Book review: "Night Watch", Terry Pratchett

Finished it a couple of days ago but neglected to write anything. Blame it on my busy work schedule (not kidding either!).

It was fantastic. My favourite after "Small Gods" and "Good Omens", which doesn't really count because that was a collaboration. I loved it so much, in fact, Igor is going to be buying me a copy. He just doesn't know it yet.

The story is not very original, a guy goes back in time as a result of some mishap with roofs and lightnings and time turners, and there steps on a few butterflies. And then has to wonder if all the right people got elected. Well, something like that anyway. He doesn't wonder, really, he makes sure. Because Sam Vimes is a great copper, just what any large city needs, and he will take care of his city. Again.

Pratchett did a better than usual job with words in this, nothing superficial, everything neat and precise and absolutely hilarious, in that dry cynically sarcastic way he exhibits occasionally, even when bordering on philosophical and profound. Each character is shaped perfectly and comes alive, zombies notwithstanding. And when it comes to revolutions, who can remain unmoved by People’s Republic of Treacle Mine Road's call to arms: "Truth! Justice! Freedom! Reasonably priced Love! And a Hard-Boiled Egg!" Beats the hell out of many a revolutionary slogan. Oh, and Death has a tiny little cameo, which is always nice. "Night Watch" rocks and leaves its Russian namesake in the dust.

( Were you there? )

О футболе и не только.

Маме скучно, папа забился в спальню и смотрит футбол. Когда маме скучно, она звонит мне. Позвонила как раз послушать, как я воплю в восторге от второго гола Ганы. Как они красиво сегодня играли! И как команда, а не одиннадцать мужиков, которых друг другу забыли представить и они по полю бегают, друг друга игнорируют. Хотя на Иран, к счастью, и этого хватило.

Мама перед тем, как в расстройстве попрощаться, оставив меня наедине с футболом, анекдот забавный рассказала:

Попугайчик Анатолия Вассермана задавил своим интеллектом двух ветеринаров. :)

Из читаемого.

"...they had, perversely, been living among people who were peering into the wrong end of the telescope, or something, and who had convinced themselves that [...] the world had once been a splendid, orderly place - that men had made a reasonably trouble-free move from the Garden of Eden to the Athens of Plato and Aristotle, stopping over in the Holy Land to encrypt the secrets of the Universe in the pages of the Bible, and that everything had been slowly, relentlessly falling apart ever since."
- Neal Stephenson, "Quicksilver"