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3.81 AVERAGE
3.81 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book has a camel called You Bastard which is, in fact, the greatest mathematician in the world. What more do you need?
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Pyramids was a fun and engrossing romp through the desert region of the Discworld.
While not my favourite of the series so far, it definitely made me smile and had me looking forward to finding out just what would happen to Teppic, our reluctant monarch, next.
Pyramids tells of the oldest country on the disc while it’s going through some surprising and unprecedented changes. Not surprisingly unprecedented though because nothing has changed in the Old Kingdom since it’s founding centuries ago.
It’s incredible reading this series and having the Discworld fleshed our for you more and more with every single volume, while always bring back locations or characters that you’re already familiar with.
While not my favourite of the series so far, it definitely made me smile and had me looking forward to finding out just what would happen to Teppic, our reluctant monarch, next.
Pyramids tells of the oldest country on the disc while it’s going through some surprising and unprecedented changes. Not surprisingly unprecedented though because nothing has changed in the Old Kingdom since it’s founding centuries ago.
It’s incredible reading this series and having the Discworld fleshed our for you more and more with every single volume, while always bring back locations or characters that you’re already familiar with.
I still remember when I first read this one: on a family holiday to Rottnest, borrowed from the tiny library there because I hadn’t brought anything to read, part of some larger volume of three Discworld books. I’d been reading the City Watch books backwards from The Fifth Elephant and this was the first non-Watch Discworld book I’d read, so I was dubious about it. It was a relief to find that Pratchett’s a wonderful writer regardless of which band of characters he’s following.
Pyramids takes us to the nation of Djelibeybi, meaning “child of the Djel,” one of Pratchett’s most loveably terrible puns. Clearly modelled after Ancient Egypt, it’s a river valley hundreds of miles long and a few miles wide which acts as a buffer state between the enemy kingdoms of Tsort and Ephebe. The main character is Teppic, heir to the throne, who was sent away to Ankh-Morpork as a boy to receive an education from the Assassin’s Guild. The opening of the book details the night of Teppic’s final practical exam before graduating as a fully-fledged assassin, intercut with flashbacks to his earlier youth and arrival in Ankh-Morpork. It’s a great piece of writing, which reminded me of Esk’s tutelage under Granny Weatherwax in [b:Equal Rites|34507|Equal Rites (Discworld, #3; Witches #1)|Terry Pratchett|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1407706800s/34507.jpg|583611] – never mind the jokes, Pratchett’s on great form here purely for fantasy and adventure, as Teppic stalks the rooftops of Ankh-Morpork avoiding traps and deadfalls set by his examiner. (I’ve heard that Pratchett apparently wrote this sequence completely on the fly, and it was one of his favourite bits of his own writing.)
The story proper begins when the old pharaoh dies and Teppic becomes the new king, his footsteps suddenly sprouting grass in the cobbles of Ankh-Morpork. Returning to his ancestral home and taking his place on the throne, Teppic soon finds himself a stranger in his own land: a cosmopolitan young man from modern, thriving Ankh-Morpork thrust into the leadership of a kingdom in which nothing has changed for seven thousand years. Most of this plays out in his interactions with Dios, high priest of Djelibeybi and one of Pratchett’s best early characters. The only other noteworthy villains Pratchett had written up till now were the Duke and Duchess in Wyrd Sisters, who were really just Macbeth stand-ins, and both of whom were insane. Dios, on the other hand, is perfectly sane and an excellent villain: a man slavishly devoted to ritual and symbolism, whose steadfast refusal to accept change in the kingdom stems as much from his own failings and weaknesses as from his genuine belief that he’s doing the right thing. Reading this book again as an adult I was struck by how similar he is to Sourdust and Barquentine in the [b:Gormenghast|258392|Gormenghast (Gormenghast, #2)|Mervyn Peake|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328001220s/258392.jpg|3599885] series; a master of ritual who perhaps wields more power than the monarch himself, and who treats Teppic as nothing more than a placeholder.
Other parts of Pyramids fell a little flat for me; the banter between the pyramid-builder Ptaclusp and his two sons, an accountant and an engineer, is meant to reflect the tiresome cost overruns and planning tedium of the modern building industry, like the drama in an episode of Grand Designs. It works quite well as an introductory gag but these characters go on to take up far too much of the novel. There’s a diversion to Ephebe, the Discworld’s stand-in for Ancient Greece, with a lot of jokes about philosophy which I thought were a bit stretched. And Teppic himself, while a likeable protagonist, is not a particularly well-rounded character; too often he feels like Pratchett’s voice, an author surrogate making wry comments about the fanaticism of the Djelibeybians. There’s nothing to distinguish his dialogue from that of, say, Rincewind or Mort or even any of Pratchett’s many minor characters and nameless extras who exist to make a witticism and then exit stage left. (And indeed we will never see Teppic or Djelibeybi again.)
