Guards! Guards!
core novel 1989 Discworld
Record
| First published | 1989 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 4.34 (245,297 ratings, collected 2026-09-11) |
| Page count | 376 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780575046061 |
Synopsis
A secret monastic order in Ankh-Morpork, the Elucidated Brethren of the Ebon Night, sets a scheme in motion to overthrow the city's ruler by magically summoning a dragon to terrorize the streets, intending for a hand-picked puppet to publicly "slay" the beast and be crowned king in the chaos that follows. The city's shabby, largely ignored Night Watch, energized by the arrival of an earnest and unusually law-abiding new recruit named Carrot Ironfoundersson, begins investigating the dragon sightings under the command of Captain Sam Vimes, tracing a stolen magical book to the conspiracy. Along the way the Watch meets Lady Sybil Ramkin, a breeder of small swamp dragons, who lends them an undersized specimen as an unlikely mascot.
Where it sits
- Universe: Discworld
- Series: City Watch core; position 1 of 8 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Terry Pratchett
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings and are never conflated: a book's place in one says nothing about its place in the other.
- Publication order, within the series City Watch: position 1 of 8: next Men at Arms (1993)
Sources
← Discworld dossier · All universes
Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.