On the morning of the 30th anniversary of the Glorious Revolution of the Twenty-Fifth of May, Sam Vimes is caught in a magical storm while pursuing Carcer, a notorious criminal. He awakens to find that he has somehow been sent back in time. Vimes's first idea is to ask the wizards at the Unseen University to send him home, but before he can act on this, he is arrested for breaking curfew by a younger version of himself. Incarcerated in a cell next to his is Carcer, who after being released joins the Unmentionables, the secret police carrying out the paranoid whims of the Patrician of the time, Lord Winder. When he is taken to be interrogated by the captain, time is frozen by Lu-Tze, who tells Vimes what has happened and that he must assume the identity of Sergeant-At-ArmsJohn 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. Vimes then returns to the office, time restarts and he convinces the captain that he is Keel. Young Vimes believes Vimes to be Keel, allowing Vimes to teach Young Vimes the lessons for which Vimes idolized Keel. The novel climaxes in the Revolution. Vimes, taking command of the watchmen, 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 quarter of the city, dubbed "The Glorious People's Republic of Treacle Mine Road", with a still alive Reg Shoe as one of the leading figures. The ruler, Lord Winder, is effectively assassinated by the young Assassin's Guild student Havelock Vetinari, and the new Patrician Lord Snapcase calls for a complete amnesty. However, he sees Keel as a threat and sends Carcer to lead a death squad of Unmentionables, watchmen and the palace guard to murder Keel. Several policemen are killed in the battle, as is Reg Shoe; Vimes manages to fight off the attack until he can grab Carcer, at which point they are returned to the future and Keel's body is placed in the timeline Vimes has just left, to tie things up, as in the "real" history, Keel died in that fight. Vimes' son is born, with the help of Doctor "Mossy" Lawn, whom Vimes met while in the past, and Vimes finally arrests Carcer, promising him a fair trial before he is hanged. A subsequent conversation with Lord Vetinari reveals that the Patrician alone knows Vimes took Keel's place, also that he fought alongside Keel's men against Carcer's death squad. He proposes that the old Watch House at Treacle Mine Road be rebuilt.
Background and publication
Night Watch is the twenty-ninth novel in the comic fantasyDiscworld series, written by Terry Pratchett, and the sixth to focus on the character of Sam Vimes. Pratchett felt the book was closer to Discworld novels like The Fifth Elephant more so than the first book, The Colour of Magic, believing the series had "evolved", attributing the series' success to its ability to change. Pratchett called the humour in the book "the humour that comes out of bad situations", comparing it to the humour of M*A*S*H. The contents of the book, such as the secret police and the torture chamber, meant that an abundance of gags would seem wrong. Pratchett commented: . Paul Kidby illustrated the cover of British edition, with Night Watch being the first main-sequence Discworld novel not to have a cover by Josh Kirby. Kidby had previously worked on Discworld in The Last Hero, The Pratchett Portfolio and Nanny Ogg's Cookbook, establishing " own 'look for the series. Kidby chose to parody Rembrandt's painting Night Watch, an idea he'd had since first reading Guards! Guards!'', and talked with Pratchett about what characters to include. Kidby pays tribute to the late artist by placing him in the picture, in the position where Rembrandt is said to have painted himself. At the time, Kidby recalls being criticised for making the cover "too brown".
Reception
The book received critical acclaim. Robert Hanks of The Independent drew attention to a "slight softening of the funny bone" and a "hardening of the issues" in the later Discworld books, commenting on a lesser amount of jokes per page in Night Watch. He criticised the book's slow start, but called the book intriguing for its "Chestertonian common-sense morality" and drew comparison to the book's events to the Bloody Sunday. The New York Timess Therese Littleton praised the book as "transcend standard genre fare with its sheer schoolboy humour and characters who reject their own stereotypes". Night Watch won the 2003 Prometheus Award, and came runner-up in the Locus Poll for best fantasy novel. On the suggestion of the book having "darker" themes, Pratchett responded:
Adaptation
A five-part radio adaptation of the novel was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 from February 27, 2008 that featured Philip Jackson as Sam Vimes and Carl Prekopp as young Sam.
