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Thief of Time
As always, attempting to explain the plot behind a Prachett novel is ... difficult. Lemme do the best I can: In Discworld, where the series takes place, Time is a resource that is managed by the Monks of History. They store, divvy it out and generally make it so that the world has enough time. However, outside forces are trying to stop Time, by constructing the Discworld's most perfect clock -- if the clock starts ticking, then the world will stop.
Our heroes include one of the preeminent cleaners from the Monks of History, his young "grasshopper," Susan, the Granddaughter of Death, oh, and the fifth member of the 4 Horsemen. And I nearly forgot the Son of Time. Or Sons. Or something like that. Yes, it's a Prachett novel at it's best. Also make regular appearances are series perennials DEATH and DEATH OF MICE. Personally, I've never been a huge fan of DEATH OF MICE, but I do find DEATH to be one of the best characters.
Plot of this particular book aside, here's the lowdown on the Discworld series -- it's satire. Yes, Virginia, even in this day and age of heavy cyncism, there's still good authors writing satire. In the past, the Discworld series has dealth with such fun issues as freedom of the press, gender relations, international relations, the telephone/telegraph/internet and role of government. The thing that's fun about the Discworld series is that Prachett's usually right on, at least from my point of view. Thief of Time is a look at that resource that everyone in our day and age claims to have not enough of, and is scrambling around for. While Prachett's satirical devices can be a bit cutesy at time -- some of the Monks of History parts, in particular, I thought were a bit over the top -- the underlying point is still the same: people create the sense of time deprivation around us. We are the ones responsible for making ourselves feel like we don't have time.
Beyond just our own interactions with time, the main anatognists in the book, the people behind the scenes, also have a serious issue with human life and all that entails. In dealing with them in the book, I get the feeling that Prachett is trying to tell us to wake up and smell the morning coffee. Being human is pretty darn cool, and we should appreciate all the crazy stuff that's around us, and enjoy life.
The Discworld series is not written for those with a dour sense of life or themselves. This, and the other books in the series are easy reads, and don't take long to go through -- but you are almost always guaranteed to laugh out loud at least several times. And somehow, despite the humour, he still manages to make a point about life, and lampoon what's around us. And hopefully the next book will have Captain Carrot.
You can purchase this book at Fatbrain.
I'm still waiting for Pratchett to pair off Susan with Ponder Stibbons. Imagine it: the ultimate geek/goth thing...
I am sad to see Mr. Adams gone too, but his handful of books were largely rushed at the end. In particular I wanted to throw the last Dirk Gently book out a nearby window when I got to the end and it tied up a mystery in 3 pages without bothering to tell ME clearly what the solution was (I'm not dense, if it was obvious to anyone I have no clue how). He had a great sense of a scene and humor, but not of novel writing.
Pratchett, on the other hand, knows how to plot a book. Beginning/Middle/End, tension/release, etc. He does an excellent job. Sometimes his plots or characters end up a bit thin, but I can only think of one or two of the 26 Discworld books that I felt I had to *work* at reading, and the vast majority of them have been complete joys to read.
Bottom line: it's quality, not quantity, that counts, and Pratchett manages excellent quality, in many cases surpassing any of Adams' work.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Have you read any Pratchett? No one who calls him a hack could have. As far as I'm concerned he's become a better writer than Adams. (This is no slam to Adams whose last novels were nothing short of brilliant). But Terry Pratchett manages to spoof everything under the sun and still tells a great story. Furthermore, as silly and improbable as the Discworld is, it is the most well-fleshed out and consistent world since Middle-Earth. There may be about 26 Discworld books (who can keep count), but they could really be thought of a 4 separate series, and they are as good now as ever:
1. The Watch Books: Vimes, Carrot, Nobby, et al, usually more urban-centric with murder mysteries and politics.
2. Rincewind and the Wizards. OK, Rincewind might be just a leetle derivative of Artur Dent, but his adventures with TwoFlower are a lot of fun. Also, the other wizards are hilarious... Pratchett has nailed every elite group of pompous men (*cough*Slashdot*cough) in their portrayal.
3. Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, Magrat, Agnes, et al. The Lancre Witches are some of the most interesting and well-developed characters in any series I've read, especially Granny.
4. All the other books. There's Death, Mort, Susan Sto Helit, Pteppic, Gaspode, C.M.O.T. Dibbler and plenty of other characters that aren't directly related to the other three groups.
Of course, members of more than one of these groups always show up in any book, but's great to see the characters evolve, interact in different permutations, and watch Discworld blossom as a razor-sharp parody of our own crazy world.
If that's the work of a hack then I should win a Nobel Prize.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Basically, in the 20 or so previous DiscWorld books, Pratchett has built a very rich and detailed history through the events of the characters. However, as would happen with almost any author, there are small timeline mistakes and such that creep into the series, which very devout fans love to point out on USENET.
Thief of Time starts with the explanation of an event in the past of the DiscWorld that caused the Timeline to crash (which explains all the little inconsistancies, since it had to be patched back together). Since then, it's been up to the Monks of History not to merely record history as it happens, but to ensure that history continues to happen at all!
Main characters in the book are Lu Tze (a History Monk patterned after Lao Tzu), Susan Sto Helit (Death's grand-daughter), DEATH, Lobsand Ludd (Lu Tze's apprentice), and The Auditors.
Anyone who enjoys the sort of satirical humor that was present in Hitchhiker's Guide should check this out, and then read the rest of Pratchett's work.
More information about Terry Pratchett and his works can be found at
- L-Space
- alt.fan.pratchett
or any number of other online resources.Project ELF - Anonymous Distributed Filesharing
Thief of Time is the twenty-sixth book in the seemingly neverending Discworld series of books by Terry Pratchett. Initially, these books were a parody of "Conan the Barbarian"-style fantasy, then evolved into satires about pop culture and contemporary politics, and eventually developed a peculiar knack for murder mysteries and cosmic crises of metaphysical proportions. Thief of Time is about one of these crises.
Susan Sto Helit, granddaughter (by adoption) of the anthropomorphic personification Death, has been trying to preserve her sense of humanity ever since she discovered her family history. Previously, in Hogfather, she was a governess; she's now taken the next logical step into elementary school teaching. But Death hasn't forgotten her, nor her usefullness in situations involving the Auditors.
The Auditors are grey, shapeless, nameless beings who have been harassing Death for some time now. Their self-appointed job is to keep things neat and tidy in the universe, and life in all its shapes and forms is exactly the opposite of that--unpredictable, nondeterministic, and full of intangible things like love and hope. They want to do away with it, but can't through direct intervention. And Death likes life, because without it he's out of a job. But he can't directly intervene, either. So he calls on Susan to help out.
This time, the Auditors are attempting to re-create a special clock--one that can measure the "cosmic tick" of the universe and trap Time herself within it. Stop time, and you stop change, preserving the universe in a tidy and calculable form that the Auditors can enjoy. There's even a clockmaker in exile from his Guild, a man by the name of Jeremy, who's uniquely suited to building such a device.
Susan's not the only one trying to find Jeremy before he can build the clock, though. The Monks of History, last seen behind the scenes of Small Gods, have been taking care of time for... well, it doesn't matter how long, shuttling time away from where it's not needed and adding it to where it is, all across the Disc. They were responsible for restoring history the last time a clock like this was built (and broke), and they're determined to keep it from happening again. The trouble is, it's hard to find a clock that can stop time before it's even built, and it's harder to stop it after it's started working....
Thief of Time will delight geeks because of its well-disguised references to chaos theory (the "Mandala" is clearly derived from the Mandelbrot set), quantum mechanics (the "tick of the cosmos" = Planck's constant), and the movie "The Matrix" (the monks can "slice time" to move ultra-fast, and know more wacky-sounding martial arts than an entire Jackie Chan film festival). You don't have to know the references, fortunately, because Pratchett has to explain them in such a way that his own mythology can interact with it. But knowing where his ideas come from makes the book that much more fun.
