Pyramids by Terry Pratchett

It's bad enough being new on the job, but Teppic hasn't a clue as to what a pharaoh is supposed to do. After all, he's been trained at Ankh-Morpork's famed assassins' school, across the sea from the Kingdom of the Sun.First, there's the monumental task of building a suitable resting place for Dad -- a pyramid to end all pyramids. Then there are the myriad administrative duties, such as dealing with mad priests, sacred crocodiles, and marching mummies. And to top it all off, the adolescent pharaoh discovers deceit, betrayal -- not to mention aheadstrong handmaiden -- at the heart of his realm.

This was a delightful read, which really illustrates the strength of Pratchett's writing - his good-natured humour and joie de vivre really carry what would have been an otherwise average story.

Pyramids is an often overlooked entry into the Discworld series. It's a story about Teppic, a young person exposed to new cultures (Ankh Morpork), and brings this to his home, a place that has kept to itself, unchanged for hundreds (thousands?) of years. Later books explored similar themes with the Dwarf storylines in the Night Watch subseries and Small Gods.

Pyramids of a science fiction element than usual on the Disc, with the pyramid blocks that are moved via a time warping/quantum mechanics that causes crazy temporal hijinks. It's as interesting a solution to the problem as any I've seen. There's also the Idea of a pyramid shape that creates “null time” inside so the buried king would “live forever.”

When Teppic becomes king of Djelibeybi (meant to reflect our ancient Egypt, he inherits an advisor named Dios, who also advised his father, and his father before him. Dios represents resistance to change in all forms, including his own freakish longevity.

There is humor in the absurdity/impracticality of repeating the same things without thought. For instance, when Teppic does/says anything at court he's supposedly “presiding” over (Dios actually making all the calls), Dios must announce all of Teppics titles “Harken to the interpreted wisdom of Teppicymon XXVIII, Lord of the Heavens, Charioteer of the Wagon of the Sun, Steersman of the Barque of the Sun, Guardian of the secret knowledge, Lord of the Horizon,...” etc.

Pyramids connects to the rest of the series, notably with an inside look at the Assassins school in Ankh Morpork, run by Dr. Cruces.

One of my favorite things in Pyramids is You Bastard, a camel who is the greatest mathematician on the Disc. Pratchett had a gift for creating these animal characters who are outside of, and most of the time above, the main action of the stories.

Reading this a second time, I moved it from three to four starts. On the first read, I wasn't feeling that patient. I only sought it out because I wanted to read the series in published order. It suffers from being sandwiched between two more popular books, Wyrd Sisters and Guards! Guards!. It is a great story on its own, full of humor, adventure, and thoughtful content on youth vs. age and resistance to change.

The best thing about this story was learning the identity of the greatest mathematician on the Disc.

Same as my opinion of Equal Rites. Terry Pratchett tries to be funny at every sentence he writes. He is witty, but this is far from tingling my sense of humor. I wonder when his books start to get good?

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