Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett

In the twenty-eighth Discworld novel the Discworld goes to war.It began as a sudden strange fancy... Polly Perks had to become a boy in a hurry. Cutting off her hair and wearing trousers was easy. Learning to fart and belch in public and walk like an ape took more time... And now she's enlisted in the army, and searching for her lost brother.But there's a war on. There's always a war on. And Polly and her fellow recruits are suddenly in the thick of it, without any training, and the enemy is hunting them.All they have on their side is the most artful sergeant in the army and a vampire with a lust for coffee. Well... They have the Secret. And as they take the war to the heart of the enemy, they have to use all the resources of... the Monstrous Regiment.

Not what I was expecting. Right up there with Small Gods and Hogfather.

I've been working my way through the Discworld series for a while now and was beginning to grow concerned that Pratchett had reached his limits, with the recent foray into YA novels being a sign that he was taking it easy, however I couldn't have been proved more wrong. Maybe writing the YA novels allowed his time to re-energise because with Monstrous Regiment he returns to form with guns blazing.

This is easily one of the best in the series, if not the best. The themes explored are more mature and the situations grittier. The presence of the City Watch always seems to raise Pratchett's game and, although they only have a peripheral part to play here, the result here is no different.

I had been worried that the remainder of the series would be a slightly trudging affair, however my hopes have been raised massively by this late entry and I am looking forward to see what comes next...