Pratchett, Terry - Thief of Time
Sun, Nov. 16th, 2008 07:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterI think this is up there with Lords and Ladies and Hogfather as one of my favorite Discworld books.
The Auditors, having failed in their latest scheme to make the universe a neater and more orderly place, have hatched a plot to stop time altogether by getting someone to build a perfect clock. Meanwhile, Death has sensed something running amuck and summoned Susan for help, the History Monks are trying to deal with a thief who's way too good with time, and the clockmaker's helper Igor really just wants a good thunderstorm.
Unlike some of the other Death books, all the plotlines in this book were engaging, and I'm not sure if I had more fun reading about Susan trying to whap Death of Rats on the head, Lu-Tze teaching everyone about Rule One, Death trying to round up the Four Horsemen, Igor just trying to serve the first sane master he's ever had, or the Auditors attempting to analyze human behavior.
Everything ties together wonderfully, and though I wanted more of Lobsang and Susan in the end, the ending was highly satisfactory.
I was trying to decided how disgruntled I was about the History Monks being some weird amalgamation of Chinese, Japanese, and Tibetan practices, but Lu-Tze is so awesome that I kept getting distracted. I also generally like how it pokes fun at the romanticization of Eastern religion and how Lu-Tze's Way is the Way of an innkeeper in Ankh-Morpork.
Also, literal death by chocolate!
Now I want to reread Small Gods and figure out what Lu-Tze was doing in there, since I'm pretty sure that was when he was trying to reconstruct all of history the first time around.
This was appropriately frightening and hilarious at all the right places, and I would love to see more of Lobsang and Susan in the future, but am not sure if we'll get a chance to.
The Auditors, having failed in their latest scheme to make the universe a neater and more orderly place, have hatched a plot to stop time altogether by getting someone to build a perfect clock. Meanwhile, Death has sensed something running amuck and summoned Susan for help, the History Monks are trying to deal with a thief who's way too good with time, and the clockmaker's helper Igor really just wants a good thunderstorm.
Unlike some of the other Death books, all the plotlines in this book were engaging, and I'm not sure if I had more fun reading about Susan trying to whap Death of Rats on the head, Lu-Tze teaching everyone about Rule One, Death trying to round up the Four Horsemen, Igor just trying to serve the first sane master he's ever had, or the Auditors attempting to analyze human behavior.
Everything ties together wonderfully, and though I wanted more of Lobsang and Susan in the end, the ending was highly satisfactory.
I was trying to decided how disgruntled I was about the History Monks being some weird amalgamation of Chinese, Japanese, and Tibetan practices, but Lu-Tze is so awesome that I kept getting distracted. I also generally like how it pokes fun at the romanticization of Eastern religion and how Lu-Tze's Way is the Way of an innkeeper in Ankh-Morpork.
Also, literal death by chocolate!
Now I want to reread Small Gods and figure out what Lu-Tze was doing in there, since I'm pretty sure that was when he was trying to reconstruct all of history the first time around.
This was appropriately frightening and hilarious at all the right places, and I would love to see more of Lobsang and Susan in the future, but am not sure if we'll get a chance to.
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Fri, Nov. 21st, 2008 09:53 am (UTC)Other media tend to whitewash out Pratchett's characters, too: the Josh Kirby cover for "Thief of Time" in the UK (don't look at the American covers, they're horrid!) shows Lobsang as the only Caucasian and blond History Monk, and Kirby's "Small Gods" cover shows all the Omnian characters being light-skinned (including Om himself. Yes, he put Om's epiphany in human form on the cover). On the other hand, Kirby did depict Mrs. Googol in "Witches Abroad" correctly as black, which I know wasn't readily apparent to some readers on this LJ.
Also, the recent TV mini-series adaptation of "The Colour of Magic" and "The Light Fantastic" had Twoflower played by White American Sean Astin instead of an East Asian actor. That riled me quite a bit. Does that mean that if they ever do "Jingo", they'll get white actors to play Achmed and the other Klatchians? But then, "Jingo" might have far too radical a message (i.e. "Arabs are people too") to be viable as a TV series at the moment.
-Chris