It's been a while since I shared my progress in my Discworld marathon:
The Last Hero: I liked this book a lot more than I had expected to. I'm not a big fan of the Rincewind novels, mainly because they're a bit too loose and unfocused in terms of plot for me - they mostly consist of Rincewind running around and meeting zany characters with very little rhyme or reason, after all - but probably because of the short length of this book, combined with the fact that Cohen the Barbarian's subplot got a lot of attention, that didn't come into play here, and I was the happier for it. Speaking of Cohen's subplot, I think Pratchett really perfected with it the simple parodying of heroic fantasy that he had in mind when he first began the series, and without spoiling anything, it was a great way to conclude Cohen's mini-story arc. Also, the illustrations were good. So good, in fact, that I think I would have enjoyed Eric a lot more if I had read the illustrated version.
Night Watch: I had heard some hype about this one before I began, but I still wasn't prepared for the very abrupt change of tone. This book is fucking dark. I mean, shit gets real here. And it's not very funny, either. It provided a few smiles here and there, I suppose, but for the most part, the story is serious fucking business. Now, that being said, it's not bad. In fact, it's fantastic, and I'd probably rank it up there with Thief of Time as one of the best of the series. The story is riveting, the action is great, there's some thoughtful exploration of some very complex themes (like remembrance of the war dead), and I'd even go so far as to say that it serves as a surprisingly deep and nuanced character study of Vimes. It's just that my appreciation of it is on a completely different wavelength, so to speak, than the rest of the series. As a comedy, it's not very good, but as whatever the hell it's trying to be, it's magnificent.