Small Gods

Mildly amusing, that's how I would describe the overall tone of this book. It is filled with small jokes and satires relating religion, politics and philosophy. The writing style is very clever, but I'm not much of a fan of the British “Monthy Python” sort of humor, or else this book would rate a 5 for me.

The story revolves around a monastery that represents the center of political and religious power in this region of the world. The monks worship the god Om, and they are very keen on judging other people. Anyone that does not conform with they're very rigorous view of the world is sent to the Quisition to be tortured and killed. Also, they tend to wage war on all other nations that does not follow the same religion as theirs.

The protagonist is a simple minded monk that has a perfect memory. One day, he starts hearing a voice, that turns out to be the god Om speaking to him. He soon finds out that he is the only one that can hear him, and that every other pious priest of his religion is an hypocrite that is more preoccupied with rituals, traditions, following the rules, not getting tortured and politics then with proper adoration of the god.

The dialog is very intelligent, there are many philosophical references as jokes are made about them as well. The characters are very likable, even the antagonist which is a fervent worshiper of himself, apparently. His only goal is to rise in the church hierarchy to impose his views on others. Among other things, he is against asking too many questions, reading books and any other activity that leads to critical thinking.