Pyramids is a decent novel, certainly one of the better ones in the early series, but a bit of a come-down after Wyrd Sisters. Next on the chart, fortunately, we have Pratchett’s own recommended starting point and the beginning of the best character and the best story arc in the entire series: Sam Vimes, the City Watch, and [b:Guards! Guards!|64216|Guards! Guards! (Discworld, #8; City Watch #1)|Terry Pratchett|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1431127356s/64216.jpg|1128601]
Pyramids takes us to the nation of Djelibeybi, meaning “child of the Djel,” one of Pratchett’s most loveably terrible puns. Clearly modelled after Ancient Egypt, it’s a river valley hundreds of miles long and a few miles wide which acts as a buffer state between the enemy kingdoms of Tsort and Ephebe. The main character is Teppic, heir to the throne, who was sent away to Ankh-Morpork as a boy to receive an education from the Assassin’s Guild. The opening of the book details the night of Teppic’s final practical exam before graduating as a fully-fledged assassin, intercut with flashbacks to his earlier youth and arrival in Ankh-Morpork. It’s a great piece of writing, which reminded me of Esk’s tutelage under Granny Weatherwax in [b:Equal Rites|34507|Equal Rites (Discworld, #3; Witches #1)|Terry Pratchett|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1407706800s/34507.jpg|583611] – never mind the jokes, Pratchett’s on great form here purely for fantasy and adventure, as Teppic stalks the rooftops of Ankh-Morpork avoiding traps and deadfalls set by his examiner. (I’ve heard that Pratchett apparently wrote this sequence completely on the fly, and it was one of his favourite bits of his own writing.)
The story proper begins when the old pharaoh dies and Teppic becomes the new king, his footsteps suddenly sprouting grass in the cobbles of Ankh-Morpork. Returning to his ancestral home and taking his place on the throne, Teppic soon finds himself a stranger in his own land: a cosmopolitan young man from modern, thriving Ankh-Morpork thrust into the leadership of a kingdom in which nothing has changed for seven thousand years. Most of this plays out in his interactions with Dios, high priest of Djelibeybi and one of Pratchett’s best early characters. The only other noteworthy villains Pratchett had written up till now were the Duke and Duchess in Wyrd Sisters, who were really just Macbeth stand-ins, and both of whom were insane. Dios, on the other hand, is perfectly sane and an excellent villain: a man slavishly devoted to ritual and symbolism, whose steadfast refusal to accept change in the kingdom stems as much from his own failings and weaknesses as from his genuine belief that he’s doing the right thing. Reading this book again as an adult I was struck by how similar he is to Sourdust and Barquentine in the [b:Gormenghast|258392|Gormenghast (Gormenghast, #2)|Mervyn Peake|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328001220s/258392.jpg|3599885] series; a master of ritual who perhaps wields more power than the monarch himself, and who treats Teppic as nothing more than a placeholder.
Other parts of Pyramids fell a little flat for me; the banter between the pyramid-builder Ptaclusp and his two sons, an accountant and an engineer, is meant to reflect the tiresome cost overruns and planning tedium of the modern building industry, like the drama in an episode of Grand Designs. It works quite well as an introductory gag but these characters go on to take up far too much of the novel. There’s a diversion to Ephebe, the Discworld’s stand-in for Ancient Greece, with a lot of jokes about philosophy which I thought were a bit stretched. And Teppic himself, while a likeable protagonist, is not a particularly well-rounded character; too often he feels like Pratchett’s voice, an author surrogate making wry comments about the fanaticism of the Djelibeybians. There’s nothing to distinguish his dialogue from that of, say, Rincewind or Mort or even any of Pratchett’s many minor characters and nameless extras who exist to make a witticism and then exit stage left. (And indeed we will never see Teppic or Djelibeybi again.)
Pyramids is a decent novel, certainly one of the better ones in the early series, but a bit of a come-down after Wyrd Sisters. Next on the chart, fortunately, we have Pratchett’s own recommended starting point and the beginning of the best character and the best story arc in the entire series: Sam Vimes, the City Watch, and [b:Guards! Guards!|64216|Guards! Guards! (Discworld, #8; City Watch #1)|Terry Pratchett|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1431127356s/64216.jpg|1128601]
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Interesting and funny in parts. But waiting for the funny parts of the book was a little boring. The anticipation of when the next joke will make its appearance spoiled the book a little. The best parts of the book are You Bastard and the sphinx. Nothing stands out much apart from these two.
adventurous
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:
No
adventurous
funny
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
"For, as the world tumbles lazily, it is revealed as the Discworld - flat, circular, and carried through space on the back of four elephants who stand on the back of Great A'tuin, the only turtle ever to feature on the Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram, a turtle ten thousand miles long, dusted with the frost of dead comets, meteor-pocked, albedo-eyed. No one knows the reason for all this, but it is probably quantum."
No wonder an old physicist and astronomy fan like me enjoyed a book with such a paragraph on its first page. (Don't fret, though - most of the technical hints in the remainder of Pyramids are more subtle and not too distracting if you're not that much into quantum physics, geometry, and differential calculus.)
The clash of the worlds of assassins and kings is hysterical. I just had a really good time reading this book.
No wonder an old physicist and astronomy fan like me enjoyed a book with such a paragraph on its first page. (Don't fret, though - most of the technical hints in the remainder of Pyramids are more subtle and not too distracting if you're not that much into quantum physics, geometry, and differential calculus.)
The clash of the worlds of assassins and kings is hysterical. I just had a really good time reading this book.