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Pyramids: The Book of Going Forth. A Discworld Novel by: Terry Pratchett

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Rating: - Pyramids

Even though this story takes a while to get going it's still an enjoyable read as all discworld novels are. There isn't much travelling round Discworld in this story but the characters are great, especially the Camel!

Rating: - Pyramidtastic

The seventh Discworld novel and a routinely successful read.

This story appears to be the most removed from the rest of the world that the reader has become familiar with yet, building in some originality to a familiar brand, a good mix. But not in a bad way, its simply a fresh look at a different part of the discworld, but that makes it more exciting and more interesting.

Its a funny, rapid page turner and well worth a read.

Rating: - Not the best, not the worst

My star rating should be considered in the light of the fact that I love Terry Pratchett books. The rating takes into account the need to distinguish between my favourites and others. My problem is that I've not been reading the books in any sort of order and once I'd discovered Sam Vimes and the Watch, Granny Weatherwax and the Witches and the Wee Frees I've tended to look for books featuring them.

I did, however, enjoy this book. I particularly enjoyed the Assassins Guild/roof top Ankh Morpork sections near to the beginning but I also enjoyed the development of the character of Ptraci the handmaiden and the final outcome.

Rating: - A strong book in the series

Young Prince Teppic is sent forth by his father, the ruler of the desert kingdom of Djelibeybi, who sends him to Ankh-Morpork to join the Assassin's Guild. Teppic is successful in his studies there, but, seven years later, the death of his father sees him recalled to take up the mantle of pharoah.

Unfortunately for all concerned, Teppic comes home with some strange notions about plumbing and the benefits of feather mattresses, which is not good news to the head priest, Dios, who prides himself on how things are run in the kingdom precisely as they were seven thousand years ago. New ideas are not welcome in the Old Kingdom...

Pyramids (subtitled 'The Book of Going Forth'), the seventh Discworld book, is one of several 'sleeper' hits in the series. Much more attention is lavished on the book preceding it, Wyrd Sisters, for introducing the popular characters of the Witches, whilst the succeeding volume, Guards! Guards!, gets a lot of props for introducing the City Watch and also for being one of the best books in the series. Pyramids by contrast tends to slip beneath the radar, which is a shame as it is a very good book indeed.

It's a stand-alone with not too many continuing story elements, but it works well for that. Rather than simply doing a story about someone with new, radical ideas turning up that the priesthood gets annoyed by, Pratchett throws in some excellent mickey-taking of philosophers and also some nice commentary about SF. Around the time Pyramids came out a lot of 'approachable' SF had been discarded in favour of brain-expanding stories about time travel and non-linear space or something, and Pratchett's constant use of "It's probably quantum!" to explain every single possible plot hole in the novel is a nice bit of satire.

Teppic makes for an engaging protagonist, although he's one of Pratchett's more familiar archetypes (a general do-gooder whose attempts to do good go wrong but he sorts it all out in the end). Dios is one of the series' more interesting protagonists, and the various pyramid-builders and embalmers make for an amusing secondary cast as well. On the minus side, the book's humour is a little bit too obvious in places (there's a few obvious Cleopatra jokes and the employment of mummies for comedic purposes), but there's still a few good belly-laughs in there as well. The theme of the book also seems a bit vague, except that ossification should be avoided by embracing new ideas, which is a bit of a no-brainer.

Pyramids (****) is a solid entry to the Discworld series, funny and entertaining throughout. The book is available now in the UK and USA.

Rating: - good read

at last I can continue dwelving into the magical and very humourus place that is the DISCWORLD! think I'v got another 20-odd more Discworld books to get and devour. If you're not already a fan - "What you waiting for - start at the beginning!"

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