Night Watch (novel)
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| Terry Pratchett The Discworld series 29th novel – 6th City Watch story  | |
| Outline | |
| Characters: | Ankh-Morpork City Watch Samuel Vimes |
| Locations: | Ankh-Morpork |
| Motifs: | Time travel, cop novels, Revolutions |
| Publication details | |
| Year of release: | 2002 |
| Original publisher: | Doubleday |
| Hardback ISBN: | ISBN 0385602642 |
| Paperback ISBN: | ISBN 0060013125 |
| Other details | |
| Awards: | Prometheus Award, 2003 |
| Notes: | |
Night Watch is the 29th novel in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, published in 2002. The hero of the novel is Sir Samuel Vimes, commander of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch.
The cover illustration of the British edition, by Paul Kidby, is a parody of Rembrandt's painting Night Watch. This was the first main-sequence Discworld novel not to have a cover by Josh Kirby. Kidby tributes the late artist by placing him in the picture, in the position where Rembrandt painted himself.
Night Watch features a secret police force (called the "Unmentionables") similar to the Okhrana, Stasi or Gestapo that terrorizes the city's populace. A great deal of the plot is inspired by civil uprisings like the Paris Commune of 1871 and comparable ones, as depicted in Les Miserables, for example. [link] Considering the character and reputation of Samuel Vimes, the name John Keel may in itself be a reference to British PM Robert Peel.
On the morning of the 30th anniversary of the Glorious Twenty-Fifth of May (and as such the anniversary of the death of John Keel, Vimes' hero and former mentor), Vimes is caught in a magical explosion while pursuing Carcer, a notorious serial murderer. He awakens to find that he has been rescued by Miss Palm (whom Vimes knows as Mrs Palm, Head of the Guild of Seamstresses). He determines that he has somehow been sent back in time.
Vimes attempts to employ the wizards at Unseen University to send him home, but is arrested at arrow-point for breaking curfew by a younger version of himself. Incarcerated in the cell beside his he finds Carcer, who after being released joins the Unmentionables, a secret police carrying out the paranoid whims of the Patrician of the time, Lord Winder.
When he is taken up to be interrogated by the captain, time is frozen by Lu-Tze and he tells Vimes what has happened and that he must assume the identity of his mentor Sergeant John Keel (who was to have arrived that day but was murdered by Carcer). It is stated that the event which caused Vimes and Carcer to be sent into the past was a major temporal shattering, the implication being the cause of Vimes going through time is that he was caught in the explosion at the same instant the glass clock struck and time froze in Thief of Time. This implication is further underlined by the mention previously that the bolt of lightning which triggered the magical explosion hit a clockmakers shop, stopping all the clocks within. Vimes then returns to the office, time restarts and he successfully convinces the captain that he is Keel.
Young Vimes believes Vimes to be the real Keel, allowing Vimes to teach Young Vimes the lessons for which Vimes idolised Keel. Essentially this means that Vimes taught and idolised himself, not Keel, although alternate histories and the "Trousers of Time" mean this may not be the case ("You were indeed taken under the wing of one John Keel, a watchman from Pseudopolis," says Lu Tze. "He was a real person. He was not you").
The novel climaxes in the Revolution, hinted at since the start of the book. Vimes, taking command of the watchmen in his troop, successfully avoids the major bloodshed erupting all over the city and manages to keep his part of it relatively peaceful. After dealing with the Unmentionables' headquarters he has his haphazard forces barricade a few streets to keep people safe from the fighting between rebels and soldiers. However, the barricades are gradually pushed forward during the night to encompass the surrounding streets until Vimes finds himself in control of a significant part of the city of Ankh-Morpork.
The ruler, Lord Winder, is assassinated (by Havelock Vetinari) and the new Patrician Lord Snapcase calls for a complete amnesty. However, he sees 'Keel' as a threat and sends Carcer and the palace guard to murder the Night Watch. Several policemen are killed in the battle (both in accordance with the "history" and explaining why they are not seen in other books); Vimes manages to fight off the attack until he can directly grab Carcer, at which point they are returned to the future. Vimes' son is born, with the help of Doctor 'Mossy' Lawn (who Vimes met while in the past), and Vimes finally arrests Carcer, choosing justice over his strong desire to kill him. It is then revealed that Patrician Vetinari suspected all along that Vimes was 'Keel', but wasn't ever quite sure about it.
Translations
- Нощна стража (Bulgarian)
- Noční hlídka (Czech)
- Ronde de nuit (French)
- Die Nachtwächter (German)
- De Nachtwacht (Dutch)
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