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Night Watch
0385602642.01._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg
Cover [[Image:|thumb|center|200px|{{{1}}}]]
Published November 2002
Publisher Doubleday
ISBN 0385602642
Pages
Series Watch Series
Main characters Sam Vimes, Carcer, Lu-Tze
Annotations Annotations for Night Watch
Notes
All data relates to the UK hardback edition.

Contents

Blurb

This morning, Commander Vimes of the City Watch had it all. He was a Duke. He was rich. He was respected. He had a silver cigar case. He was about to become a father.

This morning he thought longingly about the good old days.

Tonight, he's in them.

Flung back in time by a mysterious accident, Sam Vimes has to start all over again. He must get a new name and a job, and there's only one job he's good at: cop in the Watch. He must track down a brutal murderer. He must find his younger self and teach him everything he knows. He must whip the cowardly, despised Night Watch into a crack fighting force – fast. Because Sam Vimes knows what's going to happen. He remembers it. He was there. It's part of history. And you can't change history...

But Sam is going to. He has no choice. Otherwise, a bloody revolution will start, and good men will die. Sam saw their names on old headstones just this morning – but tonight they're young men who think they have a future. And rather than let them die, Sam will do anything – turn traitor, burn buildings, take over a revolt, anything – to snatch them from the jaws of history. He will do it even if victory will mean giving up the only future he knows.

For if he succeeds, he's got no wife, no child, no riches, no fame – all that will simply vanish. But if he doesn't try, he wouldn't be Sam Vimes.

And so the battle is on. He knows how it's going to end; after all, he was there. His name is on one of those headstones. But that's just a minor detail...

Cover

The cover was drawn by Paul Kidby, his first cover for Pratchett: It is a parody of Rembrandt's 1642 painting The Company of Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburch (more commonly known as, funnily enough, Night Watch).
Identifiable on the cover are Samuel Vimes (twice, front centre), Findthee Swing (far right), Lu-Tze (in orange), Nobby Nobbs (on The Sweeper's left), Reg Shoe (holding flag), Lord Vetinari (on Reg's left), Carcer (left, holding knives), Dr. Lawn (behind Carcer), and Henry the Hamster (far left).

Characters

Annotation

Night Watch has been turned into a BBC Radio 4 drama, and was broadcast 27th February 2008. It can be heard on their listen again website.


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