Words in the heart cannot be taken.

Three and a half stars.

This is the third novel in the City Watch series of books that good old (and dead) Terry wrote, after Guards! Guards! and Men at Arms. What started as a ramshackle watch has become a proper force that features members of most of the fantasy races that live in the city of Ankh-Morpork, in some cases due to the Patrician’s goal of representing all his constituents through affirmative action.

This time the story revolves around golems, anthropomorphic beings made of clay and animated thanks to the written notes someone put inside their heads. The fantasy version of robots. They are enslaved into performing most of the duties that the living creatures don’t want to risk their hides for, or bother with. Some of the most extreme cases involve leaving a golem in a pit to manufacture products twenty-four hours a day. Given this context, plenty of elements of the tale involve freedom: from social norms (a bearded female dwarf wants to look more feminine), from heritage (a character discovers that he belongs to the aristocracy even though he feels at home among the rabble), from their impulses (the resident werewolf), from religion, and such.

Once again, a shady group is trying to turn Ankh-Morpork into a monarchy. Three for three. Although some influential people in the city are aware that Captain Carrot, the six-something-feet-tall dwarf whom everybody loves, is the rightful king, he’s the earnest, just kind that would seriously upset the status quo in a city where thievery and murder are legal. Besides, his relationship with a werewolf could end up in seriously hairy heirs. So they figure that they could install some easily-manipulated dolt as king, which would allow the guilds to rule from the shadows. For that purpose they poison the Patrician, enough to incapacitate him but not kill him; all the guilds suspect that the city would be ungovernable if the cunning Patrician were to die.

In the middle of all this, two old men die: one the owner of a sort of bakery, and the other a priest. These two crimes are somehow tied to golems, who have started leaving their posts for supposed holy days. Meanwhile, a strange, dangerous golem roams the city.

Although one of these constructs became interesting by the end, I didn’t find them very compelling otherwise, which reduced my enjoyment of this story. However, Terry could have told pretty much any tale as long as it allowed me to spend some more time with the lovable cast of characters.

I suspect that Terry saw himself in the anti-authority Commander Vimes, whose ancestor famously killed the last king, and who at times struggles with the notion that plenty of his problems could be solved by shooting the people involved. My favorite character, however, is Angua, the local werewolf. She’s currently dating Captain Carrot somewhat against her will, because she can’t justify why she likes someone so straight-laced. Apart from the generally justified prejudices against werewolves, Angua fears that one day she’ll fail to control her urges and therefore rip the throat of someone she cares about, so she tries to keep people at arm’s length. She’s also planning to pack up and leave once again, because she doesn’t believe that she could ever belong among people. As I fear that one day I’ll turn my intrusive thoughts into reality, I identify quite a bit with her, and it doesn’t hurt that she reminds me of Annie Leonhart from Attack on Titan, one of my favorite characters from Japanese fiction.

Anyway, another entertaining novel in the City Watch series, just not as compelling as the previous two.