{"id":1416,"date":"2020-02-24T17:47:53","date_gmt":"2020-02-24T23:47:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lfs.org\/blog\/?p=1416"},"modified":"2025-06-19T20:49:48","modified_gmt":"2025-06-20T01:49:48","slug":"an-appreciation-of-terry-pratchetts-night-watch-the-2003-prometheus-best-novel-winner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/an-appreciation-of-terry-pratchetts-night-watch-the-2003-prometheus-best-novel-winner\/","title":{"rendered":"Alternate history, progress, markets, and how fantasy can illuminate reality: An Appreciation of Terry Pratchett\u2019s Night Watch, the 2003 Prometheus Best Novel winner"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Libertarian Futurist Society’s ongoing Appreciation series of review-essays strives to make \u00a0clear what libertarian futurists see in each of our past winners and how they fit the libertarian focus of the Prometheus Awards. Here\u2019s an Appreciation for Terry Pratchett\u2019s Night Watch<\/em>, the 2003 Prometheus winner for Best Novel:<\/p>\n

By William H. Stoddard<\/a> and\u00a0Michael Grossberg<\/a><\/p>\n

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Night Watch,\u00a0<\/em>the 29th\u00a0<\/sup>book in Terry Pratchett\u2019s bestselling Discworld series and widely hailed as one of the best, focuses in his usual tongue-in-cheek style on what it takes to build a more-modern police force that eventually will be able to keep the peace and fight violent crime in one of the most unruly cities in fiction.<\/p>\n

Filled with individualistic, anti-authoritarian and pragmatically libertarian themes that resonate with the actual history of our own planet and how market economies and modern civilization developed, this ingenious 2002 satirical fantasy blends political intrigue and police drama in a plot that also involves time travel back to the start of a legendary street rebellion.<\/p>\n


\nAfter chasing after one of the most notorious killers in Ankh-Morpork, police commander Sam Vimes winds up in a magical-storm-induced time vortex that takes him back three decades to the days when young Sam Vimes first joined the watch.<\/p>\n

Guided by a bunch of wise and spiritual wizards who can manipulate time, the older Vimes has to impersonate another significant character, murdered by the same psychopathic killer who also went back in time, in order to change history, save lives and serve as a mentor to his younger self.<\/p>\n

And if the older Vimes doesn\u2019t succeed at his unlikely quest and avert a historical crisis, the younger Vimes will never set in motion the beginnings of a revolution in police procedures – or his beloved town, so much darker and less advanced, will never become the thriving modern metropolis that readers of the Discworld series have come to know and love.<\/p>\n

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Beyond Pratchett\u2019s sense of humor, quirky imagination, interesting plots and amusing but truly full-bodied characters, both human and otherwise, what many libertarians find so enjoyable about not only Nightwatch\u00a0<\/em>but many other Disc-World stories is how they realistically chronicle our real world\u2019s actual economic, political and social development and scientific progress, so often fueled by liberty, dissent and the linked pursuit of knowledge and commerce.<\/p>\n

LFS leader Wiliam Stoddard, writing for Prometheus <\/em>quarterly, has praised Pratchett\u2019s Discworld novels as \u201chighly intelligent commentary on human foibles\u201d and splendidly funny, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut Pratchett\u2019s work has another aspect that may recommend it to other libertarians: a surprisingly sympathetic intellectual content,\u201d Stoddard explained in the Fall 2000 issue (Vol. 18) of Prometheus quarterly in an essay about the series as a whole.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Discworld is a fictional place, not a planet, but a vast disk carried through space on the backs of four elephants carried on he back of an even bigger turtle, in a universe where such things are possible. It is inhabited by a variety of intelligent races, including humans, dwarfs, trolls and werewolves. This big a space offers endless room for new settings, but Pratchett repeatedly comes back to Ankh-Morpork, the greatest city on the Disc.”<\/p>\n

“Ankh-Morpork is an odd combination of an Italian Renaissance city-state and Victorian London, with a hint of Republican Rome in the background. It has no king \u2013 the last one was beheaded some time ago \u2013 and no faction strong enough to impose itself on anyone else. Its balance of power allows the growth of any number of private economic ventures and the accumulation of huge fortunes. None of this has any legal right to exist, and in effect Ankh-Morpork\u2019s many centuries of laws are almost never enforced \u2013 which seems to be the secret of its survival and prosperity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSeveral of the novels are police procedurals, with Commander sir Samuel Vimes, a descendant of the man who beheaded the city\u2019s last king, as their central character. Pratchett\u2019s portrayals of Vimes repeatedly emphasize his hatred of kings, aristocrats, vampires, professional assassins and other predators on the human race… The targets of his mockery are almost all deserving in libertarian eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Terry Pratchett in 2012. (Creative Commons license)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In short, Pratchett\u2019s surprisingly individualistic, anti-authoritarian and pragmatically libertarian stories often offer accurate lessons \u2013 disguised as very funny parodies – about the way markets actually work and have worked (messily) throughout history, the benefits of innovation and technology sparked by free markets, and how society advances right here on Earth \u2013 not through government and politics, but so often despite and around its bureaucracy and intrusive obstacles.<\/p>\n

