Thief of Time: A Discworld Novel - Softcover

Terry Pratchett

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0552148407 ISBN 13: 9780552148405

Publisher: Corgi, 2002

Synopsis

Time is a resource. Everyone knows it has to be managed.

And on the Discworld that is the job of the Monks of History, who store it and pump it from the places where it's wasted (like the underwater - how much time does a codfish need?) to places like cities, where there's never enough time.

But the construction of the world's first truly accurate clock starts a race against, well, time for Lu Tze and his apprentice Lobsang Ludd. Because it will stop time. And that will only be the start of everyone's problems.

THIEF OF TIME comes complete with a full supporting cast of heroes, villains, yetis, martial artists and Ronnie, the fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse (who left before they became famous).

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: Corgi
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0552148407
• ISBN 13: 9780552148405
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 432