It’s been a long time since I read a book that left me enchanted for hours after putting it down. There had been quite a few, back in the day:- I remember the “Fear is the mind-killer” litany from Dune, with its whole sense of epic “purpose”, repeatedly revisiting passages from Bill Bryson’s “Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid” (which, surprisingly could be the book that influenced me the most), and those masterful technical books that I learned much from but never quite finished..

This week, I discovered Georgia Tech’s circulating science fiction collection. The entire first floor of Crosland Tower is dedicated to housing this collection. If the semesterly “Humans vs Zombies” games won’t convince you that GT is a heaven for nerds, then this will. Intrepid students (or angelic administrators) have also snuck in Fantasy novels into the Sci-Fi section. The result- books from nearly every Scifi/Fantasy author that I have read/want to read, forming a critical mass that has the potential to destroy my career in Computer Science before it starts. But I digress. The book that I read was “Men At Arms” from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. The series has a whopping forty-one books, maintaining a standard quality. But some stand out. Mort is one. “Small Gods” is another. But I liked Men-At-Arms best.

Described by Sir Terry as “A world of mirrors and a mirror of worlds”, the titular Discworld is a disc held aloft by four elephants standing on top of the turtle Great A’Tuin, swimming in the sea of Cosmos. It’s most glorious city, Ankh-Morpork, on the banks of the river Ankh, whose waters (if you can call them that) are nearly solid, making gangster-style drownings infeasible (the victim can simply walk across), where the Thieves Guild is legalized- because “If you are going to have crime, let it atleast be organized”. In that city, a shambling Night Watch, which recruits Corporals Detritus (Troll), Cuddy (Dwarf), Angua (Woman..?) as the city’s own version of affirmative action. These recruits join the simple (but not stupid) Constable Carrot, Sergeant Colon (“This is your truncheon… Hand will look after hit! You will eat with hit! You sleep with hit!) and the impeccable Captain Sam Vimes, with his boots theory of socioeconomic unfairness. And this watch faces a serial killer, where the murder weapon is a madcap invention of the Leonard of Quirm.

The book has everything- slapstick humour that makes you laugh out loud, subtle, smart humour that you miss on your first read, a good bit of hamming, social commentary, digressive footnotes.. you name it! And inspite of the many ways in which it parodies just about everything, at its core, the book has a solid plot, characters that you care about, and a mystery that keeps you at the edge of your seat.

Pratchett has built a wonderful world. The setting is fantasy, but Men-At-Arms takes place in the twilight of the “old” discoworld of mad wizards and sword-and-sorcery heroes, as it transitions into a world of steam engines, thinking machines (powered by ants) and forensic analysis. In fact, the end of the book could as well be the inflection point, as Corporal Carrot and the Patrician Havelock Vetinari (I encourage you to read about Vetinari Job Security) reach an understanding, and the modern City Watch gets created. Almost everything is a parody of some trope, but the parody is good-natured, and you come to love it.

Unlike its prequel “Guards Guards”, Men-At-Arms spends more time exploring its characters, and you come to love them. My favourite is, of course, Corporal Carrot- a human adopted by dwarves, carrying a very non-magical sword that was mysteriously found next to him when he was an abandoned baby in a forest, a clear do-gooder. Carrot is very honest, has memorized the laws of the city, visits museums and historical monuments, and has caught the attention of several young ladies whom he takes on “invigorating walks through the city”, and assumes the best of everyone. Acting-Constable Detritus comes close- a reformed troll who recruits multiple citizens into the watch using the very famous, very traditional “troll oath” (I will do what I am told otherwise I get my goohuloog head kicked in). Here is a scene that will give you a glimpse of what Pratchett excels at- Detritus is unable to count, and when he does, he does it in binary. (Note that trolls are made up of rocks, and hence, silicon). When trapped in the freezing meat futures warehouse (long story, just read the book), his silicon “brain” becomes a superconductor and suddenly starts working very efficiently. By the time he is rescued, the walls are filled with millennia of mathematical advancement, all forgotten as he returns to normal temperature.

On another note, I took a seminar course this semester to force myself to read research papers. A nice side effect is that I’m finding textbooks much easier to read. More importantly, I’m reading dense text consistently. It’s good to be back.