Monstrous Regiment

I do not intend to write many reviews starting with works that are not the first in a series. I have chosen to in this instance for a couple reasons. The first being it has been so long since I read The Colour of Magic that I could not do it justice in a review at the moment. The second being Pratchett’s work is strong enough to stand on its own without starting at the beginning. I intend to eventually get back to the beginning, but I don’t know how long that will be. Until then you can check out the Wertzone where Adam is in the middle of doing reviews of the Discworld Novels.

As you may or may not know the Discworld novels consist of several sets of characters who have what amounts to series with the larger series. These are Rincewind/the Wizards, the Witches, the City Watch, and Death and his cohorts. Interspersed throughout these other storylines are a few stand-alone novels, Monstrous Regiment is one of these. There characters of the Discworld tend to freely float about and in this case the City Watch (at least a few officers) are involved.

Whilst the majority of the novels are set in or around the city of Ankh-Morpork Monstrous Regiment takes place in the tiny country of Borogravia. Borogravia is an apparently bloodthirsty realm that has been at war with its various neighbors more or less continually for decades. At the start of the novel these neighbors have finally decided to gang up on the much smaller, yet vicious, country and have enlisted Ankh-Morpork’s aide, in the shape of Commander Vimes and a few Watchpeople. In the classic case of long and bloody wars most of the able-bodied young men of Borogravia have already been lead off to the slaughter.

Thus we find that the raw batch of new recruits are all in fact women in disguise. All of these characters are off to war to either find someone or something, ranging from a brother to some battlefield experience with surgery. The tale encompasses the new recruits struggles to get to the front and then their actions and foibles once they arrive. As with all Pratchett’s work the real meat of the novel is its irreverence towards social norms and its biting commentary on ingrained beliefs and practices.

Borogravia is a country with a dead god (Nuggan) whose ghost is mad, and the country has been ruled by the Duchess for something like 70 years. The characters have varying degrees of belief and patriotism, and their interactions with each other and outsiders provide much of the commentary. What this novel proves to itself, its characters, and perhaps its readers is that women can and usually are better at things than men, except when they are trying to be men , in which case they just amplify all of the negative qualities of the male persona.

I listened to this novel, read by the excellent Stephen Briggs. The audio book was well done and did the material justice. The good thing about the occasional stand alone in the Discworld setting is that it brings Pratchett’s full strength to bear on the material, while the series are always wonderful because of character familiarity at times the story and the commentary can get bogged down in the same familiarity. With a standalone like Monstrous Regiment all the players are fresh and usually built to fit the exact issues that Pratchett is aiming at. This novel is exactly such a case, I give it 4/5.