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4.39 AVERAGE
4.39 AVERAGE
funny
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
adventurous
dark
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
funny
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
FUNKY LIBRO
ESTA FUNY OTRO LIBRILLO DE TERRY QUE ME HACE JIJIJI JIJIJI,,,,,, PERO IGUAL ME DIO UN POCO DE PENA😿 ESPECIALMENTE CUANDO
ESTA FUNY OTRO LIBRILLO DE TERRY QUE ME HACE JIJIJI JIJIJI,,,,,, PERO IGUAL ME DIO UN POCO DE PENA😿 ESPECIALMENTE CUANDO
I am (re)reading all Discworld novels: this is book #2 out of 41.
I liked a lot of things about Men at Arms, but the best is that it is full of apt and witty social commentary. It starts with ridiculing racial (or rather speciesist on Discworld) prejudices and goes all the way to discussing socioeconomic unfairness with the famous boots theory. The animosity of trolls and dwarves towards each other is described very deeply (not to mention attitudes of humans towards both) and I particularly liked the chapters following Cuddy (a dwarf) and Detritus (a troll), where their relationship transforms towards mutual understanding and eventually camaraderie.
Men at Arms is also a bit of a detective story, though an odd one. The perpetrator is in the plain sight, but as the story unfolds it gets quite confusing, since we realise that the main suspect cannot be blamed for all the crimes. The resolution to that story is reasonable, though a bit anticlimactic and it wasn’t the main highlight of the novel for me.
Men at Arms also continues the story of some familiar faces. The question of Carrot’s heritage (very much alluded to in [b: Guards! Guards!|64216|Guards! Guards! (Discworld, #8; City Watch, #1)|Terry Pratchett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1431127356l/64216._SY75_.jpg|1128601]) is finally resolved, though I found the development of his story a bit rushed: at one point it’s Carrot we know from Guards! Guards!, but at another he’s already changed. Well, Pratchett put it aptly himself, so maybe that was the whole point anyway:
Vimes is undergoing a transformation in Men at Arms too, albeit a bit different: the retirement. As a result, he goes through a bit of soul-searching. And it doesn’t help that the social circles he finds himself in have changed:
But his story gets to a satisfying point too (I don’t want to say “conclusion”, because it continues in [b: Feet of Clay|34527|Feet of Clay (Discworld, #19; City Watch, #3)|Terry Pratchett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320490628l/34527._SY75_.jpg|3312754]) and he somehow manages to secure for himself the best of both worlds.
All in all, a very enjoyable read and I’ve already picked up Feet of Clay!
I liked a lot of things about Men at Arms, but the best is that it is full of apt and witty social commentary. It starts with ridiculing racial (or rather speciesist on Discworld) prejudices and goes all the way to discussing socioeconomic unfairness with the famous boots theory. The animosity of trolls and dwarves towards each other is described very deeply (not to mention attitudes of humans towards both) and I particularly liked the chapters following Cuddy (a dwarf) and Detritus (a troll), where their relationship transforms towards mutual understanding and eventually camaraderie.
Men at Arms is also a bit of a detective story, though an odd one. The perpetrator is in the plain sight, but as the story unfolds it gets quite confusing, since we realise that the main suspect cannot be blamed for all the crimes. The resolution to that story is reasonable, though a bit anticlimactic and it wasn’t the main highlight of the novel for me.
Men at Arms also continues the story of some familiar faces. The question of Carrot’s heritage (very much alluded to in [b: Guards! Guards!|64216|Guards! Guards! (Discworld, #8; City Watch, #1)|Terry Pratchett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1431127356l/64216._SY75_.jpg|1128601]) is finally resolved, though I found the development of his story a bit rushed: at one point it’s Carrot we know from Guards! Guards!, but at another he’s already changed. Well, Pratchett put it aptly himself, so maybe that was the whole point anyway:
Colon tried to see a message in Carrot’s face. He’d got used to simple Carrot. Complicated Carrot was as unnerving as being savaged by a duck.
Vimes is undergoing a transformation in Men at Arms too, albeit a bit different: the retirement. As a result, he goes through a bit of soul-searching. And it doesn’t help that the social circles he finds himself in have changed:
He’d faced trolls and dwarfs and dragons, but now he was having to meet an entirely new species. The rich.
But his story gets to a satisfying point too (I don’t want to say “conclusion”, because it continues in [b: Feet of Clay|34527|Feet of Clay (Discworld, #19; City Watch, #3)|Terry Pratchett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320490628l/34527._SY75_.jpg|3312754]) and he somehow manages to secure for himself the best of both worlds.
All in all, a very enjoyable read and I’ve already picked up Feet of Clay!
adventurous
funny
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Created very creative and unique characters in this one. More fun with the buddy cop/detective genre. On to the next one...
3.5 stars, may have actually liked it better the second time, got a few more detective/80s action references this time around.
Have I mentioned how much I love this series? I love this series. Men at Arms has two big reasons for why the City Watch series within Discworld is my absolute favorite:
1) The character development. Vimes, Carrot, and Angua all start different arcs of character growth in this book, with Carrot being the most unique I've seen in a while. "Carrot often struck people as simple. And he was. Where people went wrong was thinking that simple meant the same thing as stupid.” There is a trick to writing characters who are particularly smart so that they also feel real that few authors can quite manage. Pratchett takes it one step further. Carrot is incredibly straightforward and seemingly naïve, but when you look closer could equally be read as him playing the audience at an expert level. I've seen manipulative characters, idealistic characters, and smart characters, but only Carrot seems to be this particular blend.
2) Social Commentary! If the first book in the series is primarily playing with fantasy tropes, the second Pratchett ran with the world he'd created and began applying his incredible gift with words to pointing out issues in the real world. I won't go into much detail, I'll just leave you with this quote from the book on poverty:
“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes “Boots” theory of socioeconomic unfairness.”
1) The character development. Vimes, Carrot, and Angua all start different arcs of character growth in this book, with Carrot being the most unique I've seen in a while. "Carrot often struck people as simple. And he was. Where people went wrong was thinking that simple meant the same thing as stupid.” There is a trick to writing characters who are particularly smart so that they also feel real that few authors can quite manage. Pratchett takes it one step further. Carrot is incredibly straightforward and seemingly naïve, but when you look closer could equally be read as him playing the audience at an expert level. I've seen manipulative characters, idealistic characters, and smart characters, but only Carrot seems to be this particular blend.
2) Social Commentary! If the first book in the series is primarily playing with fantasy tropes, the second Pratchett ran with the world he'd created and began applying his incredible gift with words to pointing out issues in the real world. I won't go into much detail, I'll just leave you with this quote from the book on poverty:
“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes “Boots” theory of socioeconomic unfairness.”