If you are a fan of the discworld you will like anoteher fantasy story by Terry Pratchett. I read this book but i can't remember the story as you can see it made a big impact but i am more of a fan of the death collection within the discworld series.

Trying to get through the list of Pratchetts - thanks Pennygirl!

The first Guards book I've read and I really enjoyed it :) Trying to figure out the Pig Latin is half the fun and I admit I had misguessed on the murder weapon as I thought he was borrowing from the Name of the Rose (he wasn't) Horray for Discworld!

found on the shelf during a meet up!

If you aren't familiar with Bookcrossing, take a few minutes to check out this very cool site. Bookcrossers LOVE books, and more than anything, they love to read books and then set them free for other people to find and enjoy. I would love it if you would leave a journal entry -- you can say where you found the book or how you liked it when you read it.

Unable to resist taking this from the table at an international Bookcrossing meet-up in Bruges (or Brugge, as it's known in Dutch). Who was there? KiwiinEngland (NZ in UK), Brezova (Dane in Belgium), Wyando (German/Belgian), Moriquen & Bloedengel (Belgian), Xana (Portuguese in Belgium), ApoloniaX (German) & me, Bookguide (Brit in NL).Escaping from the pouring rain into a rather crowded Belgian-style fast food place, we found two empty tables upstairs, pushed them together, and piled our books in the middle. We were all very restrained, only selecting a couple of books each; the rest were for wild release on a release walk round Bruges. After one overpriced drink for most of us (3.20 euro for a cola!), and putting all the books in plastic bags, we headed back into the rain for the release walk. Bloedengel's son turned out to be a wonderful and fearless wild releaser, and we finished off the afternoon with a visit to a perfect American-style coffee place where we had a whole room to ourselves, the cola only cost 1.20 euro, and they even had a beautiful English bookswap shelf!

I just picked up another Terry Pratchett from the revolving globe outside the Berkeley Library at Trinity College, during the treasure hunt / release walk during the BC convention in Dublin, during which I also talked to Microsquid. This made it the fifth Discworld book on Mount TBR, so I decided I'd better move at least one along, which was the reason for reading this one now. So far I haven't been disappointed by any of Terry Pratchett's books, and this is no exception. I've only read three so far, and not consecutive books in the series, but this is not a problem; they can all be read independently, although there is the odd reference back to previous books which die-hard fans might have understood better than I did.

I loved the zany characters in this (and all the other) books, and the Commander Vimes / Captain Colon dialogues reminded me of Morse and Lewis. In many ways this was a reworking of a detective novel in a fantasy world, with the craziness of Discworld incorporated into a standard story, with an action-packed finale. As such, the form is very recognisable, while the imagery is completely different from all those TV detectives we're used to, and it's packed with humour. One thing remains the same though; I couldn't put the book down because I really wanted to know "whodunnit". I read the book in two days flat, and it was rather fitting that I spent the whole afternoon reading today (April 23rd), as it's Shakespeare's birthday and World Book Night. The book would make a great film, and I found the way it was described very visual. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if Terry Pratchett hadn't based the action sequences at the end on existing films.

I'll end with a quotation which particularly amused me:
"Death, who was by nature an obsessive personality himself, realized that he was in the presence of a master........ Death was nonplussed. Most people were, after the initial confusion, somewhat relieved when they died. A subconscious weight had been removed. The other cosmic shoe had dropped. The worst had happened and they could, metaphorically, get on with their lives. Few people treated it as a simple annoyance that might go away if you complained enough....... I FIND THE BEST APPROACH IS TO TAKE LIFE AS IT COMES." (Death taking life, get it?)

This book has been released as part of the following BookCrossing challenges:
- The Ultimate Challenge - read and release books, with extra points for a monthly theme
- Reduce Mount TBR (To Be Read) - read and release books on the TBR list since before the end of 2011. My reading goal is 75 books.
- Pages Read Challenge - read a self-set target number of pages in 201w. My goal is 26,000.

I'm a diskworld fan so I couldn't resist this book in Castricum :-)

Een erg fijn boek in de Diskworldserie (zie dit verslag op mijn weblog).
Ik voeg het dus graag toe aan mijn permanente collectie.