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They are all brilliant, lovable, and while slightly cowardly, ready to stand behind their Captain.
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Oh, and the Librarian mon beg pardon, Ape. Our other hero is Carrot, a six foot Dwarf who may not be a Dwarf after all do to human genetics, in possession of the most non-magical sword in existence. The woman in this case is Ankh Morpork herself, his true love, his city. We go to the gutter to find our anti-hero Sam Vimes, Captain of the Night Watch, a depressed alcoholic brought low by a woman. Like any true fantasy this book has its heroes, its tyrants, its would-be-kings trying to beat the tyrants, secret societies, magical books and artifacts, and of course, last, but never the least: dragons. Cover it in trash, alcohol, and feces and youll be much closer. If you take a city and turn it upside down, put criminals in charge, and the respectable folk at the bottom youll have something vaguely resembling Ankh Morpork. Because, because she was yours, all you had, even in her gutters Only one thing you were sure of, you couldnt let her go. And then you hated her and, and just when you thought youd got her, it, out of your whatever, then she opened her great booming rotten heart to you, caught you off bal, bal, bal, thing. Strung you along, let you fall in thingy, love, then kicked you inna, inna, thingy. The book is about the city of Ankh Morpork and its Watch. Since there are several viable starting points, after some consideration and research, I decided to start with The City Watch collection, as it is lauded as one of the funniest and best books in the collection. After hearing about his passing, however, I knew I just had to do it. Ive been holding off on starting Terry Pratchetts works for years because the collection is so massive and apparently you dont start with book 1. So that people can laugh, sigh, and say that clever bastard and go on with their day without thinking of drowning themselves in a bottle of gin. So you do it the only way that will get people to listen: you disguise it as a joke.
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But how else do you point out to people all that is wrong with humanity? No one wants to hear whats wrong with humanity unless they want to become a deeply depressed, chain smoking, alcoholics. I dont think words like clever, witty, cynical, hilarious, dark, wise, and gut-busting-funny really do justice to his writing, but its kind of all of those combined and you get this amazing writing that is both funny, clever, and underneath it all incredibly dark and somewhat sobering. I hope Death is taking good care of Sir Terry Pratchett, because when he comes to take me to the other side, Id like to kiss Sir Terry on the mouth.
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