The book didn't conclude as well as I'd liked, because a few of the minor characters weren't really tied up. But the major characters were all great. Lu Tze, the monk that played the important part in Small Gods, should be a character we'll enjoy seeing again in future books. Susan is spot-on her usual personality, harassing the mortals she's forced to interact with on a daily basis. Death spends some time chasing down his fellow Horsemen. And the Death of Rats is there mainly because (a) he's how Death always contacts Susan, and (b) to make a not-too-subtle "hickory dickory dock" joke halfway through the book.
Susan's first apperance in Soul Music was a bit of a disappointment, but her role here, like in Hogfather previously, is perfectly suited to her. Death is a fun character, but he lacks personality by his very nature. Susan acting on his behalf is much more enjoyable. More books with her will be welcome in the Pratchett audience, and this one's worth the purchase.
"THE DEATH OF RATS", not "THE DEATH OF MICE"? Any you call yourself a Pratchett fan. On an unrelated note, I was sad to read in the Douglas Adams interview that he had never read Pratchett. I wonder if Pratchett ever read Adams? I bet he has.
Well, your fingers weave quick minarets; Speak in secret alphabets;
std::disclaimer<std::legalese> sig=new std::disclaimer; sig->dump(); delete sig;
Chapters alternate: One chapter has Rincewind and the other wizards tinkering with an experiment gone wrong that's turned in to an explorable solar system, the next has a real world science explanation of the concepts. There's just something about mixing in Discworld ridiculousness that makes the science more memorable.
The beloved Hex also turns up (Obligatory /. comment: Gee, imagine if I had a Hex cluster!), with it gaining insights in to the future. As a result it starts getting messages along the lines of "Make money fast!" "Send $1 to each of these five people and you'll make $millions" etc. I guess some things never change then.
Title: The Science Of Discworld.
Authors: Terry Pratchett, Lian Stewart & Jack Cohen
ISBN: 0 09 187477 7
Publisher: EBURY PRESS Pages: 368
The troll reached for his keyboard, as he had a thousand times before, but something was different as his hands passed right through the letters f-r-i-s-t-p-s-o-t. He tried again and then noticed the head leaning off to one side. SQUEAK!
"Um, d00d, y3r a r4t!"
IKK IKK IKK SQUEAK!
"Uh, wh0's t00, bu5y t0 b3 h3r3?"
SQUEAK SQUEAK IKK EEK!
"N0 way! I d1dn't th1nk j00 c0uld d13 fr0m n3g m0d p01nt5!"
-- .sig are belong to us!
All your
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
...In my opinion at least. While the emphasis is still on parody and satire, 'Theif' harkens back to some of the earlier pratchet books, 'Light Fantastic' and 'Pyramids' in particular, in that it doesn't focus on the parody as much as the story and characterization. Compare this to 'Soul Music' and 'Hogfather', which were mostly parody, with a little bit of plot thrown in.
The characters, while many of them appeared in previous books, are all quite nicely fleshed out in this one. Susan was flat in 'Soul Music' and at best a cardboard cutout in 'Hogfather', but she really takes on quite a bit of depth in this one. Other characters, most notably Lady LeJean, are entertaining to read and are not jokey as much as they are dynamic. Lu Tze is a little over the top and Jeffery and Lobsang didn't nearly get the time they deserved, however.
This is probably because Pratchet has a bad habit of not giving equal dialogue or internal monologue to some of his characters. For example, Sam Vimes internal monologue will comprise a good fifth of any given watch book, and Angua will get quite a bit too. Carrot Ironfoundersson's internal monologue, like Lobsang and Jeffery's is never indicated, and their thoughts are *only* shown by their actions and dialogue. This would be okay if Pratchett did this consistently with all or just one of his characters.
All in all, 'Theif' is probably the best book Pratchet has written since 'Small Gods'. I would reccomend it for new and experienced Pratchett readers.
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