Clara’s Verdict
Monstrous Regiment is one of Pratchett’s most pointed and most rousing novels, a war story that is really about who gets to belong. Polly Perks cuts off her hair, pulls on a pair of trousers, and marches into an army that would never knowingly admit her, and from that single disguise Pratchett spins a comedy that turns, by careful degrees, into something genuinely stirring. This is the thirty first Discworld novel, and it wears its convictions with a broad grin.
I love how the book refuses every easy target. Borogravia is absurd, its rules ridiculous, its war pointless, and yet the people caught inside it are drawn with real tenderness. The jokes are sharp, the sergeant is a magnificent creation, and the vampire longing for coffee rather than blood is exactly the sort of detail that makes the Disc feel lived in. It is funny, angry, and warm all at the very same time.
The genius of the book is the way it keeps pulling the rug. Just when you think you have taken its measure as a straightforward comedy of disguise, Pratchett widens the lens, and the story becomes something richer and far more surprising about identity, loyalty and the lies a country tells itself in order to keep fighting. It is one of his most quietly radical novels.
About the Audiobook
In the small and aggressively proud country of Borogravia, the rules are strict and the list of things forbidden to women is long. A woman’s place is the kitchen, not a job, not a pub, and certainly not a pair of trousers or the front line of a war. So when Polly Perks needs to find her missing brother, who has gone off to be a soldier, she has to become a boy in a hurry.
Cutting off her hair and wearing the trousers turns out to be the easy part. Going to war is not, and Polly and her fellow raw recruits soon find themselves in the thick of a losing battle. All they have on their side is the most artful sergeant in the army and a vampire with a powerful lust for coffee. Sooner or later, it will be time to make a stand. As the thirty first Discworld novel it can be enjoyed on its own, and it makes a bold, self contained story for a newcomer.
Borogravia itself is a marvellous invention, a nation so hemmed in by rules and old grievances that war has become its default condition. Against that grim backdrop the little squad of recruits, held together by their formidable sergeant, comes to feel like the only sane thing for miles around, and their loyalty to one another is the warm centre about which the whole satire turns.
The Narration
Katherine Parkinson narrates across eleven hours and twenty six minutes, and she brings both wit and grit to Polly’s journey. She handles the squad of recruits with real care, letting each of them emerge as a distinct individual, and she times the comedy with the assurance you would expect from one of our finest comic actors.
The Penguin Audio production gives her the customary support. Bill Nighy reads the footnotes with dry authority, Peter Serafinowicz voices Death, and James Hannigan’s theme frames the whole. Across nearly eleven and a half hours the balance of humour and feeling never once slips, and the closing stretch carries a real and unexpected emotional charge.
Across eleven and a half hours Katherine Parkinson keeps that squad vivid and distinct, so that by the closing chapters you feel you have marched every hard mile alongside them.
What Readers Say
The audiobook holds an average of 4.7 stars from 5 ratings, and the responses are warm and refreshingly direct. One listener simply called it a brilliant book by a brilliant author, while another reached for a whole run of adjectives: marvellous, entertaining, witty and fun.
A reader who enjoyed the novel’s politics described Borogravia as what we would now call a rogue state, forever at war until its neighbours finally form an alliance to end the menace, and noted with obvious pleasure that Sam Vimes turns up in the thick of it. Another loved the story’s message for modern society, that women can do whatever a man can do, and a fifth reviewer offered the shortest recommendation of all: it is Terry Pratchett, what more do you need to know.
Who Should Listen?
Pick this up if you want a war story with a conscience and a sense of humour, if you enjoy a clever disguise plot, or if you simply like your fantasy to have something to say. It stands alone well, so newcomers are genuinely welcome, and it makes especially good listening for anyone who cheers for the underdog.
If a soldier in disguise and a squad with nothing left to lose sound like your kind of company, you can Listen to Monstrous Regiment on Audible and march with Polly to the front.
