Thief of time - Hardcover

Terry Pratchett

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385601883 ISBN 13: 9780385601887

Publisher: Doubleday, 2001

Synopsis

The twenty-sixth Discworld novel from Britain s funniest and bestselling novelist. Time is a resource. Everyone knows it has to be managed. And on Discworld that is the job of the Monks of History, who store it and pump it from the places where it s wasted (like 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 and villains, yetis, martial artists and Ronnie, the fifth horseman of the Apocalypse (who left before they became famous)."

About this title

Review:

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. 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.

As always, the sometimes startlingly surrealistically original, sometimes comfortingly groanworthy, jokes are underlain by some intensely complex ideas and tight plotting. Susan sto Helit 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:

Other writers are mining the rich seam of comic fantasy that Pratchett first unearthed, but what keeps Pratchett on top is quite literally the way he tells them. "The Times" ["Discworld"] has the energy of "The Hitchhiker s Guide to the Galaxy" and the inventiveness of "Alice in Wonderland" [Terry Pratchett] has an intelligent wit and a truly original grim and comic grasp of the nature of things. A.S. Byatt, "Sunday Times""

About this edition

• Publisher: Doubleday
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0385601883
• ISBN 13: 9780385601887
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320