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A review by remmerich1
Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
relaxing
4.5
A really fun story, especially impressive for being a war story that manages to largely stay within Pratchett's sensibilities and not get overtaken by flippant killing or grim horrida bella moralising
The monstrous regiment as a counter-weight to Vimes' watch was a fun parallel, I'd have liked to more of him, but then I'll always say that about anything, Sam Vimes could turn up in Dune and I'd cheer.
It's not quite a trans take on gender, it can' quite seem to make its mind up on to what extent gender is or isn't innate versus a social construct. It's not quite feminist, it doesn't really add anything substantively new to the Mulan story within the narrative, it's more a fun what if Pratchett did Mulan. I'm not sure if it just didn't go the way I wanted, but it felt like at the end there weren't the kind of changes I was hoping for. For all that I lov a good "more they change more they stay the same" futility of fighting the system story, Pratchett usually has me on board with his more ambiguous endings, but I wasn't here.
So that's half a star, but other than that, it's a really fun read, as always, and well worth your time!
Ten books to go now and I'm starting to contemplate finishing the Discworld books, and it's very sad!
The monstrous regiment as a counter-weight to Vimes' watch was a fun parallel, I'd have liked to more of him, but then I'll always say that about anything, Sam Vimes could turn up in Dune and I'd cheer.
It's not quite a trans take on gender, it can' quite seem to make its mind up on to what extent gender is or isn't innate versus a social construct. It's not quite feminist, it doesn't really add anything substantively new to the Mulan story within the narrative, it's more a fun what if Pratchett did Mulan. I'm not sure if it just didn't go the way I wanted, but it felt like at the end there weren't the kind of changes I was hoping for. For all that I lov a good "more they change more they stay the same" futility of fighting the system story, Pratchett usually has me on board with his more ambiguous endings, but I wasn't here.
So that's half a star, but other than that, it's a really fun read, as always, and well worth your time!
Ten books to go now and I'm starting to contemplate finishing the Discworld books, and it's very sad!