gets ugly at times, far uglier than we normally expect from Pratchett, but it fits the situation, so isn’t gratuitous; it feels like it needs to be there, regardless of how uncomfortable it makes us.
Sir Terry has written some brilliant villains before, but Carcer is among the best of the worst. I hated him viscerally from the very first encounter we had with this monster. He is Sam Vimes turned inside-out; he lets the beast go where Vimes’ reigns his in, he treats people as playthings where Vimes abhors such a notion, both are clever and dangerous, but where Vimes is genuinely good at heart, if a bit rough around the edges, Carcer is thoroughly reprehensible. The resolution of the conflict between these two was extremely satisfying, and a crowning touch to the novel.
The way that we know things aren’t one hundred percent correct, but that they also work out so the modern Disc is still familiar to us and to Vimes, is just so much fun to read, and extremely satisfying to boot. Some of the other characters either know or at least suspect something is up, even if they don’t know what, and how this all ties in together is done so deftly and seamlessly by Sir Terry that it all felt so right, despite the timelines being repaired very much on the fly by the history monks with Vimes’ aid. The glorious 25th of May, when those that know wear lilac and there’s always a hard-boiled egg placed at John Keel’s grave feels so real, like it happened on our roundworld, and we were there to see what happened, and why it both heals and hurts veterans of that time.
I do find it telling that when Snapcase took over, he wasn’t much of an improvement to Winder. He may in fact have been worse. Winder was paranoid, spiteful, and vindictive, but Snapcase adds a whole new level of insanity to the mix, judging by his decisions before being deposed and Vetinari taking over. I’m not sure how long he lasts, but other books that reference Mad Lord Snapcase seem to indicate it was a few years before he too was toppled.
I have to give Sir Terry another laurel when he used swordfish as a password at one point. Fans of the Marx Brothers will know why this made me break into an enormous grin when I read that passage. It’s one of my favorite bits from Horse Feathers, especially when Harpo, who never speaks on film, takes a sword and a large fish out of his coat and shoves the sword down the fish’s mouth to indicate he knows the password despite his silence. One of the lighter moments this often oppressive story needed to keep it from getting too dark.
Despite my love of Doctor Who, I’m generally leery of time travel stories. They come off poorly more often than not, but here, Sir Terry’s brilliance makes this a smashing tale, and one of the longer novels of the Disc as well, clocking in at 408 pages. This volume of the Disc is a popular favorite among the fandom, and now that I’ve finally read it, I can see why. It might be the best Discworld book out there, and when every book is as good as this series is, that’s quite a high bar indeed. Its darker tone and subject matter means there’s less fun here than we usually see from Sir Terry, but that doesn’t make it a worse book, just not as light as these books tend to go. I recognize its genius and have to give it the highest rating, but it didn’t topple Reaper Man from my favorite spot, despite how good and engaging it is. It’s a masterpiece in a series that is consistently great, and that’s saying something, so I highly recommend it; just be prepared for less levity and more disturbing passages than the usual Disc volume provides.
4.0 time traveling coppers out of 4.
Some fun quotes:
"No! Please! I'll tell you whatever you want to know!" the man yelled.
"Really?" said Vimes. "What's the orbital velocity of the moon?"
"What?"
"Oh, you'd like something simpler?"
"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 papers 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."
"I get it," said the prisoner. "Good Cop, Bad Cop, eh?"
"If you like," said Vimes. "But we're a bit short staffed here, so if I give you a cigarette, would you mind kicking yourself in the teeth?"
Morella is a Gen Xer who likes strange things a bit too much.
No comments:
Post a Comment
We love comments! Just note that we always moderate because of spam and trolls. It's never too late to comment on an old show, but please don’t spoil future episodes for newbies.