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Men at Arms

Men at Arms

High FantasyFantasy
Pages
387
Published
1993
Language
English

Synopsis

The Ankh-Morpork City Watch is being diversified — Sam Vimes is forced to recruit a dwarf, a troll, and even a woman — but someone has stolen a gonne, the Disc's first firearm, and people are dying. As Vimes prepares to marry Lady Sybil and retire from the Watch, Carrot Ironfoundersson steps into a larger role. A novel about prejudice, the corrupting potential of weapons, and what it means to police a city built on barely-controlled chaos.

Prose complexity
4/10

Vibe

FunnySatiricalTenseThought-ProvokingAdventurous
Secret IdentityFound FamilyAnti-HeroWorkplace Romance

Genres

High Fantasy Fantasy Humor Comic Fiction Mystery

About the author

T
Terry Pratchett

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) was an English author best known for the Discworld series, a sequence of forty-one comic fantasy novels set on a flat world carried through space on the backs of four elephants standing on a giant turtle. Across four decades, the Discworld grew from a parody of sword-and-sorcery fantasy into one of the most sustained works of social satire in English literature, examining politics, religion, science, gender, race, capitalism, and the nature of stories themselves. Pra...

Characters

Sam VimesProtagonist

About to retire and marry Lady Sybil, Vimes finds himself drawn back in when a deadly weapon begins killing people with apparent purpose.

Edward d'EathAntagonist

A disgraced assassin obsessed with restoring the city's monarchy — and the first person to wield the gonne.

Carrot IronfounderssonSupporting

The Watch's earnest corporal, whose hidden royal lineage becomes a threat to the status quo.

Angua von ÜberwaldSupporting

The Watch's first female officer — and a werewolf. Her introduction marks the beginning of a long-running character arc across the Watch books.

Havelock VetinariSupporting

The Patrician of Ankh-Morpork.

All characters in Men at Arms

Frequently asked questions

  • Do I need to read other Discworld books before Men at Arms?

    While part of the larger Discworld series, Men at Arms is the second book focusing on the Ankh-Morpork City Watch. It can be enjoyed as a standalone story, though reading Guards! Guards! first will provide additional context for the characters and their relationships.

  • Does Men at Arms have a film or TV adaptation?

    Men at Arms has been adapted into a stage play. There are no direct film or television adaptations of this specific novel, though other Discworld stories have received screen treatments.

  • When was Men at Arms published?

    First published on 1 June 1993 by Victor Gollancz. It is the fifteenth Discworld novel and the second City Watch book.

  • What makes the City Watch series unique within Discworld?

    The City Watch books, including Men at Arms, are notable for their satirical take on police procedural narratives and urban fantasy. They delve into themes of law, order, and social justice within the chaotic setting of Ankh-Morpork, often with a more grounded and character-driven focus compared to some other Discworld sub-series.

  • What is a 'gonne'?

    The gonne is the Disc's first firearm — a prototype weapon that kills at a distance without requiring skill, strength, or courage. Pratchett uses it to explore how weapons change the moral calculus of violence. Several characters are shown to be changed by merely holding it.

  • What prejudices does the novel address?

    Men at Arms deals explicitly with dwarf-troll tensions (a long-running racial analogy in the series), gender discrimination in the Watch, and the class assumptions built into Ankh-Morpork's power structures. The forced 'diversity recruitment' plot is both satirical and sincere.

  • Is Angua a permanent addition to the Watch?

    Yes. Angua von Überwald joins the Watch in Men at Arms and becomes one of its most important members across the subsequent Watch books. Her relationship with Carrot is a long-running subplot across the series.

  • What is the novel saying about the right to bear arms?

    The gonne is an extended metaphor for how weapons change the power dynamic of any society. In a city that runs on negotiated violence — gangs that play by rules, an assassins' guild with contracts and ethics — the gonne introduces untouchable lethality. Vimes recognises that the problem isn't who has the weapon but that the weapon exists.

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