Polly, in an effort to save the older brother she had been taking care of for most of her life, is off to join an Army. The Army of Borogravia, a country so aggressive that they may have fought every one of their neighbours in recent years, and so backward that they may have inadvertently pulled Ankh-Morpork in to their most recent war by destroying the clacks towers that had run through their territory. In Borogravia, the people worshipped a God named Nuggen who gifted them with a constant stream of edicts, increasingly bizarre and destructive to the country itself. Many of the edicts, Abominations to Nuggen, as they are known, cemented the position of women in the country as frankly less than second class citizens. For that reason, Polly was joining the army as Oliver. The story does a great job of showing much of the futility of war especially in its dying days and especially as the inevitable loser in a country where it is taboo to suggest you might be losing.
It's worth mentioning the namesake to this book 'The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women', a dissertation from the 16th Century by a minister John Knox that put forward the idea that female rulers were an abomination to god. With that in mind, it should be no surprise that as we follow the journey of Polly it is revealed that her whole regiment are, in fact, women, setting out for a variety of reasons in an Army that apparently despises them. To find a lost brother, a lost lover, to follow the calling of the divine or to escape the sort of abuse that might cause an urge to burn the country behind you as you leave it. They achieve what should be impossible for the final dregs of an army and turn the countries tides, enough at least to see a reasonable truce instead of all out destruction. And with that truce comes the promise of a society just a little more equal.
Pratchett does a great job of showing the inherent farce of bigotry, ostensibly here in misogyny but in passing of all kinds. But there is also an undertone of religion being warped towards reflections of petty hatreds of its practitioners. Obviously, I enjoyed this book.
Finished reading - 09/04/26