Reviews tagging 'Xenophobia'

Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett

7 reviews

kappafrog's review against another edition

adventurous funny mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.75

Pratchett is one of my favourite authors, but this was really disappointing. The gender/sexual politics were a little dull 30 years on but took a really unpleasant turn late in the book.

Carrot becoming Angua's master after they slept together was disgusting.

The mystery was confusing and I gave up trying to figure it out myself. I really didn't like the dog subplot. Also,

whatever happened to the people Cruces shot from the Tower of Art?

Bright spots were Detritus, Cuddy, and the Via Cloaca. And of course with Pratchett there were plenty of laugh out loud moments, like the Librarian playing the organ. Still, a rare dud from one of my favourite authors.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Murder, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Animal death, Injury/Injury detail, Alcohol, Gun violence, Animal cruelty, and Classism

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Racism, Sexism, Sexual content, Police brutality, Vomit, Misogyny, Hate crime, and Alcoholism

Minor: Addiction, Racial slurs, Fatphobia, Child abuse, Excrement, and Pedophilia

theropfather's review against another edition

adventurous funny lighthearted mysterious reflective sad medium-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? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Murder, Racism, War, Xenophobia, and Death

Minor: Sexual content

judassilver's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful lighthearted mysterious sad medium-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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Alcoholism, Gun violence, Death, Xenophobia, Murder, Animal death, Violence, and Classism

Moderate: Misogyny

soupply's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny inspiring mysterious tense 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Classism, Addiction, Grief, Alcoholism, Death, Gun violence, Racism, Violence, Misogyny, Hate crime, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Animal death, Animal cruelty, Sexual harassment, and Racial slurs

Minor: Bullying

woweewhoa's review against another edition

adventurous funny mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Gun violence, and Racism

Moderate: Alcohol, Violence, Death, Racial slurs, Xenophobia, Sexism, and Animal death

Minor: Fatphobia and Alcoholism

bluejayreads's review against another edition

adventurous

• Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

This book is difficult to review, for a couple reasons. One is that it's not particularly remarkable. I mean that in the sense that there's not a lot to remark on - it's still a solidly good book, with the absurd humor and wacky shenanigans you expect from a Discworld story. But nothing really jumped out at me to say "this is worth remarking about." 

I think a large part of that - and the second reason it's so hard to review - was because there were just so many characters running around. There's Corporal Carrot and Captain Vimes, of course, as well as Corporal Nobbs, all of whom I'm familiar with from the last City Guard book. Then there's the three new recruits, Lance-Constable Cuddy, Lance-Constable Detritus, and Lance-Constable Angua. The obnoxious talking dog from Moving Pictures is back and only slightly less obnoxious. And that's just the major characters! There's also an assortment of dwarves and trolls, some assassin's guild members, some fool's guild members, a couple beggar's guild members, Lord Vetinari, Lady Sibyl, and I'm sure a few more that I'm not remembering off the top of my head. 

With that many characters happening, the plot feels spread out and disjointed even though it really isn't. The main plot is a mystery, trying to figure out who is committing a series of murders and how they're doing it. There are also subplots of Captain Vimes' impending marriage, romance between Carrot and Angua (she's a woman and he's the protagonist of this sub-series, it was predictable), a brewing race war between dwarves and trolls, and also a scheme to depose Vetinari and put a king on the throne of Ankh-Morpork that's brought up in the beginning like it's going to be the main plot and then almost completely forgotten until the end. If this book only focused on Carrot, I think it could have been manageable. But with so many sub-plots spread out across so many characters, it lost a lot of its coherence and also a lot of its impact. 

It feels like this book is trying to do a lot of social commentary in a very small space. The Night Watch gets some "diversity hires," there's a plot to give Ankh-Morpork a king again, someone invents a gun. But this book is not spectacularly long and there's so much happening that very little actually came through clearly. The messages "kings = bad" and "guns make people more violent" came through, but not very strongly. The clearest message was in support of diversity. 

Don't get me wrong, this book is good. It's fun, entertaining, wacky, funny, and occasionally emotional. It's just trying to do more things than it has space for, and ends up feeling diluted and occasionally disconnected. It's still a perfectly solid book and a very enjoyable read - one of those that you don't really start to notice the issues until you try to write a book review about it - but I think it could have used a little streamlining. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Blood, Animal cruelty, Alcoholism, and Racism

Minor: Body horror and Xenophobia

kateworm's review against another edition

adventurous funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Minor: Gun violence, Xenophobia, Violence, and Death