Product Description

A Young Dwarf's Dream

Corporal Carrot has been promoted! He's now in charge of the new recruits guarding Ankh-Morpork, Discworld's greatest city, from Barbarian Tribes, Miscellaneous Marauders, unlicensed Thieves, and such. It's a big job, particularly for an adopted dwarf.

But an even bigger job awaits. An ancient document has just revealed that Ankh-Morpork, ruled for decades by Disorganized crime, has a secret sovereign! And his name is Carrott...

And so begins the most awesome epic encounter of all time, or at least all afternoon, in which the fate of a city—indeed of the universe itself!—depends on a young man's courage, an ancient sword's magic, and a three-legged poodle's bladder.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #109354 in Books
• Published on: 1997-04-01
• Released on: 1997-02-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 400 pages

Amazon.com
Another wild romp through Discworld! Corporal Carrot, a young dwarf, is newly in charge of the recruits guarding Ankh-Morpork. Edward, the 37th Lord d'Eath, has just discovered that Ankh-Morpork, kingless for generations, has a sovereign ruler, who must be convinced that he is, in fact, the King. The fate of Ankh-Morpork rides on a young man's courage, an ancient sword's magic, and a three-legged poodle's bladder.

From Publishers Weekly
In his latest effort, Pratchett skewers the hard-boiled detective novel as effectively as he's satired fantasy fiction all these years. Set on Discworld, there are a few more gargoyles and exploding dragons than Sam Spade ever had to deal with. But there's a trail of corpses and a hero named Carrot determined to track down the killer. His partners-the token dwarf, troll and werewolf on the police force-must overcome discrimination as well as the occasional rampaging orangutan. Although Men at Arms isn't as consistently funny as his earlier novels, the dialogue is hilarious, and Pratchett's take on affirmative action is a whole lot of fun. There's not a lot of rational narrative cause-and-effect here, but it doesn't really matter. As usual, Pratchett provides enough bad-tempered clowns, bloodthirsty trolls and dogs with low self-esteem to keep readers entertained.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The New York Review of Science Fiction
Pratchett is the funniest parodist working in the field today, period.

Customer Reviews

Only because I can't give it 1/2 a star
There aren't enough words in the English language to express my utter loathing and contempt for this book. I had heard that Pratchett was "satirical", "devious", "irreverent", "magical", "entertaining" and "above all funny".

Sadly "Men at Arms" is none of the above. Pratchett is trying to be Douglas Adams and fails at it miserably. This story in particular was trite, condisending, and supremly unfunny. His use of footnotes to make a joke that had no bearing upon the story was...lame, for lack of a better term.

The jokes, reeked of "ho ho ho see how clever I am!" rather than actually being funny. The characters struck me as pale shadows of characters who only grow and change in set and sadly predictiable ways so that they can advance the plot and story rather than being changed by the plot and story.

I can't even say the story was silly lame. It wasn't. It was just lame.

Avoid the abridged Discworld audiobooks!
I've listened to "Lords and Ladies" in the abridged and unabridged versions and can only recommend the unabridged.

The person who did the abridging seems to have gone about it by discarding every other chapter from the unabridged book. The story jerked along so confusingly, I wasn't sure at the end what the plot had been about other than Elves coming back from exile. Tony Robinson's reading only added to the confusion, his store of "voices" consisted of "regular voice", "low volume hissed voice", "loud voice". LVHV was used for the Elf Queen and several other characters and was so hard to hear that I often had to back up the track, set the iPod's volume to max and repeat so I could figure out what the dialog was.

Then I got the unabridged version that Nigel Planer reads and realized that "Lords and Ladies" is another triumph for Pratchett! Nigel Planer is a wonder! The witches have voices that sound elderly, female and distinctly individual. Dwarfs have deep gravelly voices and Trolls sound dimwitted and slow. Wizards, the Librarian, every character has his own voice. Planer's only flaw is that young women always sound adenoidal, but it's not jarring and I soon got used to it. Best of all, Planer's reading is always clearly audible.

So, avoid the unabridged versions! I can't imagine what Terry Pratchett was thinking when he greenlighted these travesties. Maybe the publishers told him that people who demand books that can be listened to in one long setting don't care if the stories suck?

a watch book!
to funny to be real. i don't ask for much more in a discworld novel.