Note: Pratchett (1948-2015), a bestselling British sf\/fantasy writer, is best known for the 41 comic-fantasy novels of his Discworld series.<\/p>\n

He also was nominated for Prometheus Awards for Raising Steam<\/em>, a 2015 Best Novel finalist; The Long War<\/em>, co-authored by Stephen Baxter and a 2014 Best Novel nominee; Snuff,\u00a0<\/em>a 2012 Best Novel finalist; and The Truth,\u00a0<\/em>a 2001 Best Novel finalist. All but The Long War,\u00a0<\/em>part of a five-novel parallel-earth series, are Discworld novels.<\/p>\n

* See related introductory essay<\/strong><\/a> about the LFS\u2019 40th anniversary retrospective series of Appreciations of past Prometheus Awards winners, with an overview of the awards\u2019 four-decade history.<\/p>\n

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IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE PROMETHEUS AWARDS:<\/strong><\/p>\n

* Prometheus winners:\u00a0<\/strong>For the full list of Prometheus winners, finalists and nominees \u2013 including the annual Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction (Hall of Fame) categories and occasional Special Awards \u2013 visit the enhanced\u00a0Prometheus Awards page<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>on the LFS website, which now includes convenient links to all published essay-reviews in our Appreciation series explaining why each of more than 100 past winners since 1979 fits the awards\u2019 distinctive dual focus on both quality and liberty.<\/p>\n

* Read \u201cThe Libertarian History of Science Fiction,\u201d<\/strong><\/a>an essay in the international magazine\u00a0Quillette<\/em>\u00a0that favorably highlights the Prometheus Awards, the Libertarian Futurist Society and the significant element of libertarian sf\/fantasy in the evolution of the modern genre.<\/p>\n

*\u00a0Watch <\/strong>videos of past Prometheus Awards ceremonies (including the recent 2023 ceremony with inspiring and amusing speeches by Prometheus-winning authors Dave Freer and Sarah Hoyt),Libertarian Futurist Society panel discussions with noted sf authors and leading libertarian writers, and other LFS programs on the Prometheus Blog\u2019s\u00a0Video page.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

* Check out the Libertarian Futurist Society\u2019s Facebook page<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0for comments, updates and links to Prometheus Blog posts.<\/p>\n

*\u00a0Join us! <\/em><\/strong>To help sustain the Prometheus Awards and support a cultural and literary strategy to appreciate and honor freedom-loving fiction, \u00a0join<\/a>the Libertarian Futurist Society, a non-profit all-volunteer association of freedom-loving sf\/fantasy fans.<\/p>\n

Libertarian futurists believe that culture matters! We understand that the arts and literature can be vital in envisioning a freer and better future – and in some ways can be even more powerful than politics in the long run, by imagining better visions of the future incorporating peace, prosperity, progress, tolerance, justice, positive social change, and mutual respect for each other\u2019s rights, individuality and human dignity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Libertarian Futurist Society’s ongoing Appreciation series of review-essays strives to make \u00a0clear what libertarian futurists see in each of our past winners and how they fit the libertarian focus of the Prometheus Awards. Here\u2019s an Appreciation for Terry Pratchett\u2019s Night Watch, the 2003 Prometheus winner for Best Novel: By William H. Stoddard and\u00a0Michael Grossberg … Continue reading Alternate history, progress, markets, and how fantasy can illuminate reality: An Appreciation of Terry Pratchett\u2019s Night Watch, the 2003 Prometheus Best Novel winner<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2399,43,159,2353,1924,2423,8,2605,2666],"tags":[128,344,343,443,496,497,342,345,495,498,341],"class_list":["post-1416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alternate-history","category-appreciations","category-best-novels","category-book-reviews","category-comic-works","category-fantasy","category-review","category-sequels","category-terry-pratchett","tag-alternate-history","tag-ankh-morpork","tag-discworld","tag-history","tag-market-economics","tag-modern-civilization","tag-night-watch","tag-police-commander-sam-vimes","tag-political-satire","tag-progress","tag-terry-pratchett"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pe8nGl-mQ","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1416"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7764,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1416\/revisions\/7764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}