GUARDS! GUARDS! (1989)

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It was very readable and perfectly fine and had some decent characterization. So GUARDS! GUARDS! is at the least a good book. Its biggest sin is cleverness--much too much in the school of GAIMAN (and wouldn't you know they worked together) And like. There's too much trope awareness, it's really ugly and not remotely funny to have dialogue so sickeningly in love with itself. Mentioned characterization and most are good--Carrot, surrogate protagonist, is incredibly strange in how he interacts with dwarfs in the city... And how he doesn't for the entire rest of the book. In fact it's strange that PRATCHETT ends GUH'ARDS!x2 how soon he does--not that 400 pages is a novella, but there's a lot more plot and plot material left unanswered and unaddressed. And not stuff for a sequel, of which i am aware there are many, but rather just simple stuff like our surrogate boy visiting back home, having a renewed sit down with dad to cap off how it all started. Shit like that. Prose is ok. Extremely breezy but maybe in need of just one more editing pass. Sybil was a let down with how she was treated in the back half of the book. Oh my god most of these jokes aren't funny. It's worse that when they are, they really are--it's usually the subtler that work. Makes you wish he was restrained a bit more.

Here's the deal. GWAR GWARDS!! is a good book, but THE HOBBIT is a good book, too. I had THE HOBBIT at 3 stars on GOODREADS before I read PRATCHETT'S obnoxious police procedural and now I have THE HOBBIT at 4. Not sure how damning that is but there you go.