Read on for my full review.
Overall Impression
This was a lighthearted novel with a funny, if somewhat incompetent, set of characters in situations way over their heads. It has the typical humor you see in other Discworld novels which leads you shaking your head wondering how a society like this could exist. It was good fun, though the light-ness of it felt very out of place when I was reading news. In hindsight, a more engrossing novel that kept me thinking far into it would probably have been better.
Plot
The plot is fairly straightforward, though there are many seemingly disparate elements that don't seem to always connect. I personally find it a bit odd that there are no chapter breaks in my version (not sure if that's by design or an issue with the Kindle version) so it wasn't always clear when was a good spot to put it down, and in more than one occasion I didn't realize the characters/scene had shifted due to the odd page breaks. That's a minor formatting issue, though, since the novel itself is a good, fast read.
Characters
There are a lot of funny characters in Discworld in general and this book is no exception. You have Vimes, captain of the City Watch; Carrot, a new recruit that is far too innocent; the Patrician of the city of Ankh-Morpork; the Librarian at the magical University; and much more. Nearly all of the main characters are completely incompetent or otherwise unaware of the situation and while that provides humor in some cases, it is also exasperating in others. I personally also had trouble distinguishing between Nobby and Colon, two of the City Watch. They do have different backgrounds and characteristics, but that just didn't stand out at all for me. At the end of it, I'm curious to read more about Carrot and see if he becomes more based on his heritage, yet I'm also aware that this is not that type of series.
Setting / World Building
Discworld as a whole is very interesting; Ankh-Morpork, one of the largest cities in it, is somewhat less so. It's still a unique place with its own quirks; I just would never want to live there and would rather be reading about the magic and wonder of the Disc itself or A'Tuin. I guess this just means the City Watch sub-series is not for me? I don't know. There were still interesting and curious aspects of the city that we got to see and that shed a bit more light into Discworld, but it really was focused on its citizens and the odd way it's ruled. There are some nuggets of wisdom towards the end, but they are surprisingly dark.
There is also some interesting lore about dragons in Discworld. Each fantasy series has their own take about dragons and this is no different, though it borrows heavily from others. In fact, there is plenty of almost fourth-wall breaking moments when the characters discuss how everyone knows this stereotypical dragon fact or story point and it sometimes pays off, but sometimes it doesn't. These moments serve to lower the tension dramatically with some humor, but I feel they went too far for my tastes.
Final Thoughts
Overall, this was a good book. It's not my favorite of the Discworld novels, but I'm not sure if that's just the time that we live in and the frame of mind I'm in, or just the nature of the novel itself. The characters independently are funny and would be good as side characters of some more serious story and the plot, while it has some predictable generic lines, does have its intriguing twists and turns to keep it a little bit fresh. I am curious about seeing how the City Watch continues to grow and develop, though, so I'm sure I'll revisit this sub-series sometime in the future.
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