The villain Carcer is shown behind Sweeper with two knives. Instead, the key third illuminated figure is Sweeper (Lu Tsi) in the saffron robe immediately in front and to the left of Nobby in the position of the watchmen carrying an arquebus in Rembrandt's original. In both the original painting and Kidby's illustration, three figures are illuminated to force the viewers eye in their direction, however in Kidby's illustration it is not the figure in the position of Rembrandt's woman crouching down and holding a chicken (to the left of Frans Bannig Cocq) - that figure to the left of the elder Vimes is the young urchin Nobby Nobbs wearing an oversized watch coat and boots. In Kidby's cover, the older Sam Vimes is in the place of Frans Banning Cocq and Sam as a young man is in the place of Wiliem van Ruytenburch. The actual painting by Rembrandt is used as the back cover illustration. This is the first main-sequence Discworld novel not to have a cover by Josh Kirby who had passed away. Paul Kidby's cover parodies the famous Rembrandt painting The Company of Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburch, more commonly known as The Night Watch. A five-part radio adaptation of the novel was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 from Februit featured Philip Jackson as Sam Vimes and Carl Prekopp as young Sam, and referenced the similar theme of a policeman unexpectedly being sent back in time from the series Life on Mars.

The protagonist of the novel is Sir Samuel Vimes, commander of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch. The working title for this book was The Nature of the Beast, but this was discarded when Frances Fyfield published a book with exactly that title in the UK in late 2001. Night Watch is the 29th novel in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, published in 2002. For the painting by Rembrandt, see Night Watch (painting) or The Wikipedia Page.

This page is about the novel NIght Watch.

The night watch terry pratchett