collected
Fiction · Novel · Fantasy · Comedy
About 8 h 45 min · at 30 minutes a day, about 18 days
Estimated from the page count of this edition. Dense books can take longer than the estimate.
On Discworld, time needs managing, and the History Monks ensure that tomorrow arrives. In Ankh-Morpork, clockmaker Jeremy Clockson accepts a commission to build a perfectly accurate clock, unaware that completing it could stop time altogether. Lu-Tze, a monastery sweeper, and his unusually gifted apprentice Lobsang Ludd set out to prevent the catastrophe, while Death recruits his granddaughter Susan, a schoolteacher whose abilities extend well beyond classroom discipline.
The comic fantasy follows interwoven pursuits, mixing philosophical jokes about time with kung-fu parody and the practical business of averting disaster. It is the fifth Death novel within Discworld, but can be read independently of the earlier books.
Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).
No, it can be read independently of the earlier novels. It is the twenty-sixth Discworld novel and the fifth in the Death series, with a catastrophe involving time bringing together a clockmaker, the History Monks and Death’s granddaughter Susan.
Not really, the prose is conversational, direct and witty, and the pace is brisk. The main challenge is following interwoven pursuits and multiple viewpoints while keeping up with philosophical jokes about time.
Philosophical jokes about time sit alongside kung-fu parody and satire. The tone is playful and cerebral, with the practical business of preventing a perfectly accurate clock from stopping time giving the comedy a plot to follow.
About 432 pages in the Harper 2014 edition. The brisk pace and interwoven pursuits keep the story moving across its multiple viewpoints.
Harper · 2014 · mass market paperback. ISBN 9780062307392.
About 8 hours 45 minutes at 50 pages an hour, based on the 432-page Harper edition. Dense books can take longer.
Terry Pratchett was an English fantasy novelist whose career began with The Carpet People and became centered on the long-running Discworld series. Starting with The Colour of Magic, Discworld developed from a broad parody of sword-and-sorcery conventions into a more flexible form of comic satire. Pratchett built stories around familiar fantasy machinery such as wizards, dragons, gods, and Death, then used it to examine institutions and ordinary social behavior. His method combines brisk plots, conversational wit, absurd premises, and characters whose practical weaknesses often prove more revealing than heroic competence. Guards! Guards! turns a dragon story into an inquiry into civic authority and policing, while Small Gods brings organized religion and sincere belief into conflict through a god trapped in the body of a tortoise. Mort similarly makes Death’s apprentice confront rules that appear fixed by fate. The result is fantasy distinguished by its alertness to power, faith, bureaucracy, and human folly, while remaining accessible as comedy.
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