Night Watch

The graves were just visible in the tangled vegetation. In front of them stood Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler, Ankh-Morpork's least successful businessman, with a sprig of lilac in his hat.

He caught sight of the watchman and nodded to them. They nodded back. All three stood looking down at the seven graves. Only one had been maintained. The marble headstone on that one was shiny and moss-free, the turf was clipped, the stone border was sparkling.
Moss had grown over the wooden markers of the other six, but it had been scraped off the central one, revealing a name:
John Keel

And carved underneath, by someone who had taken some pains, was: How Do they Rise Up.

Sam Vimes is a good man. The type that you would want to be your mentor, the type you would want to have at your back in a fight. Over the years he's risen from poverty to the Commander of the City Watch, and to the title of Duke, at that. His beloved wife is about to give birth to his first child. Still, on this anniversary of a rebellion that took the lives of seven of his fellow officers of the Night Watch, he's wondering what happened to the times when he could be a copper, and not a politician. When the murderous Carcer, who is described as "of two minds, but instead of being in conflict, they were in competition. He had demons on both shoulders, urging one another on" is finally cornered, Vimes goes in to help. A chase ends up on the roof of the library of Unseen University, where a temporal disturbance sends them both back 30 years into the past. Now he has the chance that few people have, to make changes that will, hopefully, turn the tide and restore the futures of those seven men.

Calling himself John Keel, he takes over the Night Watch, trying to whip the team, including a younger and very naive Sam Vimes into a cohesive force. If it works, and he manages to serve the purpose that he was sent to the past to accomplish, he can return home to his life and spouse...but, if he changes time, will there be a wife to return home to? Sam, because he is a good, decent man, is willing to risk his own future happiness on the chance that maybe, just maybe, if he ever does get back to his own time, there will be seven less graves in the Small Gods Cemetery.

I have been reading the Discworld series for years, and every time I get to the end of one of these books (and you don't have to read them in order) I tell everyone that it's his best book ever. I said it about Soul Music; I said it about The Fifth Elephant. And yes, I'm about to repeat this habit...and for very good reason. This book is indescribably rich. It is filled with jokes that are funny because they are entirely too true, satire that is without cruelty, just an acceptance of the world, and an understanding of humanity that comes off as realistically optimistic. Sam is the ultimate copper...he wears thin boots, loving the feel of the streets beneath him, able to read the stones that pave them like Braille. He isn't beneath fighting dirty in a battle, or using cunning tricks to fake out a prisoner into telling what he knows, but he does it with the grim knowledge that there are boundaries, and to cross that boundary at any time makes you no better than those who you're trying to arrest. He comes back to a time when the city is ruled by a madman, when people out after curfew are arrested and taken to a torture house. His ways of getting around some of these things, and the way he takes his vows to protect the citizens of Ankh-Morpork more seriously than the orders from his commanders, show us his cleverness as well as his compassion. He is also a very sensible person, and his voice is actually comforting as he tries to survive in a city unkind towards strangers, knowing that somewhere Carcer is out there plying his own plans. He is someone with a no-nonsense approach to things, with a sharp wit and the willingness to do the job in front of him, all of which is incredibly alluring. One example, and a favorite scene, is when he's trying to train his motley collection of cops to fight. He says to them:

"Never, ever threaten anyone with your sword unless you really mean it, because if he calls your bluff you suddenly don't have many choices and they're all the wrong ones. Don't be frightened to use what you learned when you were kids. We don't get marks for playing fair. And for close up fighting, as your senior sergeant I explicitly forbid you to investigate the range of coshes, blackjacks, and brass knuckles sold by Mrs. Goodbody at No. 8 Easy Street at a range of prices to suit all pockets, and should any of you approach me privately I absolutely will not demonstrate a variety of specialist blows suitable for these useful yet tricky instruments."

It is an interesting idea that we might be able to go back and fix things. A couple of times Pratchett has played with the fringe ideas of quantum theory, where, for example, there can be a billion Cindys writing this review right now, and one of them might not like the book, and is, in fact, quite manically insane. Or there are a billion yous right now, and one of you, driven mad by the fact I didn't like the book, are about to go off to murder your spouse. Aha, you say, I'd never do that. Well, that's quantum theory for you. Arguments within arguments, and you never know what's true. The point is, what Terry Pratchett does with the ideas of time, the elasticity of it, is a very different theory from the "If you step on a butterfly you may disappear because you've just killed your father and now will never be born" type of time planning. It's amazing to see how things resolve themselves, to see how time changes to accommodate the changes Sam forces upon it, while keeping to its own plans.

Do you have a right to change time for the lives of seven men? Do you have the right to choose not to? Its hard to say. I suppose you just do the job that's in front of you.