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Guards! Guards! cover art

Guards! Guards!

By: Terry Pratchett, Ben Aaronovitch - afterword
Narrated by: Jon Culshaw, Peter Serafinowicz, Bill Nighy, Ben Aaronovitch
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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.

©1989 Terry Pratchett (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"This is one of Pratchett's best books. Hilarious and highly recommended." (The Times)

What listeners say about Guards! Guards!

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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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8 people found this helpful

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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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8 people found this helpful

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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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6 people found this helpful

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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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5 people found this helpful

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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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4 people found this helpful

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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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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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The voices are all wrong

It is such a shame that the voice performance on this is so shockingly bad that it spoils the entire story.
I had been really looking forward to this refreshed series with a consistent voice cast, but what a crushing disappointment. Badly voiced, entirely the wrong emphasis placed within sentences. It Sam’s as though the performer doesn’t know the characters or the story at all.

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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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Ruined!

I love TP and The Watch books are some of my favourites but Jon Culshaw just ruins this totally for me! All the voices are wrong and I couldn’t finish listening to it!!

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