Guards! Guards!

Most writers would have trouble producing a full page of the rich zaniness with which Terry Pratchett fills entire novels. His comic fantasies have plots and characters, but they're really about language. They beg to be read aloud but place an enormous demand on the narrator's understanding and control. Planer's performance calls forth adjectives like "masterful," "definitive" and "hilarious." The plot: young Carrot (he's shaped like one) leaves his foster home among the dwarves to join the legendary (all right, notorious) Night Watch of Ankh-Morpork, equipped with nothing but a pure heart and an ancestral sword. There are also dragons. J.N. Winner of AUDIOFILE Earphones Award (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine