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This is my favorite of all Pratchett's Discworld novels. Samuel Vimes is a cop chasing a killer. When both are thrown back in time, Vimes must decide whether to try to change history and prevent what he knows will be a horrible battle, or allow the events to happen so he eventually has a future waiting for him.

danilanglie's review against another edition

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5.0

A lot of people told me this was one of the best books in the series, and... yeah. You'll get no argument from me.

There's that famous quote about The Princess Bride that I can't remember exactly so I'm going to paraphrase, but it's basically that idea of: in order for this story to be funny, there has to be a moment when it stops being a joke. In that movie, of course, it's "I want my father back, you son of a bitch."

Here, it's... well, there are a few of them, but I think it comes out most clearly with Vimes and the Beast: the violent, angry impulse inside of him that he is constantly wrestling, trying to control, only letting out when the situation really calls for it. His reaction to seeing the torture victims, his mercy killing of those who wouldn't survive. But then his decision to go back inside the burning building to save the man he'd left tied to a chair. Even though he fails, it matters that he tried.

And I think this "it's not a joke right now" motif carries through into the final combat as well, in particular as Vimes has a chance to say something to the body of his one-time commanding officer, and chooses to tell him that Carcer will go down for this. The scrabble at the cemetery, with Vimes being goaded on to kill Carcer at last, but choosing to let the city kill him. Proper like. It's chilling, what Vimes is capable of, and this book seems to be saying, again and again, thank god he's a good person at the end of the day. I loved the way Vimes thought through how he would have stormed the barricades, and then the reveal that of course he's already figured out a way to thwart all the methods he would have thought of on the other side. God, he's so brilliant, it's chilling and inspiring at the same time.

I kept getting misty-eyed about the tenderness with which Vimes regarded his younger self, and it's all capped off with his joy at his son Sam being born safely at the end. So touching. We don't get a lot of Vimes and Sybil's relationship on the page, per se, and I think there could be a temptation to play it off as a joke, like, Vimes is the long-suffering husband who just puts up with whatever wild thing his rich and bossy wife says next, but this book doesn't go there at all: you see the true desperation and devotion that Vimes feels for her. The lighter, the way the monks are willing to fuck with time just to give Vimes the hope he needs to UNfuck with time, and then the way Vimes runs to her and then runs to the doctor to save her and gives away a ton of his wealth in thanks... Vimes is a family man, and that lies at the beating heart of this novel even though Sybil is literally off-screen giving birth during the whole dang story.

Of course while all this stuff is making me emotional, the story is full of the usual brilliant jokes and satire and goofy puns and charming footnotes. This is Pratchett at his very best, I do believe.

"The men with the lilac, I have to say, fought like tigers. Not skillfully, I'll admit, but when they saw that their leader was down they took the other side to pieces. Astonishing."

What if I cried for a thousand years about it....