"Guards! Guards!" by Terry Pratchett

Plot summary: Carrot Ironfoundersson (did I ever mention him? I think he was supposed to be the main character of the City Watch series before Sam Vimes intervened) shows up at the Ankh-Morpork Night Watch to volunteer. This confuses the heck out of everyone there, because this is the first Watch book and nobody cares about them at this point. Meanwhile, there's a secret society (full of idiots) that keeps trying to summon dragons to put the king back in Ankh-Morpork.

With 90% certainty the secret society in this is Terry Pratchett making fun of dumb fraternity/secret society things. It's made up of one competent guy (the leader) and a bunch of random idiots.

 

One of my favorite moments in this book is that after |the dragon gets summoned for real|, the Unseen University's wizards spend all night pelting it with magic. Granted, it doesn't work, but it's a nice change from their usual "argue-about-everything-and-get-none-of-it-done-unless-you're-Ponder-Stibbons" mentality.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T15+ for crude humor and swearing. As one of the more linear books, I think this could probably make a decent videogame.

3 stars. I like the Watch after Men at Arms better than the Watch before then.

Favorite lines:

    The truth is that even big collections of ordinary books distort space, as can readily be proved by anyone who has been around a really old-fashioned secondhand bookshop, one of those that looks as though they were designed by M. Escher [sic] on a bad day and has more staircases than stories and those rows of shelves which end in little doors that are surely too small for a full-sized human to enter. The relevant equation is: Knowledge = power = energy = matter = mass; a good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read.

    Page 3.

    "How do you spell 'contravention'?" said Carrot, turning over a page.

    "I don't," said Nobby.

    Page 73.

    "Never build a dungeon you wouldn't be happy to spend the night in yourself," said the Patrician.

    Page 325. Good words to live by. Also, Vetinari's dungeon cell is locked and heavily barred... |from the inside|.

Appearances of Death count: 20.

(Endnote: The only type of dragon to naturally remain on the Discworld are swamp dragons, which have a habit of randomly exploding.)