Small Gods

This is an unusual Discworld book. I think it contains none of the large array of regular Discworld characters except Lu-Tze and Death, neither of whom have much to do in this story.

Like any other Pratchett book, it has some humorous dialogue and comments, but it's basically a serious book about religion. It explains how gods (at least, Discworld gods) are fueled by their believers: they come into existence when someone starts to believe, grow according to the number and fervour of their believers, and fade back almost to non-existence when no-one believes in them any more. It also explains how religions may be taken over by bureaucrats whose allegiance is to their church (their organization) rather than to their god or to ordinary believers.

I quite like this book, although I'm not religious and and found it no more than mildly enjoyable to read. It's readable and engaging, and whenever I needed to put it down for a while I was somewhat reluctant.