Book Review: NIGHT WATCH by Terry Pratchett

So, in return for winning a book in my Tara Janzen give-away, K. Erickson of Preachers and Horse Thieves suprised me with a couple of his favorite books.

After I slogged my way through (mostly, anyway) FINDING CHARLOTTE, I picked up NIGHT WATCH enthusiastically.  It's not a book that I would have picked for myself - I'm not a big fantasy fan; this world's screwed up enough, why would I want to read about other screwed up worlds?

I actually stopped to look at the page number to see at which point I was totally engrossed and knew I was going to finish the book.  *Drum roll, please* Page sixteen.  In all honestly, I was hooked long before then, but it took me 'til page sixteen to drag my eyes away from the text to look at the number.  Quite a change from the prior book.

I know nothing about the author, Terry Pratchett, I wouldn't have even know how to describe his writing style, so I looked for a little help from the professional reviewers who call him a "comic novelist" and a "master of laugh-out-loud fiction".

The premise of the book is that Sam Vimes, while chasing a bad guy (a really, really bad guy), is caught in some sort of time storm and transported back in time thirty years, along with the bad guy.  He has a chance to make history turn out the "right" way and in the process, meets his younger self at a crucial point in his younger self's life.

I can tell you that this book could have been a disaster, what with traveling back in time and all, but it was masterfully written.  It's not easy to write a book without all of the time-twisting, but to be able to do it as believably as Mr. Pratchett did makes the book a work of art.

I can tell you that I will be ready many more of Mr. Pratchett's book and soon.  Thank you, K. for introducing me to a whole new genre and author.