Night Watch

But the Discworld series, which is sort of, like, his more famous, more popular book series, where he basically examines all these structures of powers inside of a fa- a, a fantasy city, uh, Discworld, um, Ankh-Morpork in Discworld.

Um, but Night Watch is my favorite.

It's, it's, like, a step above the rest, I think, and it's a time travel story of when the captain of the guard, Sam Vimes, the head of the Night's Watch, uh, gets sent 30 years back in time, along with a crazed murderer, and he has to a- avert a disaster that happened 30 years ago, all the while train- mentoring, training a younger version of himself.

Like, the young version of himself.

... thinking, he's, he is putting as much cognitive work into this as he put into the books that came before and after.

Maybe not as much as Night Watch, but ...

And also bear in mind, he did, he published three books in this year.

This was, like, the third book that was published that year.

Ah, okay.

Yeah.

Which was something that really stood out to me, and I'm not just recommending it because Gabby is actually the guest on our next episode for, um, the Night Watch episode.

Not j- because I, I seriously think that Dark...

You have to train your younger, completely naive self, and you have to willingly walk into a bloodbath that you already know you can't stop.

I mean, it is just a phenomenal, suffocating premise for a novel.

It really is.

It operates entirely on this dread of inevitability, you know? It forces a protagonist into an impossible psychological corner.

And that is the exact premise of Night Watch, which is widely considered the crown jewel of Sir Terry Pratchett's sprawling 41-novel Discworld universe.

The absolute peak of the series for so many people.

Yeah.

Which is incredibly rare in publishing.

It keeps you anchored in the humanity of the characters even as the decades fly by.

Now, speaking of being anchored while navigating massive concepts, we have to talk about the grandmaster of blending genres, Terry Pratchett and his novel Night Watch.

One of modern English language literature's most groundbreaking satirists.

This is the 29th book in the legendary Discworld series, and it makes a massive argument that comedic fantasy is just as essential and just as capable of prestige as any serious brooding epic.

Because comedy, particularly satire, functions as a remarkably effective Trojan horse.

Night Watch is actually one of Discworld's darkest and most serious novels.

Really?

Yes.

Because I think this is...

We thought this was worth a little discussion on the choices that would be made.

Okay.

So clubs is watch.

Yeah, so the Battle Days is actually, it is early.

Yeah, so the recommended reading for Battle Days is basically Color of Magic, Light of Fantastic, Echorite, Sorcery, Pyramids, Eric.

I'm confused about Eric because that's not actually set in Antmoor Pork but it's basically the first part of the series when stuff's still being developed and you can kind of like I guess the wizards are still doing their like dead man's boots kind of nonsense and I guess the sorcery stuff happening I guess the beginning of Pyramids has the I mean there's discussions about when Pyramids is but anyway yeah

Well, in this they believe it's contemporary because there is an adventure where part of the adventure is Tepic coming back.

Sponsored by Chumba Casino.

Letty's enter the Discworld to look at Terry Pratchett's Night Watch, published in 2002.

Night Watch is the 29th novel in the comedic fantasy Discworld series.

The 29th.

Yes, a sprawling universe set on a flat planet, balanced on the backs of four elephants standing on a giant turtle, and there was a 2008 BBC Radio 4 adaptation as well.

So how does a comic fantasy in the 29th book in a series achieve structural perfection?

This raises an important question, and the answer is, by balancing silly humor with dead serious subject matter.

The perfection of Night Watch relies on Pratchett's mastery of the Trojan horse methodology.