Discworld, Time Travel, etc.

Just finished Night Watch, another Terry Pratchett novel (Since I read Thud! I have recently re-read “Men at Arms”, “Feet of Clay”, “Jingo”, “The Fifth Elephant”, “The Truth”, “Night Watch” and have begun “Going Postal”).

Some things occur to me:

Firstly that the Discworld novels have become more and more about people and less and less about comedy/fantasy. This, it must be said, is a good thing, the Discworld novels are only getting better and one feels that you are reading a call to arms for a decent world, albeit on the back of a turtle and four elephants.

Secondly I have recently finished or am reading three novels that deal with time travel, “Night Watch” – Terry Pratchett, “The Anubis Gates” – Tim Powers and “Weapons of Choice” – John Birmingham.

The best of these three is the Anubis Gates, for the very simple reason that the story is consistent, and that no matter how people think they are changing history they end up following the script.

Night Watch takes the attitude that history can be deformed but will flex back into shape (with the help of the Monks of Time), this is far less satisfying as it seems to smack of lazy writing and in any event does not explain some of the events of the Night Watch, for example:

Vetinari asks Sam if he ever wondered why he wore a lilac, and Sam says that it was any man’s right, but appears not to know why Vetinari wore one. This makes no sense, the younger Sam would have known that Vetinari joined the fight after the ‘death’ of John Keel and so would have known why Vetinari wore the lilac; similarly Vetinari would have known that as well.

Finally Weapons of Choice just decides that history braches from the instant the battle group goes back in time. This is just a variant on the alternative history novel, which I have never really been that interested in. (I prefer my “what ifs” to focus on the future).