Guards! Guards!

by Terry Pratchett

I don’t know if I’ve started getting my sense of humor back (though I wasn’t aware that it had gone anywhere), or if Pratchett vastly improved his style between writing The Color of Money and this novel, but I rather enjoyed this one a lot more than The Color of Money.

Carrot, a human orphaned as a baby and raised by dwarf parents, is sent to the city (Ankh-Morpork) to see the world. Of course, he’s been sent to work with the City Watch, a shabby bunch of guards who are not well respected but for good reason. Carrot, however, has a strong sense of morals and wants to rid the city of crime (even though crime is legal as long as it’s done within the guidelines of the guilds).

Meanwhile, a secret society is illegally using magic to summon a dragon for their own nefarious purposes. Unfortunately, dragons are hard to control once they’ve been unleashed.

Fun, fanciful diversion