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Guards! Guards!
- Discworld, Book 8
- Narrated by: Jon Culshaw, Peter Serafinowicz, Bill Nighy, Ben Aaronovitch
- Length: 13 hrs and 29 mins
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Guards! Guards!
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Summary
Brought to you by Penguin.
The audiobook of Guards! Guards! is narrated by impressionist and actor Jon Culshaw, best known for BBC Radio 4’s Dead Ringers, and for the Doctor Who audiobooks and dramas. BAFTA and Golden Globe award-winning actor Bill Nighy (Love Actually; Pirates of the Caribbean; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) reads the footnotes, and Peter Serafinowicz (Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace; Shaun of the Dead) stars as the voice of Death. Featuring a new theme tune composed by James Hannigan.
'NOBLE DRAGONS DON'T HAVE FRIENDS. THE NEAREST THEY CAN GET TO THE IDEA IS AN ENEMY WHO IS STILL ALIVE.'
The city of Ankh-Morpork is in turmoil, its citizens revolting. Again.
A shadowy secret brotherhood has summoned a dragon to spread terror throughout the city, intent on overthrowing the Patrician and ruling in his place. Too bad the dragon has ideas of its own...
It's up to Captain Sam Vimes and the ramshackle Night Watch to stop it. Only problem is, the Watch are more used to dealing with mobs than dragons.
And if they can't bring down this fire-breathing tyrant and reinstate their own, slightly less dangerous one, Ankh-Morpork might be lost. For ever...
With an afterword by Ben Aaronovitch.
Guards! Guards! is the first book in the City Watch series, but you can listen to the Discworld novels in any order.
The first book in the Discworld series - The Colour of Magic - was published in 1983. Some elements of the Discworld universe may reflect this.
Critic reviews
"This is one of Pratchett's best books. Hilarious and highly recommended." (The Times)
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What listeners love about Guards! Guards!
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Audible Fan
- 26-05-23
Different but good
I was not sure what to expect with this title I love the City Watch series but a new narrator can change a series. Now we have Sam Vimes with the voice that sounds like Sean Bean it makes the character tougher. The voice of Nobby Nobbs is the biggest change he now sounds like David Bradley the actor who played Walder Frey it makes Nobby sound older and has given the character greater depth in my opinion.
The general narration voice is excellent clear, easy to understand and at a good pace.
On the downside Fred's voice is too similar to Sam's but I like the more down to earth sounding Fred.
Nighy adds gravitas to the notes which I enjoyed.
A good story and the start of a wonderful series.
Personally I think the older recordings of the books should have been kept available so people new to the series options regarding which version they prefer.
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7 people found this helpful
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- paul
- 04-06-23
Be on your guard guard
Terry Pratchets guards guards the first in the sam vimes trilogy destroyed by dull, laughter killing bad narration, well having waited for this title (having night watch and snuff narrated by Briggs) why change a winning formula i gave it a go but 1 hour in i thought i was listening to a dark drama with the dull uniteresting tones and bad accents killing the character of sam vimes (one footnote the monkey er sorry ape noises ooks were ok perhaps john culshaw should stick to that) audible why why not have briggs redo it, soely dissapointed in this narration the book is fantastic just let down by poor choices.
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6 people found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- A. Vickers
- 18-06-23
Brilliant book ruined by awful narrator
Very disappointed by the halting, disjointed style of narration. The story itself is excellent, and a perfect first book for the uninitiated, but the reading really ruined it. I had pre-ordered this book so had not heard a sample before I bought it. PLEASE listen to a sample before you buy it! I suggest listing at 1.4 speed to dull the...weird pauses...that are scattered...through most...of the reading.
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Kindle Customer
- 25-05-23
Superb!
At last! Decent voices for Vimes et al. Loving these new Penguin versions - so much better than Nigel Planers narrations. A joy!
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Jason
- 25-05-23
Jon is brilliant
One of my favourite stories and Jon Culshaw adds a new depth to characters. Could not be happier!
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- MARK CARROLL
- 28-06-23
Guards! Guards!Guard us against terrible narration
Not being a fan of Jon Culshaw, I felt a little trepidation about him narrating this book, but I thought how bad could it be? Oh dear! Bad, very bad indeed. For a man primarily known for doing voices, he's seems to strangely, be unable to find a single one for this production, showing a complete lack of understanding of the characters, story and universe they live in. Most egregious were his characterisations of Vimes and Knobby Knobbs. I shudder still at even the thought.
Culshaw is not an actor, his strange intonation and stresses are jarring and pulls one from the narrative.
I bought this in conjunction with Men At Arms, which Culshaw also narrates. It is the first time, in all the years I have been with Audible, that I have returned anything, not only one book, but two. Such a shame.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- turfshifter
- 24-06-23
Awful Narrator
the story is great but I cannot cope with the narrator. He lacks any emotion and the way it is recorded the S sounds are incredibly annoying.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Dragonfish
- 28-05-23
Great version of a wonderful story
Very excited to have John Culshaw carefully handling such a precious book. Well read, lovely voices and an excellent listen. My one criticism is that is some of the places where the action needs to zip along, the pacing was a little slow. However all is forgiven for a divine Nobby (a sentence which has never been used before)
Thank you and off I go to the next book
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 29-08-23
Again, just brilliant
As with all but one (of the 15 or so I’ve listened) to the choice of narrator is brilliant, and a huge upgrade on the original recordings. In my world Vimes is number 3 (after Moist and the unbeatable Granny) and I’m delighted to be once more at the beginning of the city watch series.
I think Ben Aaronovitch said it best in his piece at the end. If this is your first, I’m so jealous. If it’s your millionth time, welcome to the club. I’m very obviously among the latter.
