Monstrous Regiment - Terry Pratchett

Published by Corgi Books: Great Britain, 2004 (2003).

I love Terry Pratchett's writings, particularly his Discworld series which - at over 50 books - have gone into so many different parts of the world and feature so many different characters that it's hardly right to call it a "series" anymore... Though a substitute term would be hard to come by. Anthology? History? 

Many of the Discworld novels follow particular groups of characters as the grow from novel to novel, but some, like Monstrous Regiment, follow a group of individuals for a "one-off" adventure.

Polly Perks disguises herself as a boy and joins the army in order to find out what happened to her brother. In the process, she finds a number of other women, also disguised as men for various reasons, and works her way up the ranks due to her intelligence. This is the basic plot, but of course being a Discworld novel there is far more to the story than that. 

Discworld novels are heavy satire wrapped in a fantasy coating, and this is no different. The title Monstrous Regiment itself is a pun, referring to both the "monstrous" element of the regiment (including an Igor, a troll and a vampire) and also the Elizabethan era book by John Knox, The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Montruous Regiment of Women, which was written to condemn the idea of female rule in general. So we get a lot of commentary on women in leadership, as well as political intrigue and references to various other historical occurrences including Joan of Arc! These are the sort of elements that make Discworld such an interesting series, as the layers of satire and commentary are juxtaposed with silly names, comedic digressions and footnotes, and the ever-present  figure of literal Death.

Monstrous Regiment is quite a good Discworld novel to begin with as it introduces "new" characters to ease a reader in (although some regulars do cameo later on), and gives those characters full arcs, leading to fairly satisfying conclusion.

Like all Discworld novels this is weird, clever, funny and fairly easy to read.

Completed 7 October 2019.

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