captaind's Full Review: Terry Pratchett and Stephen Briggs - Monstrous Reg...
What do a young girl, a vampire, a troll, and an Igor have in common?
They’re all in the Monstrous Regiment, of course. And they all have a secret reason for joining the Borogravian Army. And they all have another secret, or at least they think they have…
Borogravia is a country on a mission. The trouble is, it’s a stupid mission. Worshipping the god Nuggan, they follow – or at least try to follow – his laws, which basically consists of avoiding a lot of Abominations unto Nuggan. The trouble is, there’s a hell of a lot of these, and many of them are stupid – for example, the colour blue is an abomination unto Nuggan. No-one knows why. Some of the sillier abominations are, of course, surreptitiously side-stepped…
They are ruled by a Duchess – who has not been seen for decades and is very probably dead. They have at one point or another invaded all of their neighbouring countries (they’re abominations, after all) and thus haven’t exactly made many friends for themselves. In battle they absolutely refuse to give in under any circumstances – after all why should they, with Nuggan on their side?
The Cast
The story revolves mainly around Polly, who pretends to be a boy in order to join the army and try to rescue her brother Paul (or at least find out if he’s still alive), who enlisted of some time ago. She enlists under a Sergeant called Jackrum, who is a living legend and rumour has it that he enlisted at the age of 5, and has been discharged and re-enlisted more times than you’ve had hot dinners, whose Corporal, Strappi, views it as his main purpose in life to make the lives of new recruits as painful as possible. Among the other recruits are Wazzer, a very devout youngster who believes the Duchess talks to him personally (and is therefore carefully avoided most of the time by the rest of the squad); Maledict, a Black Ribboner Vampire who has replaced his lust for blood with an equally strong craving for coffee; and other assorted riff-raff: and Igor, a troll, runaways… They end up being led by Lt. Blouse, promoted from Filing Clerk to have his first command - but there's more to him than meets the eye...
The Borogravian’s have also managed to annoy Ankh-Morpork, courtesy of cutting down their Clacks towers (used for long-distance communication), and so Sir Stan Gimes is called in to end the war. At first he merely wants to end the war as soon as possible and views the Borogravians simply as crazy, but then something happens to change his mind…
The characters (especially Sgt. Jackrum and Lt. Blouse) are very good although not truly memorable.
The Plot
They make off for the frontline but along the way find out many disturbing things about the way the war is going, the way their country is perceived by foreigners (this is via William de Worde reporting for the Ankh-Morpork Times), and themselves. Having learned to walk, talk, and fart like a boy (I’m not joking), Polly sees a whole new version of the world she knew – will she want to revert to seeing it the old way when it’s all over, or will she be able to change it?
The plot twists and turns, albeit there’s nothing that’s going to really surprise you as such. And that’s as much as I’m going to tell you…
The Humour
Of course, Discworld novels are known for being funny. They might have a good storyline but what you really want to know is, will it make you laugh?
The simple answer is yes. But although there are plenty of laughs here and a few downright hilarious moments, this is not among the funniest of Discworld books. Due, perhaps, to it being set in the Army, there is much more bad language and crude humour than in the other books of the Discworld series. (Still not much compared to many modern writers, it has to be said.) Coming from a writer of the quality of Pratchett, and especially seeing how funny and ingenious (a word that can only be ascribed to one or two brief moments in this particular book, especially when it comes to the communications system) he has been in his other books. The end result is not as funny and comes across as being lazy for someone with his talent.
Having said that you will find yourself laughing out loud or at least smiling to yourself for a good proportion of the book. It’s not a disaster, but I expect more from a Discworld novel – and have almost never been disappointed.
Slight Niggle
This is only a slight niggle and it won’t affect people who have never read a Discworld novel before (having said that, this is not a book I’d recommend to newcomers of the series anyway). Characters such as Grimes, Death (more of a caricature here than ever before), de Worde, and Otto (the Vampire photographer of the Ankh-Morpork Times), who have appeared as the main characters in other books, always come across to me as disappointing or, on occasion, even false when they only have a small part to play. I just can’t warm to Grimes as a peripheral character, and I even found myself irritated by de Worde and Otto, while Death’s brief appearance seemed to be there just for the sake of it. This is probably unavoidable, but it irked me more in this particular books than in any other – and this is the 16th I’ve read in the Discworld series (not including The Wee Free Men, which technically isn’t part of the series although it is set on the disc, and Strata, which was a sort of prototype for the series and will hopefully be added to the database soon).
Conclusion
It’s not a terrible book, it’s not even a bad book, but it is probably the weakest book in the Discworld series. (I didn’t think that “The Colour of Magic” was up to much either, but I’m making allowances for that as it was the first one.) If you’re a Discworld fan you’re probably going to want to read this anyway but if you’re not, you’d be far better off with one of the other ones. (Except “Nightwatch” – that’s a fantastic book, but you really need to be familiar with the series before you read that one!)
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As always, thanks for reading. I do believe that only the mighty Hist has actually reviewed more Discworld novels than me now! :-)
Mate gender politics with geopolitics and you get either a PC nightmare or something very funny. Fortunately, in Monstrous Regiment, it s the latter. ...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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