Series: Discworld #26

Excellent Pratchett.

I'm not sure what else to say. There's an organisation called the Monks of History that can basically control time and Susan shows up to save the world. With "help" (/hindrance) from the Death of Rats and its Raven. If you'd like to know more or just giggle a little, I suggest you check out the quotes from my updates.

Previous updates:

page 22 of 430 (Miss Ogg becomes Mrs Ogg)

page 50 of 430 (Igor)

page 53 of 430 (more Igor)

page 109 of 430 (Susan on the unwritten rules and humanity's stupidity)

page 210 of 430 (the Yeti and Lu-Tze's resemblance to Granny Weatherwax)

page 247 of 430 (Auditors vs doorknob)

page 349 of 430 (the wisdom of avoiding otters)

page 359 of 430 (numbering of the Rules)

page 388 of 430 (Susan comments on astrology)

I'm counting this for the Cryptozoologist square for 2018 Halloween Bingo because of the Yeti. And the Death of Rats. And other Discworldy stuff.

There were really so many times that I wanted to put this book down, but I kept thinking that it would get better. Then I would get called away and come back to it and read a little and think I should find another book. Then again, I would get called away, come back to it and again think I should find another book. This kept happening to me. I think I only finished it because all of that happened. It is very rare that it takes me five days to read a book.

I do have to say that the there were a few highlights when some places were mentioned that I remember. Of course, that's not saying much.

I really found Francesa needed a life, a real life. She certainly was not getting one with the Loewstein family even if she thought she was. All of those people used her. A sad, sad story about a sad, sad girl with a sad, sad life.

Thanks Doubleday Books for approving my request and to Net Galley for providing a free e-galley in exchange for an honest unbiased review.

Thief of Time is the fifth and final(!) book in the Death subseries of Discworld.  I’ve always been a little iffy on this subseries, but I think this was my favorite of the five books.  The general story is that an Auditor has commissioned a clockmaker, Jeremy, to make a special clock.  What the Auditor doesn’t tell Jeremy is that this clock will supposedly have the power to stop time, bringing an end, or at least a permanent pause, to the Discworld. 

Death didn’t actually get that much page time in this book.  Maybe that’s partly why I enjoyed it.  I like Death in small doses, when he’s being funny or clever or profound, but he starts to grate on my nerves in larger doses.  This was especially true in the first three books where he essentially shirked his responsibilities and let other people take up the slack for him.  Meanwhile, he went off and had what would be considered a mid-life crisis if he were a human.  Happily, Death has seemed better-grounded in these last two books, so I’ve started enjoying his character more.

In this book, we finally get a chance to learn more about the Auditors.  Unsurprisingly, Susan shows up again.  I enjoyed most of her sections, especially the ones at the beginning.  I also really liked the characters of Lu-Tze and Lobsang who take up a large portion of the story.  They’re mostly just your stereotypical well-respected and mysterious monk with his exceptionally clever but impatient apprentice, at least at first, but they were fun characters.  The master/apprentice portrayal is a common plot device in fantasy, but it’s one that I tend to enjoy. 

I expected this book to earn 4 stars up until maybe the last 25% or so, at which point I started to lose interest in the story.  Somehow the climatic events were the most boring parts to me, I think because it went too far into “random chaos” territory at times.  In the end, I decided on a rating of 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4 on Goodreads.

The rules of the universe are once again being bent to endanger life, but this time it is really Time itself that is being used as the weapon of choice.  The 26^th installment of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series finds many characters quite literally being a Thief of Time from certain points of view, yet only one can truly change history.

The Auditors of Reality attempt once again to organize the universe by getting rid of life by literally stopping everything by having a clockmaker construct the perfect clock.  Unfortunately for the Auditors, Death catches wind of their scheming and once against enlists his granddaughter Susan to track down someone who might be able to correct their actions.  Meanwhile the Monks of Time catch wind of the construction of the perfect clock as warning sign pop up like they did the first time such a clock was constructed.  While Death and Susan take their own paths towards battling the Auditors, the famous Lu-Tse and his apprentice race to stop the clockmaker.  And while these heroes race to save Time, the Auditors of Reality begin to learn about what it means to be human and that sudden immersion probably wasn’t the best way to do so.

Thief of Time follows a new pattern by Pratchett in which he focused more on plot and story structure, instead of jokes that string along the story.  In fact while there is humor in this book it isn’t paramount to anything connected with the plot, it’s just that some funny things happen along the way towards the climax.  This isn’t to say that the book isn’t good, in fact it continues Pratchett’s string of great work but the early sophomoric humor or plain repetitiveness of some jokes are thing of the past in the series.  However while the events in this book clear up various timeline anomalies created earlier in the series, it also marks the ending of the Death subseries (though he continues to make appearances) and the last appearance of Susan Sto Helit which for their fans is a major disappointment as the series would continue for 15 more books.

Yet while Thief of Time does turns out to represent the last appearance for some fan favorites, it continues Pratchett’s string of great installments of the Discworld series.  For anyone who is a fan of Pratchett you’ll love this book and if you’re new to the Discworld after reading this book you’ll be interested about his earlier installments.