"Monstrous Regiment" by Terry Pratchett

Meet Polly Perks. She is about to find out that becoming a boy sounds easy, it even looks easy from studying the boys at her family's inn, but actually chopping off your hair and wearing trousers is not quite all there is to it. Still, she has to find her lost brother. And in order to do so, she has to enlist in the army.And there's a war going on. Her country is good at waging war, or at least, it sure knows how to find one. The army is low on recruits, though of course they would never admit that they are losing. Right now, they'll take anyone...Soon, they are off to the frontline, without training, and with the enemy on their heels. All they have going for them is sergeant Jackrum, the most skilled and cunning sergeant the army has ever seen. And a vampire with a coffee addiction. And someone who knows a lot about fire... Of course, there is the Secret.In "Monstrous Regiment", a Discworld novel, we meet some new and endearing characters to join well-known and beloved characters such as Vimes and Angua. This makes for a fresh and pleasant combination.As always, Pratchett made me giggle a lot with his clever sense of humour and his remarkable insights into human nature. But there is more to this book than comedy. It also addresses the strange and silly game that is war and what can happen when you blindly follow religion. Don't get me wrong, the book is not anti-religion. In fact, it shows how strength of faith can overcome many obstacles. It's just that it touches on what can happen when you stick to religion when it has stopped being practical and has stopped making any sense. And it does so in a non-preachy and entertaining way.The characters in the regiment are diverse and, as mentioned before, rather endearing. They come from all different backgrounds and species - there is a vampire, a troll, a dwarf and an Igor, to name some examples, and they learn to work together and use the other's strengths to survive.Though it may sound like the book is one big, moral lesson, this is not the case. "Monstrous regiment" is gripping, funny, silly, touching and if it makes the reader think then, well, that is a bonus.Pratchett has a wonderful way of writing. A lot of his humour is hidden in his word-choices and twists and turns of sentences. That is why the reader can read and re-read any book in the Discworld series and still find something freshly entertaining.If you are new to the Discworld series, you can just jump right in with this one. It will probably make you want to read all the others, though. If you are an experienced Discworld reader, you won't be disappointed with this addition.I would recommend this book to anyone.According to the author's bio, Terry Pratchett lives behind a keyboard in Wiltshire and says he 'doesn't want to get a life, because it feels as though he's trying to lead three already'. He was appointed OBE in 1998 and his first Disworld novel for children, "The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents" was awarded the 2001 Carnegie Medal."Monstrous Regiment" was originally published in Great Britain by Doubleday, a division of Transworld Publishers. The ISBN is 0-552-14941-1. dr seuss cat in hat book