You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.81 AVERAGE
3.81 AVERAGE
This was a fun book overall, but it did start fairly slowly and a little out of context. Once that initial hurdle was in the past, it was a great read.
When Prince Teppic was finishing his test to become an official Assassin of the Assassin's Guild the last thing he expected was automatically giving it up to take up the throne and Godhead of Djelibeybi. Brought into the modern world with his years in Ankh-Morpork he stood the entire ancient society of his homeland on its head when he came home. To think that the newly crowned Pharaoh would care about who served under him and that he would want to do a few things on his own?!
Enjoyed this much more than the last one in the Discworld series. Pratchett's ability to take a complete disaster and make it funny is pure genius to me. I thought Teppic was better off as an assassin than a king anyway.....
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
terry pratchett’s use of maths in his books is actual genius and i love it so much. the camels were one of my favourite additions and the general sci fi on crack vibe was incredible. fun story fun ideas fun characters!
This is my second time reading this book. I have dropped the rating from 5 to 3 stars
This book is all but divorced from all the other Discworld books. There's at least one other one like this one - Small Gods. In that sense, it makes a sort of nice introduction to Discworld because it can be read on its own and one can understand Pratchett's Discworld humor. There is some slight continuity - the idea of Ank-Morpok having crime guilds to regulate the amount of crime. Death, of course. But for the most part, it sits fine on its own.
In some ways, the book is very British in that Teppic (our main character) is dealing with an immense and immovable bureaucracy. Even as king, he has his pronouncements reversed from under him by the high priest. It's also a slight parody of management paradigms in vogue at the time as the scenes where he interacts with the Pyramid builders and embalmers show. Toss in a bit of, "I don't want this destiny" and there's your story.
I runs along well and we get Pratchett's parody of Ancient Greece. I love everyone's inability to understand Athenian democracy. I believe that becomes a slight running joke throughout the Discworld books.
Based on what I can remember from when I first read through the Discworld, my recommendations to a new reader who wasn't intending on slogging through the first 5 books just because the other 25 are great, would be:
1. Small Gods
2. Pyramids
3. Guards! Guards! (and then either read The Watch stories [see wikipedia to know which those are] followed by Moist Lipwig books or read sequentially from there on out)
4. Wyrd Sisters (and then read the Witches stories or read sequentially from there out)
This book is all but divorced from all the other Discworld books. There's at least one other one like this one - Small Gods. In that sense, it makes a sort of nice introduction to Discworld because it can be read on its own and one can understand Pratchett's Discworld humor. There is some slight continuity - the idea of Ank-Morpok having crime guilds to regulate the amount of crime. Death, of course. But for the most part, it sits fine on its own.
In some ways, the book is very British in that Teppic (our main character) is dealing with an immense and immovable bureaucracy. Even as king, he has his pronouncements reversed from under him by the high priest. It's also a slight parody of management paradigms in vogue at the time as the scenes where he interacts with the Pyramid builders and embalmers show. Toss in a bit of, "I don't want this destiny" and there's your story.
I runs along well and we get Pratchett's parody of Ancient Greece. I love everyone's inability to understand Athenian democracy. I believe that becomes a slight running joke throughout the Discworld books.
Based on what I can remember from when I first read through the Discworld, my recommendations to a new reader who wasn't intending on slogging through the first 5 books just because the other 25 are great, would be:
1. Small Gods
2. Pyramids
3. Guards! Guards! (and then either read The Watch stories [see wikipedia to know which those are] followed by Moist Lipwig books or read sequentially from there on out)
4. Wyrd Sisters (and then read the Witches stories or read sequentially from there out)
adventurous
funny
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
funny
medium-paced
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
An 'ok' entry of the Discworld series for me...one of the weakest of 7 so far I've read (chronologically).
It had some fun and interesting ideas on the ideas of belief and religion.
My biggest gripe is that there were a couple of storylines that 1) didn't make complete sense and 2) were irrelevant to the overall plot.
It had some fun and interesting ideas on the ideas of belief and religion.
My biggest gripe is that there were a couple of storylines that 1) didn't make complete sense and 2) were irrelevant to the overall plot.