Four stars.

This is the fourth novel in the City Watch series of books, after Guards! Guards!, Men at Arms, and Feet of Clay. What started as a nearly extinct force of guards led by a drunkard, has become a well-recognized band that features members of most of the fantasy races present in the city of Ankh-Morpork, including dwarves, trolls, werewolves, zombies, golems, gargoyles, and overzealous proselytizers.

This time, an Atlantis-like island has surfaced between the city state of Ankh-Morpork and the neighboring country of Klatch, the fantasy equivalent of a Middle-Eastern muslim country. Both nations have claimed this ancient, somewhat Cthulhu-esque landscape for themselves, and if neither gives in, an armed conflict could break out.

A long time ago, Ankh-Morpork established itself as the dominating force in the area, mainly thanks to the efforts of a Caesar-like figure, but these days, the city’s power is mostly illusory, based around debt and selling weapons to every side of the nearby conflicts. When foreign embassadors from this pseudo-Middle-Eastern country visit the city, the Watch gets dragged into it to secure the peace. Unfortunately, someone is trying to whack the foreign prince in an echo of how JFK got killed, involving a conspiracy. Is that someone trying to force a war to break out, or are the Klatchians dragging their internal politics into the city? Tensions are flaring up: some Klatchians who have been living in the city for decades, some even born there, become targets, and if the Watch look like they’re trying to side with the Klatchians, they could be painted as traitors.

In the process of investigating who JFK-ed the foreign bigwig, one of our beloved watch-people gets kidnapped, so our heroes decide that a trip to desertic lands is in order, even if the odds aren’t in their favor.

A peculiar tale in what has otherwise been a confined series, now heavily featuring a Leonardo da Vinci lookalike, a submarine, crossdressing, and some other unlikely stuff.

I liked seeing more of Lord Vetinari, perhaps the most cunning and capable ruler in any story I’ve read, and I enjoyed the interactions between characters that otherwise wouldn’t have engaged each other. There’s quite a bit of social commentary on empires that believe themselves high and mighty although they’ve long lost their might, on the position of women in repressive societies, on how humans gravitate towards picking sides and demonizing the opposition, etc. Pratchett also injects that self-defeating Western thing of depicting the westerner proxies as ignorant dullards and the exotic foreigners as sophisticated and clever despite their backward societies, which tasted stale for me.

It took me quite a while to get through this one, because I’ve been in the mood to either read manga or play video games in my spare time, but the fourth entry in this series may be the best overall, even though the Watch were, for the most part, dragged along for the ride.