Thief of Time: A Novel of Discworld - Hardcover

Pratchett, Terry

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060199563 ISBN 13: 9780060199562

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2001

Synopsis

Carefully reallocating the Time of Discworld to where it is most needed, Monk of History Lu Tze and his apprentice begin a literal race against time when the world's first truly accurate clock threatens to stop Time forever.

About this title

Review:

In Thief of Time in the great stinking metropolis of Ankh Morpork, an obsessed clockmaker receives an unusual commission from an excessively beautiful woman whose feet do not touch the ground; strict school-teacher Susan finds herself summoned by her grandfather, Death, to do him a favour; the monks who manage the even distribution of Time find themselves with a recalcitrant novice; and dairyman Ronnie Soak muses on his glory days, when he was the Fifth Rider of the Apocalypse, the one who left before they got famous.

Terry Pratchett's Thief of Time, confronts Discworld and a variety of its defenders with an insidious menace; never before has the phrase "The End of History" had quite so sinister a sound. As always, the sometimes startlingly surrealistically original, sometimes comfortingly groan-worthy, jokes are underlain by some intensely complex ideas and tight plotting. Susan makes a reappearance as one of Pratchett's more interesting heroines; the sinister Lady LeJean is one of Pratchett's most interesting villains, particularly once we learn the answer to the mystery about her.

There is an attractive darkness to much of the humour here--Pratchett is often at his best when at his darkest.--Roz Kaveney

Review:

"'Terry Pratchett is one of the great inventors of secondary - or imaginative or alternative - worlds. He is not derivative. He is too strong...He has the real energy of the primary storyteller'" (A. S. Byatt The Times)

"'In a better world he would be acclaimed as a great writer rather than a merely successful one...This is the best Pratchett I've read...Ought to be a strong contender for The Booker Prize'" (Charles Spencer Sunday Telegraph)

"'Reads with all the polished fluency and sure-footed pacing that have become Pratchett's hallmarks over the years'" (Peter Ingham The Times On Saturday)

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0060199563
• ISBN 13: 9780060199562
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 324