For the thirty-first book of the Disc, we visit the ultra-conservative country of Borogravia and its incessant state of war with its neighbors for spurious reasons.
Young Polly worries about her brother, who signed up for the military, but they’ve not heard anything from him in some time. Since Borogravia is so very stuck in its ways, she has to disguise herself as a man to do so, which sees her becoming Oliver, and enlisting in the army in an attempt to find him.
While this is going on, Sam Vimes and some of the watch have been sent by the Patrician to deal with the loss of clacks towers in the area. Clacks were introduced back in The Fifth Elephant; they are the Disc’s equivalent of semaphore towers, and are considered extremely important for diplomacy, commerce, and of course, espionage. The border between Borogravia and Zlobenia changed due to a river flowing differently and the clacks towers now inside Borogravia were destroyed by the ultra-conservative church of Nuggan that largely rules the country, along with the duchess that may or may not be dead.
We quickly find out two key things: first, the war is not going well for Borogravia, despite the official line that they’re winning; and second, Polly is not the only woman disguised as a man among her group of new recruits. While there was some consternation on the part of Sergeant Jackrum and Corporal Strappi about recruiting an Igor, a vampire, and a troll, they were accepted quickly due to the current actual progress of the war, but women were still not openly allowed into their military due to obviously foolish rules on such matters.
A lot of the enjoyment of the book is finding out just how many of the new recruits are women disguised as men. Some are more obvious than others, at least to Polly, who is the character we spend most of our time with, while some take a while for her, and therefore us, to truly know, even if we or she may be suspicious that someone might be another woman in men’s clothing. It’s quite the joy of discovery to see who is who, and how they all have their own reasons for their disguises and signing up to join the army.
Sergeant Jackrum is one of the best characters in this book. The focus is on Polly and the other new recruits, but Jackrum often steals the show. Being an old sergeant, and one known personally to some of the top brass in the Borogravian military, while also being very protective of ‘his little lads,’ and being quite the character in his own right, makes him a joy to read about. He’s the one that is in charge of the recruitment drive that sees Polly and the others join their country’s military.
Corporal Strappi is a different story. He’s the other half of the enlistment squad with Sergeant Jackrum and is far less enjoyable to read about. He’s a nasty piece of work and Polly quickly lands on his bad side. When they meet their new lieutenant, or Rupert as Jackrum likes to call all these fresh new lieutenants, and are ordered to get to the front, Strappi doesn’t seem too keen on this fact. He’s not present as often as most of the other important characters are, thankfully. He has a large impact on portions of the story, but not quite in the way that he wanted.
Speaking of their Rupert, Lieutenant Blouse was an accountant, albeit one that was working in the military at least, until they gave him a commission to go to the front. He’s as inexperienced as they come, and quite ignorant of many realities of war, but he’s intelligent, organized, and genuinely cares about his troops. He grows a lot along with Polly and the other fresh recruits he is in command of. He has some really fun moments in the book as well, especially as the book draws closer to the end and they have to deal with Kneck Keep. This keep is a powerful defensive position that fell to the Zlobenians early on in the war and has a lot of Borogravian prisoners in its extensive dungeons. Their plan to break into the keep and rescue the many captured troops was hilarious considering the situation of their squad, and this is how we eventually find out that many of those that are in command aren’t always truthful about their gender, either.
William De Worde and Otto Chriek from the excellent The Truth are also important to this book as they’re covering the war for the paper. Otto notices that the squad’s vampire, Maladict, is in trouble. They’re both black ribboners, i.e., vampires that have sworn off blood, but they have to obsess about something else to cover that loss; Otto focuses on his love for photography, but Maladict is a coffee addict, and their coffee maker and supply of beans have been damaged and lost, so Otto warns Polly about the potential remission of their vampire if they can’t get Maladict some coffee or other focus before it’s too late.
Like Cherri Littlebottom and Angua from earlier watch books, this book is praised for its pro-trans stance by many fans. Sir Terry even changes a character’s pronouns based on what gender they identify as at the time, so many of the characters have their pronouns change as the book proceeds, sometimes more than once. It also shines a light on the fact that gender does not automatically make you better or worse at something, a lesson a lot more people need to learn.
This book is another one where it feels more relevant today than ever. Between the fight for women’s rights, gender identity, religious extremism, and manipulated patriotism, it’s hard to believe that this book wasn’t specifically written about our current world. It gets dark at times, but it is a book about war after all, so one can’t expect it to be light and airy, but it can also be extremely funny like Discworld usually is, which helps us deal with the less than appetizing aspects of conflict, kind of like M*A*S*H did for the Korean War.
3.75 Disguised soldiers out of 4.
Some fun quotes:
The enemy isn't men, or women, it's bloody stupid people and no one has the right to be stupid.
[The pamphlet] was very patriotic. That is, it talked about killing foreigners.
People build something that works. Then circumstances change, and they have to tinker with it to make it continue to work, and they are so busy tinkering that they cannot see that a much better idea would be to build a whole new system to deal with the new circumstances. But to an outsider, the idea is obvious.
Morella is a Gen Xer who likes strange things a bit too much.
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