Pyramids

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.

This book is good in parts. I love the beginning in the Assassins' School, and I like Pteppic and Ptraci (who comes on later), but the pyramid-related parts of the story are rather boring, and the Ephebian philosophers are very boring—fortunately they're a small part of the book.

Unusually, it features none of the regular Discworld characters except Death, who tends to be ever-present, but doesn't have a big role here. Most of the other characters are making their only appearances in the series. I would have been quite pleased to see Pteppic, Ptraci, and perhaps Chidder appearing briefly in some other book, but they never do.

Executive Summary: Another good, but not great entry in the Discworld series. This one seems to read pretty much stand alone, though I think it would be best to have some knowledge of the series prior to this book.Full ReviewIt's been a few months since my marathon of several of the previous books, and I was in the mood for Mr. Pratchett's humor. I'd been in a bit of a reading slump after my previous book, and hoped this would be a light quick read to break me of that.Unfortunately that wasn't the case. It was light, and quite funny at times, and usually very quotable. I just never really got into it like I have some of the other books. I didn't care too much about the characters I guess. I found Teppic largely forgettable, Dios quite annoying and the camel and all its related jokes groan worthy.I loved the setting though. When I was younger I absolutely loved ancient Egypt, pyramids and the Sphynx. I'm surprised I didn't like it more as a result. A lot of the pyramid related humor was pretty good, but not enough to always hold my interest. I went many days between reading, and was never really in a rush to get back to it.In a series this long and varied, there are likely to be some books I'll enjoy more than others, and this one just falls into that latter category for me.I'll probably take another month or two long break before finally tackling [b:Guards! Guards! 64216 Guards! Guards! (Discworld, #8; City Watch #1) Terry Pratchett https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1431127356s/64216.jpg 1128601], which will hopefully live up to the high expectations people have built up for me.

What an absolutely wonderful time! I think this is currently my pick for the best book in the Discworld series to start with. It doesn't really include existing characters within the universe, it's witty and entertaining and not too heavy, even while retaining those tidbits of social commentary which mark all I've read from Pratchett so far. Yes, the author, which I shall now refer to as the Wizard of Words, was in fine form here, a glorious amount of truly stinky puns, portmanteaux and word play along with laughs and truths. 

Would you like:

∆mathematically inclined camels

∆helpful mummies

∆timebending pyramids

∆sports commentator narration by a priest of the gods making a play for the sun like it was Friday Night Football

∆sly condemnation of the dessication  of society and corruption of religious orders under the weight of long held traditions

Then READ THIS BOOK! 

[I sincerely wish that the somewhat unorthodox handmaidens were not written in 1989 when this book was first published, as I think they would have been done a bit more justice today, but you can't argue with that ending. 😄]

A marvelous milestone for my 30th Discworld book.