And I still hope there’s one more finished Discworld novel out there waiting for an anniversary release!
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Katy
- 23-08-23
Great book badly let down by narrator
I've been a Pratchett fan since The Colour of Magic burst onto the fantasy scene all those years ago. I have all the paperbacks in original covers, and more recently have downloaded all the audiobooks as soon as they came out. I have mostly enjoyed the new series with the new narrators and casts and can very easily see why Audible thought it would be a great idea to employ Jon Culshaw to do the Vimes series. He's brilliant as a satirical impressionist and I love a lot of his work.
Sadly, and I can't work out why he has done this or how Audible's editors let it pass, Culshaw has adopted a strategy of reading the book in phrases of no more than six syllables in a breath. His reading is slow and halting, and because of this, it lacks interest. Culshaw fails to engage with a book that usually rollocks along and is seriously funny - quite a feat, especially for a narrator who himself can be very funny. I don't think he has chosen the right accents for some of the characters but that's a personal thing which I'd be prepared to overlook if the narration flowed well and moved the story along at a decent pace. It doesn't.
A real shame. It could have been brilliant but is less than mediocre. I'm returning it.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Katherine
- 26-05-23
All the same voice
There are a whole group of actors here and I genuinely can’t tell which character is which. Are they all trying to sound the same? Did they argue over who got to do “harsh deep male voice” and everyone won except the guy who plays Carrot? And the one who is playing Vetinari does sound like he’s doing a Christopher Lee impression, which is fine if that’s how they wanted to go.
I’ve listened to the other new versions of the discworld books, released recently by penguin and they have done an excellent job. The characters were all easily differentiated, and each one had their own feel and vibe.
I’ve listened to this book dozens and dozens of times as read by nigel planer, and also thoroughly enjoyed the abridged version penguin put out recently.
I’m seriously considering for the first time sending a discworld book back.
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15 people found this helpful
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Booskerdu
- 26-05-23
Absolutely Awful
Stephen Briggs is the only one allowed to narrate a Terry Pratchett book. This is so bad, and the various narrators have no clue the stories are humorous, filled with Easter eggs and inside jokes.
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12 people found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 28-05-23
Uninspiring performance
Pales terribly in comparison to the original Watch readings by Stephen Briggs and Nigel Planer. Every character sounds pretty much alike, and some of the pronunciations become garbled whenever the narrator attempts speaking in guttaral voice. A tremendous shame, seeing as how Guards! Guards! is a well-loved Pratchett novel. If you are planning to listen to this story for the first time, I suggest getting the one by Planer instead.
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9 people found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Kindle Customer
- 03-06-23
Great Story, wrong narrator
The City Watch books are by far my favourite of Terry Pratchetts novels. I was really excited that they were going to redo the audio books, but the narrator/director for this project missed the mark. They seem to have failed to understand what these books are about and the overall atmosphere. The old narrators for these books excentuated the humours, goofy atmosphere of the novel. This time around? Not even close. Jokes miss the mark. Many of the characters sound too similar(deep gravelly voices )and are read WAY too seriously. It breaks my heart, but I won't be getting the others. The old narrations are so much better than this.
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7 people found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- John Robinson
- 15-06-23
Could the speakers be less interested in their job
A wonderful book made unbearable.
The annoyingly long sequence of pause, jingle, pause, read footnote, pause, jingle, pause, and return to reading the page during which you could just about brew a pot of coffee to wake yourself back up is off-putting all by itself. Then they managed to find the least interested people to give their least interesting performance. And the audio engineer seems to have slowed it down another 10% just to make sure we can't finish listening before the coma sets in.
The fact that this made it to public consumption is an insult to fans. Another Pratchett work turned into a dumpster fire.
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5 people found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Darcie Davenport
- 14-06-23
The. Pauses. are. making me. Nuts
One of my favorite books of all time. The story is riveting and clever. The author has a gorgeous growl that is the perfect Vimes voice. But the author's cadence is maddening. So many pauses! It actually makes the book BORING.
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5 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Christina
- 04-06-23
Lots of dramatic pauses
Guards! Guards! is easily one of my favorite books, and I've listened to the Nigel Planer version probably more than any other audiobook in my collection. I was excited to get another take on it because you can never have too many renditions of Terry Pratchett's books IMO.
I won't go so far as to say the main narrator has graduated from the William Shatner School of Dramatic Pauses, but he gets close at times. This version is 13.5 hours long and Nigel's is just barely over 10 hours, if that gives you an idea. His cadence took some getting used to.
I don't think they do a poor job at all though so I definitely think this is worth a chance if you've heard and loved other narrators. Some character voices are samey, but I think that can happen with the best of narrators and I'm not too put out by it. I am bummed however that as soon as these Audible versions were released the older versions with Stephen Briggs and Nigel Planer were removed from sale. I don't know if it's a licensing thing, but it's a little heartbreaking to think those versions could be lost to the sands of time if they're not easily accessible somewhere online. Please bring them back, Audible! There's room on here for both.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Cory W.
- 02-08-23
Who picked this narrator??
All the wit and the humor, just gone. I can tell it’s supposed to be there, but this narrator does it no justice even in the slightest. I really wish I could get the old version back. Or even the old narrator, or the guy who narrated the newer Pratchett books. I don’t know names. Do better Penguin Audio.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Lyndel
- 05-07-23
Give back my old Guards Guards
Where is the audiobook I bought gone ?
This is RUBBISH garbage HORRIBLE.
I hate the narration.
I purchased Nigel Planner reading not this piece of junk !
Return what I purchased immediately
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Stephen Charest
- 15-06-23
sounds like a pirate gang
The narration is slow, gravelly, and generally unpleasant. Bring back Stephen Briggs! of course the story is great!
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